Month: June 2016

The White Paper: Future of E-commerce: The Road to 2026

Posted on by S Y Wali

Do you beleive that ? “Physical retail will still exist, but it will need a good reason to exist.” so said Dunkin’ Brands.

But maybe especially when looking at how internet and technology continue to have a huge wide-spread connecting people and being embraces more and more by people, so does my interest in engaging in an online marketing increases. this is irrespective of whether i want to buy or sell something. The internet makes it look so much easier. E-commerce today is largely adopts due to products price and convenience. But then as time changes so does my need of having new and more easy way for life living increases. According to Ovum 2015, “by 2026, instant gratification will have come to mean something more sophisticated than a quick fix. It will have evolved into expectations of a seamless shopping experience across an increasing range of connected devices, in which immediacy and convenience are paramount”.The future of e-commerce aims at having an instant access and fast delivery in the nearest future, but that alone doesn’t seems to be ok. Consumers then will be in need of having a virtual environment integrated with the real one that will make the online shopping experience looks as a real  event. This will translate into interactive, highly engaging online and real-world retail environments making Augmented Reality (AR), mobile and wearable devices plays a key role in it.

e2With UK as the most advanced market for click-and-collect models today, online retailers will only establish a physical store to support the showcasing of brand and private-label products. For many retail sectors, physical retail space will include more manufacturers and private-label retailers increasingly looking to showcase products and build brand awareness directly with consumers, with less emphasis on “take home” product transactions. A good example is the Samsung , creating a network of Samsung Galaxy  products showcase with the aim of creating more awareness, give the customers a real feel and also serve as a pick up point. A further partnerships is expected  to be made in order to allow Internet-based retailers to build up physical collection points foreseeing non competing physical retailers collaborating to allow the collection of each other’s products in each other’s stores. This will allow retailers to maintain a virtual geographic presence despite the need to reduce their own physical store networks.

One of the key conditions for success for retailers in 2026 will be their ability not only to keep track of users across a growing number of devices and touchpoints, but also to figure out how to effectively measure which of those are most effective at driving sales. By 2026, the proportion of sales fulfilled in store that were ordered online will be such that the emphasis on how to up sell collecting customers will be of much greater importance than it is now. Despite the reduced costs of operating online, the cost of fulfillment has made even the largest players struggle to turn a profit. The retail winners of 2026 will be those that can get goods to consumers the fastest and most cost-efficiently. The largest players will invest in their own delivery systems in order to gain differentiation, as Amazon has already done.

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References:

Ovum (2016) Available at: http://www.criteo.com/media/4094/ovum-the-future-of-e-commerce-the-road-to-2026.pdf (Accessed: 21 June 2016).

Walsh, M. (2016) The future of e-commerce: Bricks and mortar. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jan/30/future-of-e-commerce-bricks-and-mortar (Accessed: 21 June 2016).

WHITE PAPER: PROTECTING CORPORATE INFORMATION IN THE CLOUD

Posted on by S Y Wali

(Corporation, 2015)”As more companies embrace the cloud, IT executives must be ready to protect information in the cloud”, the IT model continue to change to providing of information on a “just-what’s-needed”, “just-in-time” basis from a centralized servers consolidated in the cloud. As this development is happening, IT data are being migrated to the new client-server. In many ways, it is a very different world, involving technologies linked to the cloud as well as the cloud itself. IT research groups refer to it as “Nexus of Forces”: cloud, mobile, social, and information. While Market Research organization such as IDC calls it the “3rd Platform.” Whatever tag is used, most analysts agree that the convergence of mobile computing, social networking, cloud services, and big data analytics has fundamentally altered the way we do business and live our lives. The step that organizations are embracing is adoption of the cloud as the platform of choice and adopting new technology realities for data storage. They are admitting that they no longer own or manage most of their applications because apps such as Sales force, Box, and Office 365 now do it in the cloud. IT organizations are also beginning to contract out management of their infrastructures because, to stay competitive, they need to take advantage of the benefits provided by cloud vendors such as Amazon and Rackspace.

Yes, the cloud is quickly transforming the way business gets done. Even though all this processes are new, business leaders are developing strategies to achieve information protection in the cloud. Following is a framework IT executives can use to keep their information secure.

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Cloud security relies on three keys which are identity protection, data protection and Correlation Engine. in other to have a successful strategy for data security this keys will have to be put into a high consideration to produce a quick automated responses for a bridge in the cloud.

ID protection is the step of security. With security measure being taken, access are being restricted to authorize parties only and provide then with a flexible and transparent login steps. This process behind the authentication is easy and effective, and limit the risk posed by users. It enables analyst to identify the party responsible for the suspicious or risky action and access the data is being tempered with and device so that quick response can be taken to how to stop it from creating harms. But Identity protection alone is not enough. Data must be protected, as information is everywhere.Therefore strategy must be developed to protect by including a cloud-friendly information protection. Providing only the relevant information to right users only. ‘A correlation engine enables detailed tracking and correlation of activities by users’. This should not only associate identity-centric and data-centric but also context or intelligence.Identity and data intelligence should be developed with context increases in quick detection, that can generate actions to quickly rise notification.

Secured organization, mostly the ones that adopted the hybrid cloud model, do have upper hand in quick detection and injecting prevention measures in the network, which in a best-case scenario, protects information by monitoring access attempts and tracking how data is being used as strategy that identifies external threats and analyze activity on endpoints, with regular evaluating processes for improvement and continually enlightening employees to update their security IQs.

Reference:

Corporation, S. (2015) WHITE PAPER: PROTECTING CORPORATE INFORMATION IN THE CLOUD .Available at: https://www.symantec.com/content/en/us/enterprise/white_papers/protecting-corporate-information-wp-21354920.pdf (Accessed: 20 June 2016).

How Technology Can Tackle Loss Prevention

Posted on by S Y Wali

Above is a webinar by laura Haywood who is the supplement editor at Retail Week Alcumus having a discussion on ways to use technology to tackle loss and develop prevention strategies in organization businesses with emphasis in information and security. Together with her is Kris Hamer who is a senior manager in Retail Operation at Asda and Walmart, Mitch Haynes who is the Group Head of security at Aurora fashion and Karen Millen and Nikki Samme who is the Marketing and Portfolio Director at Alcumus. The discussion start with a statistics from U.K retailers that record a loo of 3.4 Billion Pounds to retail crime as of 2014 which was on an average of 21.2% of retail sales. Also the British Rental consortium estimate that 2 million worth of retail theft happen every year with only about 12% of this incidence have been reported to the law. Information technology systems loss prevention is the key to address issues to protect retailers businesses. couple of questions were asked by Haywood to the guess speakers on this issues such as ‘their respective roles in their lace of working and how the role of technology in it’. “How technology have been use in the organization”, “how they deal with the movement of various information”, “challenges facing the business organization in terms of the business processes, data and security”, “How they adapt to the continues development on technologies”, “risk management” and “their vision for the future of the organization they work at in terms on Information Technology Systems”. All the speakers have some similar and different views on each of this problems they were asked about probably because they come from different organization and are managing different position.

Kris and Nikki has more concentration more on Information Systems and E-commerce mostly for the future. Looking at the increase in technology risk and changes in development of technology, while Mitch was more focus on the economy impact stock lost and fraud. They  made emphasis of the flow of information in organizations and having an efficient systems in order reduce potential loss risk. They believe in organizations having a very good IS in understanding where the potential risk are, having a strong link between the staff and customers, capturing more data for analysis and mining in other to calculate risk, having a constrains on how organizations share their information and also involving the law which kris and Nikki dint really go for the involving of the law agencies idea. Points were made on organizations having the right technology platforms, focusing on things that will bring more value, engaging the staff in making them up to date with the technologies building different solutions and having a quick response team. Lastly all of them see the future of the organization drifting to more to online business, hence emphasis should be made more on developing strategies for the e-commerce platforms, which Nikki see that with organization meeting new risk which, they would have to change the business process and change/ increase in the use of software.

Ethical Privacy & Policies issues in IS

Posted on by S Y Wali

Back again on a more serious issue affecting e-commerce today. The face that with e-commerce, different ways are available for customers to order to for product under different mode of payment and get it confirm by the e-commerce site, which will be delivered to them within a couple of days. But we still have problems where by customers fall in the hands of frauds, or get ordered for things they din’t ordered for or even have and external intruders who phish their information and use it for different things. But who are to be blame when such things happen and how can we prevent it fro happening. This is a review of different theoretical papers concerning ethical issues in e-commerce.

safe.jpgEthical issues in IS have been in need of high concentration mostly with the rise of Internet and E-commerce. Internet and digital firm industries make it easier than ever to gather, process, and distribute information, developing new approach on the appropriate use of customer information, the protection of customer privacy, and the protection of intellectual property. Hackers with exceptional knowledge can “fool” the IS by submitting deceptive records, and side tracking cash, on a scale unimaginable in the pre-computer period. Other important ethical issues caused by IS include establishing accountability for the consequences of IS, setting ethics to protect system quality that protects the safety of the customers and organization, and preserving values and institutions considered essential to the quality of life in an information society. When using IS, it is necessary to ask, “Who will be to ask when there is an ethical and bridge of privacy issue with the organizational IS?”

In conclusion, ethics, privacy and policies issues influence organizational moral judgements about right and wrong. (Lewis, 2014)Decisions taken within an e-commerce organization may be made by individuals or groups, but whoever makes them will be influenced by the culture of the organization. The decision to behave ethically is a moral one; employees must decide what they think is the right course of action. This may involve rejecting the route that would lead to the biggest short-term profit. Unethical behavior or a lack of corporate social responsibility, by comparison, may damage a firm’s reputation and make it less appealing to stakeholders. Customers may be decrease as a result which can further lead to lost of profits.

Reference:

IS the E-Commerce Backbone

Posted on by S Y Wali

So today i want to write a blog on the relationship between IS and E-Commerce, but to start with, what is E-commerce and what does E-commerce Organization do.

E-Commerce organization work in providing people goods and services right to their door steps with the customer making a few clicks on the system. In most of the cases includes safely, time and risk management. The perceptions about the good service can include schedule, convenience, prices, mode of payment, quality and quantity.

Looking at scenario and the definition of Information system (IS) gotten from the Business Dictionary summaries the role, breaches it occupy and shows it importance in the e-commerce industries today. Even by mare looking at the definition one can say that it cannot be possible for any e-commerce platform to operate without having and effective Information System to work with. But before an it gained the full advantage of IS in its business, it has to be up to date in it’s adoption of Information Technology (IT) from both the organization and, the customers side which will be used in generating the right information of their interest and also develop strategy on how to fulfill this need. IS allow e-commerce to research and develop new ways of doing business. According to a research by Walter Baets  revised in 2009 conclude that “business organization with less participation by the IS department in business planning have more severe problems than the ones with greater participation“. IS in the e-commerce platforms actually control the flow of the whole business, making it more easy and possible for the platforms to  track, access and use information, replacing sequential steps with tasks that can be performed simultaneously, and eliminating delays in decision making.

IS frequently changes the way a business works and supports entirely new business models making it to serve as a back bone to all e-commerce platforms today. (Laudon, 2009) states  and i coat that “IS make it possible for e-commerce organizations to manage all their information, help make better decisions, and improve the processes involve in the industries“. These activities of having an efficient IS are supported by having the right technology, data, people and knowledge to processes it.

In the subsequent blogs, highlights will be made on data protection,  privacy and ethics issues in IS, white paper and webinar reviews on IS, technology in E-commerce.

References.