Assignment 2

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Part 1

Introduction

Chapter 3

Managing digital business infrastructure

Digital Business and E-Commerce Management Seventh Edition

Learning Outcomes

Outline the range of digital technologies used to build a digital business infrastructure within an organisation and with its partners

Review the management actions needed to maintain service quality for users of digital platforms

Management issues

What are the practical risks to the organisation of failure to manage the digital infrastructure adequately?

How should we evaluate alternative models of delivering digital services? Think about underlying systems as one criteria.

Outsourcing / Cloud computing?

Bespoke / package solutions?

Ensure there is an appropriate systems infrastructure to support e-business.

Activity – Digital business infrastructure risk assessment

Make a list of the potential problems for customers, and the organization of a digital business when the background systems are deficient

You should consider problems faced by users of digital business applications who are both internal and external to the organisation

Think about problems you have experienced on a website or an app that can be related to network, hardware and software failures or problems with data quality.

Typical problems

Web site and apps too slow

Services designed for desktop not viewable via mobile (now rare)

Website or app service unavailable

Bugs on site through pages being unavailable or information typed in forms not being executed

Ordered products and services not being delivered on time

Data inaccurate or inconsistent

Slow to respond

Navigation difficult, not intuitive

Typical problems (continued)

Customer communications not being dealt with

Customers’ privacy or trust is broken through security problems such as credit cards being stolen or addresses sold to other companies.

Others?

Table 3.1 Key management issues of digital business infrastructure

Figure 3.2 A five-layer model of digital business infrastructure (should v be at the top of the diagram?)

Activity

A B2B company has found that after an initial surge of interest in its intranet and extranet, usage has declined dramatically. The digital business manager wants to achieve these aims:

Increase usage of both

Produce more ‘dynamic’ content

Encouraging more clients to order via the extranet

What would you suggest?

Example suggestions

Identify benefits

Involve staff with development

Find system sponsors, owners and advocates

Train staff and customers on benefits

Keep content fresh, relevant and where possible, fun

Use social media and SMS to encourage usage

Activity Internet infrastructure components

Write down all the different types of hardware and software involved from when a user types in a web address such as www.google.com to the website being loaded.

It might help to think of a specific example

What’s in a URL? (web address)

Protocol

Host or hostname

Subdomain

Domain name

Top-level domain or TLD

Second-level domain (SLD)

The port

The path

URL parameter

Anchor or fragment

Fragmented applications infrastructure The situation that has evolved in many organisations is a mix of legacy systems, within organisation silos, Inconsistent data definitions.

Source: Adapted from Hasselbring (2000)

Figure 3.4 (a) Fragmented applications infrastructure; (b) integrated applications infrastructure

Integrated applications infrastructure

Source: Adapted from Hasselbring (2000)

Figure 3.4 (a) Fragmented applications infrastructure; (b) integrated applications infrastructure

Use of applications at levels of management

Figure 3.5 Differing use of applications at levels of management within companies

Elements of digital business infrastructure that need management

Figure 3.6 Elements of digital business infrastructure that require management

Cloud computing

Combination of networking, data storage, hardware, and software hosted externally, contracted to be in ‘the cloud’, a host environment

May include utility computing as well as specific applications, applications typically used by multiple customers

A variation on outsourcing, and very different thinking to in-house computing

Web service, SaaS, cloud computing Description: method of software delivery and licensing in which software is accessed online via a subscription, rather than bought and installed on individual computers

Web based service rather than running own executable application systems

Paid for on a usage basis, therefore on demand

Effectively outsourced installation and maintenance

Cost savings because provider has ‘scale’

TCO (total cost of ownership) lower

Challengers of SaaS

Reliability and availability off the network

Can be lower performance than local Dbase (pipe distance longer, but bandwidth high)

Reduced data security / data protection?

Utility computing, treating IT as a utility commodity

Similar term, Application service providers

May not exactly fit business needs, some compromise for components that don’t impact competitive advantage (depends on situation)

Multi or Single tenancy

Multi

A single instance of the service is used by several customer

More cost effective

More security issues

Customers are sharing resources

Single

A single instance is used by only one customer

Managing service quality

Selection of hosting provider

Service help

Security arrangements

Cost

Access speed, bandwidth, broadband becoming expected, ‘last mile’ maybe the constraint, big investment in NZ

Availability

Relationship with the organisation

SLA (service level agreement)

Variety of applications available, eg intranet important

Intranet - Systems supporting the internal business

Reduced hard copy

Phone directories

HR functions

Staff communications, local global, selective audience / all

Procedures manuals

Reduced costa / high productivity

Training

Resource booking

TV / video streaming

Extranet- external trusted partner communications

Sell side and supply side

Information sharing in a secure environment

Order processing and distribution management

Customer service

Opportunity to improve service (sell and supply side)

Improve responsiveness

Single source of data supporting business with supplier

Security remains important

Questions

Distinguish between internet, extranet, and intranet. Notice differences of purpose, target audience, function, etc

What are the management issues associated with allowing staff access to the intranet and partner access to the extranet?

What is the difference between static and dynamic web content?

Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing an organisations intranet, extranet and internet services.

Questions

5 Discuss the issues associated with an organisation having application systems that are not integrated.

6 How can an organisation ensure that the information presented on the web is current / accurate?

7 Discuss the key benefits and problems with cloud computing.

8 Discuss the main obstacles an organisation faces developing an integrated applications systems environment with a single data base supporting the integrated environment.

Summary

You should be able to outline the range of digital technologies used to build a digital business infrastructure within an organisation and with its partners

You should be able to review the management actions needed to maintain service quality for users of digital platforms