Focus on knowledge management in e-business

Knowledge management has an important role within e-business since business success is criti­cally dependent on staff knowledge about all aspects of the micro-environment such as customers, suppliers, intermediaries, competitors and how to shape internal processes to best deliver customer service. Knowledge management is a significant topic which is only intro­duced here. A more detailed

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Using Web 2.0 tools to support knowledge management at Janssen-Cillag Australia

1. About Janssen-Cilag Janssen-Cilag is one of the fastest growing, research based pharmaceutical companies in Australia. It has more than 300 employees, split across Australia and New Zealand with around half based in the field. It is one of 250 Johnson & Johnson operating companies, which total about 121,000 employees across 57 countries. 2.

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Risk management in e-business

To conclude this chapter and act as a bridge to the final two chapters we review the problems associated with change when managing an e-business implementation. Risk management is intended to identify potential risks in a range of situations and then take actions to minimize the risks. We all unconsciously perform risk management throughout

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Analysis for e-business

Analysis for e-business is concerned with understanding the business and user require­ments for a new system. Typical analysis activity can be broken down into: understanding the current process and then reviewing possible alternatives for implementing the e-business solution. In the following sections we will review different techniques that enable us to sum­marize the operation

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Process modelling of e-business

Traditional approaches to process analysis use established systems analysis and design meth­ods that are part of methodologies such as Structured Systems Analysis and Design Methodology (SSADM), like the data flow diagram technique outlined in Bocij et al. (2005). Such approaches often use a hierarchical method of establishing the processes and their constituent sub-processes the

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Data modelling of e-business

Data modelling of e-business and e-commerce systems uses well-established techniques such as normalization that are used for relational database analysis and design. As a conse­quence, this section is brief in comparison with that on process modelling which introduces some novel techniques. See Bocij et al. (2005, Chapter 11) for an introduction to normaliz­ation and

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Design for e-business

The design element of creating an e-business system involves specifying how the system should be structured. In the two Focus on sections that follow we look at two aspects of design that are of great importance to how e-business systems are perceived by customers – security and interface design. Before that, we consider the

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FOCUS on user-centred site design of e-business

Since e-business systems are often customer- or employee-facing systems, the importance of human-computer interaction is high in the design of web applications. Referring to web-site design, Nigel Bevan says: Unless a web site meets the needs of the intended users it will not meet the needs of the organization providing the web site. Web

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Dabs.com refines its web store

This case study highlights the importance placed on web-site design as part of the customer experience by dabs.com. It shows the need to upgrade the infrastruc­ture regularly to deliver a satisfactory experience which is competitive with other e-retailers. dabs.com is one of the UK’s leading internet retailers of IT and technology prod­ucts from manufacturers

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FOCUS on security design for e-business

Security is a prime concern of e-business managers. The principal concern is the security of information: both about customers and internal company data about finance, logistics, mar­keting and employees. Indeed, we saw in Chapter 4 that securing customer information is a legal requirement under data protection laws in many countries. These risks apply to

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Alternatives for acquiring e-business systems

The basic alternative acquisition methods for e-business systems are similar to those for traditional business information systems: Bespoke development. With a bespoke development, the application is developed from ‘scratch’ through programming of a solution by an in-house or external development team or systems integrator. Off-the-shelf In a packaged implementation a standard existing system is

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Development of web-based content and services

The delivery of e-business services via a web interface may initially appear straightforward. Everyone has heard apocryphal tales such as a 12-year-old relation creating a web site to sell used cars. Indeed, the creation of static web content is straightforward as we will see. In this example, simple HTML code is used for layout

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Testing the e-business systems

Testing has two main objectives: first, to check for non-conformance with the business and user requirements, and, second, to identify bugs or errors. In other words, it checks that the site does what users need and is reliable. Testing is an iterative process that occurs through­out development. As non-conformances are fixed by the development

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Changeover in e-business systems

Migration or changeover from a previous information system to a new system is particularly important for mission-critical e-business systems where errors in management of changeover will result in a negative customer experience or disruption to the supply chain. In this section we look at significant issues involved in managing this transition from pre­vious systems

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Content management and maintenance of e-business systems

Sell-side e-commerce sites are continuously under development, even when they become live. The sites need to be dynamic to deal with errors reported by customers and in response to innovations by competitors. Additionally the content, such as information about different events or new product launches and price promotions, will need to be updated if

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Measuring and improving performance of e-business systems

We review measuring the effectiveness of e-commerce system in detail since it is a key part of managing an e-commerce initiative. Often a large investment will have been made in the site and senior managers will want to ensure that the investment is delivering its objectives. They will also want to find and rectify

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Learning from Amazon’s culture of metrics

1. Context Why a case study on Amazon? Surely everyone knows about who Amazon are and what they do? Yes, well, that may be true, but this case goes beyond the surface to review some of the ‘insider secrets’ of Amazon’s success. Like eBay, Amazon.com was born in 1995. The name reflected the vision