Activity answers
3.1 Infrastructure risk assessment for The B2C Company
Some of the possible problems you may have identified are:
1. Web site communications too slow.
2. Web site not available.
3. Bugs on site through pages being unavailable or information typed in forms not being
executed.
4. Ordered products not delivered on time.
5. E-mails not replied to.
6. Customers’ privacy or trust is broken through security problems such as credit cards being
stolen or addresses sold to other companies.
It will be apparent that although most of these problems are technical, they arise because humans have not
managed the infrastructure adequately. They have not invested enough to solve these issues or have not
tested solutions adequately to check for deficiencies. Additionally, in the case of some problems such as emails not being responded to, this may be entirely a problem in the process created (or not created) by
managers to deal with inbound e-mails.
3.2 The development of the Internet
Possible reasons for the slow development of the Internet include:
The cost of specialized leased line connection to the Internet was only affordable for the largest
companies. Access via phone lines did not happen until the 1980s.
The limited deployment of desktop computers in organizations. The PC was not invented until the
early 1980s.
The potential of the Internet to reduce costs as a business tool was not widely recognized at
company or government levels, so there was no momentum to achieve the benefits. It was
positioned as an academic and military tool.
Difficulties in use of early tools of the Internet. As will be seen below, the development of the
World Wide Web was critical in providing ease-of-use.
3.3 Overcoming limited use of intranets and extranets in The B2B Company
1. Increasing usage.
The solution is similar to marketing any product, or indeed a web site. First, the e-business manager needs
to conduct research to identify the reasons why the intranet (product) is under-utilized and also which
content is useful. New applications that can help staff or customers in their day-to-day work should also be
idenfitied. He then needs to sell the intranet to staff (or customers for extranet) based on the benefits it will
bring to them. The manager must check that suitable processes are in place to update static information
such as phone numbers – if the intranet is not trusted it will not be used. An education programme should
be arranged that explains not only how to use the intranet, but also the benefits it will bring. This can be on
an individual or group basis. Practical steps to explain the benefits such as tag line, list of features, site map
or user guide may also be needed.
Encouraging staff to develop their own content to update the intranet can also help adoption. This may need
to be added as part of the job description. Personal stories and informal stories may help interest. Offering
incentives either to start usage (e.g. discount for first usage) or continue usage (discount when a certain
volume of orders are placed online) can be used for the extranet. Finally, the role of e-mail should not be
neglected – this can help remind staff about the intranet, and also alert them when news or new services
become available.
3.4 Selecting open-source software
1 (a) Popularity.
A. Operating system.
Although Linux has many adherents and is used by major corporations including IBM, its overall market
share is small (2.7% as against Microsoft 94%).
See Europe: Linux gets a break
http://www.ebusinessforum.com/index.asp?layout=rich_story&doc_id=6037 Sept 26th 2002 for details.
B. Browser.
Internet Explorer is predominant, accounting for over 90% of the browser market. For example, see
http://www.upsdell.com/BrowserNews or www.statmarket.com
C. Programming language.
This is more difficult to establish. PHP is used on main free web servers such as Apache, so is possibly
more popular than ASP or ASP.Net
(b) Benefits could include paid support and a good quality knowledge base. However, many bulletin boards
are available for open source software. Disadvantages of using the Microsoft solution are the cost and the
time it is likely to take to communicate the problem and have it solved in a new release.
2. For small organizations, using non-Microsoft products such as OpenOffice is appealing in terms of price.
For larger organizations, the lack of paid-for support and uncertainty of future support mean that Microsoft
is a safer option. Additionally, Microsoft products often have greater functionality, e.g. Support for Visual
Basic for Applications in Excel which mean that it is more flexible and can be tailored to the organizations
needs. Internet Explorer is currently free and can be used in all types of organizations. For development,
Microsoft development tools are likely to be more expensive, so for the small to medium company, nonMicrosoft tools are probably best if there are sufficient trained staff available (this is likely to be the case
with PHP/MySQL).
3.5 Assessing ISP performance
1. List of services:
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2.
Ensuring domain name registration is kept updated
Hosting web site
Hosting web catalogue (application service provider)
Hosting secure payment service
Hosting e-mail server
Key factors on which ISP will be judged:
Technical factors:
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Speed of link to Internet (bandwidth)
Speed at which pages are delivered dependent on bandwidth and server performance
Availability of server (how reliable is the server?)
Scalability – how will the server respond to peaks of traffic or a long-term growth?
Ease of updating web site or catalogue, are any tools provided to help this?
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Successful transmission of e-mails
Security of site to prevent others updating or where secure transactions are required
Commercial factors:
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Cost of services (initial payment, regular subscription payment and any one-off fees such
as those involved with a complete update of the web site)
Support provided – how responsive is the company when a problem is notified?
Size and profitability of company (will it survive in the long term?)
3.6 Controlling employee access to the Internet
1. Advantages:
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Better understanding of marketplace for marketing, sales and engineers in the new
product development team, e.g. monitor competitor and customer use of the web and
product and event announcements
Research tool to obtain best prices for buyers in procurement group
Access to customer information on intranet for remote workers (sales reps)
Increase employee job satisfaction?
Disadvantages:
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2.
Cost of setting up software and paying for additional traffic to ISP
Cost of lost staff time and disruption when accessing net for personal purposes
Transfer of company information outside company via e-mail (legal risk)
Staff use of the web and e-mail for job-hunting
Problem of staff using the web to access unsavoury material
List of actions
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Consult staff for views?
Prepare cost/benefit
Prepare plan and communicate to staff
Prioritize or limit staff access (e.g. one per group). Run pilot?
Prepare amendments to contract about what staff can access and when, e.g. half hour per
day for personal use or unlimited after 6pm
Select software for monitoring staff access (e.g. keyword snooping, monitoring images,
remote viewing of terminals) and inform staff about this
3.7 Opportunities for using ASPs by The B2B Company
Advantages:
 Short time to deploy new applications
 No in-house staff or capital costs
 Predictable cost
Disadvantages:
 Performance
 Security outages
 Security fears
 Transfer of data and ownership of applications if the ASP relationship fails.