E-Commerce

Shopping in the comfort of your home...

E-commerce is defined in chapter 8 of our book as “the buying and selling of goods and services over the internet.” Some very profitable e-commerce businesses include Amazon and EBay. E-commerce builds on traditional commerce by adding the flexibility that networks offer and the availability of the internet. You do not have to leave the comfort of your home in order to buy almost anything these days. Local grocery store Stop and Shop even offers a program called “Peapod” which is online grocery shopping and delivery. All that you need to do is log onto the peapod website, state whether you are shopping for groceries for your home or groceries for your business, create and fill your shopping cart, pay and then wait for the groceries to be delivered right to your front door. The span of E-commerce these days is unbelievable.

How does it work?

Although E-commerce has the same goal as traditional commerce, to sell products and services to the consumer to generate profit, they do it quite differently. In e-commerce, it is obvious that the internet and telecommunication play a major role. There is more often than not no physical store and the buyer and seller do not see each other. This is most typical in businesses such as Amazon and EBay. The seller puts up something of value for sale and the buyer bids or requests to buy it. The trade of money for the good is often run by the website as to avoid problems, but it is the seller’s duty to package and send the product and the buyer’s duty to make sure the product was received. However, sometimes businesses operate as a mix of traditional commerce and e-commerce; these companies are referred to as click-and-brick e-commerce. They capitalize on the advantages of online interaction with their customers yet retain the benefits of having a physical store. An example of this would be the shopping I do on JCPenney’s website. I can conveniently shop for clothes and other things online while sitting at home and if they arrive and I am not satisfied with them, rather than going through the process of mailing them back to the company I can simply enter the store and return them as if I had purchased them in-store.

The Advantages and Disadvantages

Like traditional commerce, e-commerce does have its advantages and disadvantages. Some advantages of e-commerce include:

1)Creating better relationships with suppliers, customers, and business partners
2)Being able to operate around the clock and around the globe
3)Increasing customer involvement (offering feedback)
4)Improving customer service
5)Increasing flexibility and ease of shopping
6)Increasing the number of customers
7)Increasing return on investment because inventory needs are reduced
8)Reducing administrative and transaction costs

And much more. However, e-commerce does also have its disadvantages. Such disadvantages include bandwidth capacity in certain parts of the world, security issues, accessibility (not everyone in connected to the web yet), and acceptance (not everyone accepts this technology). Although these are the current disadvantages, many believe that they will be eliminated or reduced in the near future.

The Downfalls of Information Systems

It's not all happily ever after ...

Although there are many vast advantages to owning and operating a computer and using information systems, they also come with their downfalls. As discussed in Chapter 4 of the textbook, information technology can be misused to invade user's privacy and commit computer crimes. This can be done through the use of cookies, spyware and adware, phishing , etc. Computers also can be the cause of many privacy issues, especially this day and age with so many social networks and through the use of something called "internet tracking."

Referring to answers.com, internet tracking is "electronic passage through the Internet that leaves a trail can be traced or tracked. Tracking is a process that follows the Internet activity backwards, from the recipient to the user. As well, a user's Internet activity on web sites can also be tracked on the recipient site (i.e., what sites are visited and how often). Sometimes this tracking and tracing ability is used to generate email to the user promoting a product that is related to the sites visited." Tracking is also used extensively by the U.S government to enable authorities to pursue and identify those responsible for malicious Internet activity. For example, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has a tracking program designated Carnivore. The program is capable of scanning thousands of emails to identify those that meet the search criteria.

Cookies

One of the most used tracking tools on the internet is through the use of cookies. Cookies are computer files that are stored on a user's computer during a visit to a website. The cookie is a tracking device, which records the electronic movements made by the user at the site, as well as identifiers such as a username and password. According to the book, "sometimes cookies are useful or innocuous, such as those used by the Web page that welcomes you or those used by a Web site that remembers your personal information for online ordering." Therefore, you should not immediately be alarmed at every cookie found on your computer.


Spyware and Adware

Spyware is a software that secretly gathers information about users while they browse the Web. This software can be particularly malicious to a computer as it can interfere with user's control of their computers by installing additional software and redirecting Web browsers. Some spyware even changes computer settings, resulting in slow Internet connections, changes to user's default home pages, and loss of functions in other programs. Adware is a form of spyware that collects information about the user, without the user's consent, to display advertisements in the web browser based on the information it collects from the user's browsing patterns. THE SOLUTION:Extremely good antivirus software.


Phishing

Phishing is sending fraudulent emails that seem to come from legitimate sources, such as a bank or university, for the purpose of capturing private information, such as bank accoutn numbers or Social Security numbers.


All of this has caused many privacy issues for the Internet...but what about when it's used by an employer?

Although all of the aforementioned examples of invasion of privacy are usually from unknown third parties, information technologies have also created some concerns about privacy in the workplace. Nowadays, a lot of employers search social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, to find background information on applicants, which then influences hiring decisions. Since information posted on these sites in considered public domain, you should really be careful what you're posting on your facebook and on twitter statuses. The book gives an example of a student at Millersville University of Pennsylvania who posted a picture of herself on Myspace wearing a pirate's hat and drinking titled "Drunken Pirate." Even though the student was of legal age to drink, Millersville administrators considered the image unprofessional and refused to grant her an education degree and teaching certificate. Instead, she was given a degree in English. So before you post that status on facebook saying "Going to get wrecked with blah blah and bleh bleh!" make sure you know who you're friends with and who can view your profile.


Computers and the Internet are an essential part of life in today's world. However, they have raised many privacy concerns that did not exist just ten years ago. Remember to use even just the basic protection when surfing the Internet and posting on social networking sites.

Computers and Information Systems

Did You Know?

Before enrolling in this class, I had very limited knowledge on computers and Information Technology (IT) in general. I knew how to use a computer for the Internet, how to type up papers on Microsoft Word, how to hurdle my way through an Excel spreadsheet, and I even dabbled a little in Microsoft Forefront (courtesy of my Comp105 teacher). However, I never thought much further than this, and felt slightly ignorant when I first opened the textbook (MIS- Management Information Systems by Bidgoli) and began really learning about what "Computers" and "Information Systems" really were.

How do Computers and Information Systems Help Us?

When you think about it, computers and information systems are all around us, yet most of us know very little about them. Those of us currently enrolled in this class are utilizing our computers in order to advance our college education: who would have ever imagined being able to attend college completely online and earn a degree! Computers are also used by our teachers to grade our exams, generate perfomance reports, calculate grades, calculate GPAs, and so much more. Computers and information systems are used in grocery and retail stores in their POS systems, they are used by banks in order to generate monthly statements and run ATM machines, they are used by accounants to perform taxes and other duties; I think you get the point.


In Chapter 1 of the textbook, the author states that

In the 21st century, knowledge workers need two types of knowledge to be competitive in the workplace: computer literacy and information literacy." Computer literacy is defined as having skills in using productivity software (word processing, spreadsheet, presentation software, etc.) and having a basic knowledge of hardware and software, the Internet, and collaboration tools and technologies. Most of us can easily say that we are computer literate. However, Information literacy is another story. Information literacy is defined as understanding the role of information in generating and using business intelligence. But what is business intelligence to someone such as myself that had never heard the word before taking this course? Business Intelligence provides historical, current, and predictive views of business operations and environments and gives organizations a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Broken down, this means that a knowledge worker should know:

1) Internal and External sources of data
2) How data is collected
3) Why data is collected
4) What type of data should be collected
5) How data is converted to information and eventually to business intelligence
6) How data should be indexed and updated
7) How data and information should be used to gain a competitive advantage.


If I were asked today if I was "information literate" as well as "computer literate" my honest answer would have to be no. I do not yet understand information systems or business intelligence yet I hope by the end of the course I will be able to understand such an important aspect of the business world today.