E commerce Assignment e-commerce e-commerce e-commerce

INTERNATIONAL COLLEGE OF BUSINESS & TECHNOLOGY LTD

ASSIGNMENT BRIEF

PROGRAMME HND in Computing and Systems Development

UNIT NO 01 UNIT TITLE Business Skills for E-Commerce.

ASSIGNMENT NO

ASSIGNME NT TITLE

Applying the skills of designing and evaluating E-Commerce application to a selected organization.

INDIVIDUAL/

LO1 Understand the structure and aims of the organization LO2 Understand the impact of e-commerce

LO3 be able to design e-commerce solutions

AUTHENTICITY STATEMENT

I, Anuruddhika hettige hereby confirm that this assignment is my own work and not copied or plagiarized. All the sources, from which information has been obtained for this assignment, have been referenced. I further confirm that I have read and understood the rules and regulations out plagiarism and copying and agree to be bound by them.

LEARNER SIGNATURE: DATE:11/04/2016

Grading opportunities

available/achieved 1 2 1 2 1 2 3 Original

Submission Re submission

Assessor Name Signature Date

Grading opportunities available/achieved

M1.1 M2.3 M3.1 D1.1 D2.3 D3.1

Assignment Brief

The rapid advancement of technology and its application to business has been accompanied by a range of new terminology and jargon. The use of the term “electronic commerce” has been supplemented by additional terms such as e-business and e-marketing, and Even today, with rapid growth of Internet revolution’, electronic commerce (e-commerce) remains a relatively new, emerging and constantly changing area of business management and information technology.

Electronic commerce operates in all four of the major market segments: business to business, business to consumer, consumer to consumer and consumer to business. It can be thought of as a more advanced form of mail-order purchasing through a catalogue. Almost any product or service can be offered via e-commerce

Assume that you work for a firm of e-commerce consultants. You have been asked to produce e-commerce solution guidance for an organisation.

To apply your solution, you are supposed to select any Organisation your choice and answer the following tasks by producing a well-structured report.

Section A

Prepare a report with covering the following tasks.

1. Conduct a PEST analysis to the selected company and identify the macro environmental factors. State the core business functions of the selected Organization and Assess how macro environmental factors which (you have identified) can be used to run core business functions of the organization successfully. (LO1.1)

2. Every organization has their own aims and objectives. Stakeholders can affect or be affected by the organization's actions, objectives and policies. Evaluate the impact of the aims and objectives of the selected organization by relating its stakeholders. (LO1.2)

3. Investigate the possible opportunities of implementing an e-commerce system to the chosen organization. You may consider about the market potential opportunities for an e-commerce solution. (LO3.1)

 Conclusion should reflect summarized idea about the potential opportunities of implementing e-commerce to organizations. It should also describe the usefulness of e-commerce to the selected organization ( D1.1)

4. Evaluate the current e-commerce systems in use by competitor’s organizations of the selected company. How can e-commerce system promote knowledge sharing between the company, its customers and suppliers? (LO3.2)

5. Initial implementation of an effective e-commerce solution can be costs but it has benefits in the long run of the company. Discuss the financial implications of setting up and maintaining e-commerce solution to selected organization. (LO3.3)

6. Explain all the areas to be considered when designing an e-commerce solution to the selected company. You can consider following aspects;

 Target markets,

 Business processes,

 Payment option,

 Security,

 Reliability

 The relevant legislations. (LO3.4)

 Relevant designing considerations have been applied for the selected E-commerce solution and they have been justified well.( M 2.3)

7. Evaluate the suitability of implementing e-commerce solutions to the selected organization. Evaluate different e-commerce solutions and decide the most suitable solution out of identified possibilities. (LO3.5)

 Should be able to critically evaluate suitability of the selected e-commerce solution to the organization. ( D3.1)

8. Risk is a potential of particular situation/action ends up with an undesirable outcome. Introducing an E-Commerce application to an organization can involve a certain amount of risk. Analyze the risk impacts of introducing an e-commerce application to the organization you selected. (LO 2.1)

9. Use Harvard referencing for citation and compile reference list (M2.1)

 Provide Standard and appropriate report format with correct use of academically accepted formatting guidelines(M3.1)

10. Attach detailed Gantt chart to visible how all activities have been managed at the end of the report. (D2.1)

Section B

Write an Essay approximately with 1000 words covering the following tasks.

Report writing guidelines:

Report need to be produced with academically accepted formatting guidelines.

a.

Paper: A4

b. Font size: Headings 14pt, Bold; Normal font 12pt

c. Font Face: Times New Roman or any other Serif Font face.

d. Page Layout

i. Margins Left 1.5”, right, bottom and top 1”

ii. Page numbering bottom, right

iii. Line spacing 1.5 Referencing Guidance

 To use Harvard referencing for citation and compile reference list you can go through

following guidance provided by Anglia RuskinUniversity.

 In the Harvard system, the author's surname and year of publication are cited in the text of your work. The full details of the source are included in a reference list at the end of the assignment.

(Anglia RuskinUniversity,2013)

You can follow below link for more details

Guide to the Harvard Style of Referencing 2013. University Library. [pdf] Anglia Ruskin

University. Available at:

<http://libweb.anglia.ac.uk/referencing/files/Harvard_referencing_2013.pdf> [Accessed 20

OUTCOMES AND ASSESSMENT CRITERIA EVIDENCE

LO1.1)asses an Business organization core business functions

LO1.2)Evaluate an organization’s business aims and show how they relate to stake holders

Written Report

LO2 Understand the impact of e-commerce

selected.

LO2.2) discuss the global impact of e-commerce on society.

Essay

Discuss global impact of e-commerce on society.

LO3 Be able to design e-commerce solutions

LO3.1) Investigate the market potential for an

LO3.4) Design an E-commerce solution Written Report

Grade Descriptor for MERIT Possible evidence

Assessor Comments/page

no M1 Identify and apply strategies to find

appropriate solutions.

M 1.1 Effective judgments have been made.

M3 Present and communicate appropriate

Grade descriptor for DISTINCTION Possible evidence

Assessor synthesis of ideas and have been justified.

Conclusion should

D3.1Ideas has been generated and decisions taken.

e-Assessor Name :………..

Date Area Covered

Feedback _{Signature of the}

Assessor

Student signature ……….

Acknowledgment

I would like to express my deepest appreciation to all those who provided me the ability to complete this assignment successfully. Most of all, my deepest heartfelt gratitude goes to our lecturer Mr.Yasas Kaushan, who covered Business Skills for E-Commerce module under the HND program, also guided us to prepare this assignment in a proper structure.

Furthermore The Authors & Publishers of Books, Journal Articles & even Web pages are much appreciated for keeping their precious piece of works available for our reference.

At last but not least, many thanks go to my parents who always encourage me in every aspect, specially providing the monetary facilities that are much needed for my studies.

Executive summary

This is an assignment comes under Business Skills for E-Commerce module at HND in IT program. For the completion of this assignment, students have to produce an E-Commerce solution for a selected organization assuming that they work for a firm of E-Commerce consultants.

For the completion of assignment, chosen organization by the student is Cargills food city Matara branch. Cargills (Ceylon) PLC is a Sri Lankan Retail, FMCG, Banking and Restaurant company which is listed on the Colombo Stock Exchange. The controlling interest in the company is held by Ceylon Theatres PLC. Kargills foodcity Matara brance has been situated in Anagarika Dharmapala Road.

Table of contents

List of tables

Introduction

Cargills (Ceylon) PLC is a Sri Lankan corporate established in 1844 and built on a strong foundation of values and ethics. Guided by trusted leadership it spearheads the sustainable development of the food industry in Sri Lanka.

Its continuous investment in retail has made the Cargills retail arm Cargills Food City the largest retailer in the island in all categories. Pursuing innovation and food safety its manufacturing brands Cargills Supremo and Cargills Finest (processed meats) Cargills Kist (processed fruits and vegetables) and Cargills Magic (ice cream and dairy products) lead sectoral growth. Its KFC franchise is the largest international restaurant chain in Sri Lanka. Through its marketing and distribution arm spread across the island Cargills distributes its manufactured brands as well as internationally renowned food and non-food brands.

The Cargills agribusiness model has gained global recognition for linking farmers and entrepreneurs to the market through a sustainable and inclusive value creation process.

Figure 01: Cargills foodcity logo

E Commerce stands for electronic commerce and caters to trading in goods and services through the electronic medium such as internet, mobile or any other computer network. It involves the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) in making commerce between consumers and organizations, organization and organization or consumer and consumer. With the growing use of internet worldwide, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) has also increased in humungous amounts and so has flourished e-commerce with the prolific virtual internet bazaar inside the digital world which is righty termed as e-malls.

Task 01

Conduct a PEST analysis to the selected company and identify the macro environmental factors. State the core business functions of the selected Organization and Assess how macro environmental factors which (you have identified) can be used to run core business functions of the organization successfully.

What is PEST analysis?

PEST is an acronym for Political, Economic, Social and Technological. This analysis is used to assess these four external factors in relation to your business situation.

Basically, a PEST analysis helps you determine how these factors will affect the performance and activities of your business in the long-term. It is often used in collaboration with other analytical business tools like the SWOT analysis and Porter’s Five Forces to give a clear understanding of a situation and related internal and external factors.

Figure 01: PEST analysis

Source: Authors’ originated

PEST

PEST

Political

Technological Social

Political

Here government regulations and legal factors are assessed in terms of their ability to affect the business environment and trade markets. The main issues addressed in this section include political stability, tax guidelines, trade regulations, safety regulations, and employment laws.

 Government type and reputation

 Free of the press, rules of law and stages of bureaucracy and corruption

 Regulation and de-regulations

 Public and employment legislation

 Tax policies and trade

 Environmental and customer-protection legal system

 Alterations in the political environment

Economical

Through this factor, businesses examine the economic issues that are bound to have an impact on the company. This would include factors like inflation, interest rates, economic growth, the unemployment rate and policies, and the business cycle followed in the country.

 Stages of a business development cycle

 Present and projected economic grown and interest rates

 Unemployment and supplying of labour

 Labour costs

 Levels of disposable earn and earning distribution

 Impact of globalization

 Impact of technological and other changes on the current economy

Social

With the social factor, a business can analyze the socio-economic environment of its market via elements like customer demographics, cultural limitations, lifestyle attitude, and education. With these, a business can understand how consumer needs are shaped and what brings them to the market for a purchase.

 Cultural features, health senses, population growing rate, age distribution,

 Organizational culture, postures to work, management types, staff attitudes

 Occupations, education, living standards earning capacity.

 Media views, policy changes drive to social factors, trends and publicity

 Demographics: age, civil status, gender, family size, race

Technological

How technology can either positively or negatively impact the introduction of a product or service into a marketplace is assessed here. These factors include technological advancements, lifecycle of technologies, the role of the Internet, and the spending on technology research by the government. (pestleanalysis, 2014)

 Advancing of technology, discovering of technological developments, researches

funding, implementation

 Internet, global and local communications, information technology

 Licensing, patents, finding of technology solutions, inventions, researches, intellectual

property issues, implementation in manufacturing, potential innovation,

What is Macro environment

“A macro environment is the condition that exist in the economy as a whole, rather than in a particular sector or region. In general, the macro environment will include trends in gross domestic product (GDP), inflation, employment, spending, and monetary and fiscal policy. The macro environment is closely linked to the general business cycle, as opposed to the performance of an individual business sector” (Investopedia, 2016)

W

hat is a business function?

Business Function is a description of work that is performed to accomplish a business unit's responsibility.

Core business functions

Core business is the primary area that a company focuses on in business operations. All companies try to maintain a strong position in these areas of business so that they remain market leaders. Most businesses may have multiple functions but concentrate on the focal point so that they are able to keep the resources and employees focused.

Understanding the core functions can help the business run optimally by giving them a competitive edge. Before you start focusing on them, you may have first to define them. Each unit of the business has to be analyzed for its strengths and weakness. It is also important to find a synergy between the business units so that they are able to complement each other.

Businesses need to examine the various products/services to determine the ones that complement each other in capital needs, structure, customer base, revenue streams, and manufacturing. The business activities are then paired down to the ones that are strategically viable so that they become the core. (ukessays, 2015)



Before identifying core business functions, let’s identify the selected business

organization what type of a business is,

The selected business organization (Cargills foodcity Matar branch) is kind of a supermarket. Supermarkets are large and complex business systems which depend on efficient management of information.

Core business functions of the selected organization

The supermarket business can be divided up into five main functions, each of which performs its own group of tasks, as follows:

Stock Control: The Stock Control Department is responsible for the following tasks: • Take delivery of new stock

All stock items are delivered with a supplier invoice. Stock control staff record the delivery on the relevant purchase orders, and send the supplier invoices to the Finance Department to arrange payment.

• Dispose of unsold stock

All stock items have a use-by date. Stock control staff must monitor all goods from their time of delivery, and ensure that out-of-date stock is disposed of, and not left on the shelves. They try to ensure that there is minimum wastage of stock, which means they must monitor sales carefully and advise marketing and pricing on the need for discounting to encourage purchase of stock which is approaching its use-by date.

• Monitor stock levels

Stock levels are monitored daily from the Stock Level Changes Reports provided by the Sales Department so that the Purchasing Department can be informed of the need to order new stock.

• Provide management reports

Finance: The Finance Department is responsible for the following tasks: • Make supplier payments

Invoices from suppliers for goods which have been delivered are received from the Stock Control Department. Payments are sent to suppliers according to their payment guidelines.

• Accept customer payments

Details of the daily cash sales provided by the Sales Department are recorded. The cash is sent to the bank.

• Manage customer accounts

Account sales details are used daily to update customer accounts. Invoices are sent to customers at the end of each month and must be paid in 14 days. Problem customers are followed up and are placed on the cancelled accounts list if necessary.

• Prepare financial reports

A monthly Financial Report based on sales and invoices paid during the month is prepared for Management.

Purchasing: The Purchasing Department is responsible for the following tasks: • Order new stock items

When the Stock Control Department sends details of the need to purchase additional stock, the Purchasing Department sends a purchase order to one of the suppliers of the specified stock items. Before a purchase order is placed, Item/Supplier details are checked to get the best possible deal for the current purchasing requirements. Sometimes a quick delivery is more important than the best price.

• Up-date stock item/supplier details

Information kept on each stock item is updated whenever a supplier provides the supermarket with new or changed information. Purchasing use this information to help them decide which supplier can offer them the best deal on each stock item.

• Monitor deliveries

The Stock Control Department update purchase orders with delivery information as deliveries are made. At the end of each day the Purchasing Department check the relevant purchase orders to see if expected deliveries have been made. Suppliers are contacted and asked about overdue items.

• Management reporting

The Department provides Finance with Daily Purchasing Summary Reports and Management with Fortnightly Purchasing Summary Reports.

Sales: The Sales Department is responsible for the following tasks: • Record cash sales

When a customer purchases goods for cash, details of the sale are recorded using the cash register, and the customer is provided with a receipt giving the details of the sale and the payment.

• Record account sales

When a customer with an account at the store purchases goods and charges it to their account, details of the sale together with the customer account number are recorded using the cash register. The customer account card and a list of cancelled accounts must be checked before the sale can be made.

The Sales Department provides a service where customers can order goods by filling out an order form on the store web site. Sales staff monitor orders submitted this way, the order, which is then collected by the customer and paid for either by cash or account.

• Sales reporting

On a daily basis a Sales Summary Report is provided to Management, a Stock Level Changes Report is provided to Stock Control, and a Cash and Accounts Sales summary report is provided to the Finance Department together with customers’ cash payments.

Marketing/Pricing: The Marketing/Pricing (M/P) Department carries out these tasks: • Decide what stock to sell

On a regular basis, M/P make long-term decisions about which goods to stock in the supermarket. These decisions involve deciding what products are available and what the market is likely to want. They are based on the following information:

- Marketing information about new stock items from product suppliers;

- Sales information about patterns and seasonal variations in product demand;

- Stock control information about slow-moving stock

• Setting prices

M/P sets the normal price of all products. The supermarket’s price is based on the original purchase price from the supplier, the cost of transport and storage, the volume and rate of sales, and the desired profit margin for that product. M/P monitors all these and adjusts product prices accordingly

• Discounting prices

On a daily/weekly basis, M/P make decisions about offering discounted prices on particular stock items. Existing stock levels and rates of sales are key factors in these decisions. M/P must keep Sales informed of which items need to be discounted.

• Advertising campaigns

How macro environmental factors can be used to run core business functions of the selected organization

Task 02

Every organization has their own aims and objectives. Stakeholders can affect or be affected by the organization's actions, objectives and policies. Evaluate the impact of the aims and objectives of the selected organization by relating its stakeholders.

The vision and the mission of Cargills FoodCity

Vision - To be a Global Corporate Role Model in Community - Friendly National Development.

Mission - Serve the Rural Community, our Customers and all other stakeholders through our core business - food with love - and other related businesses, based on our three main principles of;

 Reducing the cost of living

 Enhancing youth skills

 Bridging regional disparities

By enhancing local and global markets.

Values –

C - Customer focused - Focused on customer delight

A - Accountable - An accountable and responsible corporate citizen

R - Respect - Respecting our culture, our country and the law

G - Green - Bringing our business in line with 'Green' concepts of Reduce, Reuse and Recycle

L - Love - Spreading and winning Love through food

L - Lead - Leading corporate thinking and strategy

S- Serve the nation - Ultimately serving Sri Lanka true to our promise of being the "Pride of the Nation" (cargills, 2016)

Aims and objectives of Cargills FoodCity

Stakeholders

The concept of 'stakeholder' is a diverse of 'stockholder', which related to 'owners in' or 'investors in' a business or firm. We can define 'stakeholders' as 'groups and individuals who are affected by activities of an organization. Most important stakeholders can be found as those with more to lose from the organization's activities, but that does not always reflect their relative powers.' Their objectives and goals are very immensely, but they must be considered.

Previously it had been the common concept that businesses basically expect and in turn effect the economic capital, which is turn up in the form of stockholders. The rise to reputation of stakeholders allow firms to realize that there are infrastructure and people beyond the company which are need to it and who must have their attentions protected. An organization's stakeholders are the parties who are able to reasonably be understood to be affected by its verdicts. They can be considered to represent the businesses' social capital as well as economy. Mainly they can be categorized into two groups as Internal, External and Connected Stakeholders.

Figure 03: Stakeholders

Source: https://figures.boundless-cdn.com/13782/large/stakeholder-28en-29.png

Internal stakeholders

Internal stakeholders include general groups such as managers and employees (and/or volunteer workers or other types of members, in not-for-profit organizations). For example, the procurement function may have to market itself to senior management or management teams, or may have to communicate changes in purchasing policy and procedures to all staff.

Businesses are increasingly aware of the need to maintain a positive reputation in the marketplace, and this may require a more inclusive approach to stakeholder management, which recognizes the legitimate needs and concerns of wider, secondary or ‘indirect’ stakeholders. External stakeholders are likely to have quite diverse objectives and degrees of influence.

Task 03

Investigate the possible opportunities of implementing an e-commerce system to the chosen organization. You may consider about the market potential opportunities for an e-commerce solution

What is E-Commerce?

In its simplest form ecommerce is the buying and selling of products and services by businesses or consumers over the World Wide Web.

People use the term "ecommerce" or "online shopping" to describe the process of searching for and selecting products in online catalogues and then "checking out" using a credit card and encrypted payment processing. Internet sales are increasing rapidly as consumers take advantage of,

 lower prices offered by vendors operating with less margin than a bricks and mortar store

 greater convenience of having a product delivered rather than the cost of time and

transport and parking of going to a store

 sourcing product more cheaply from overseas vendors

 great variety and inventory offered by online stores

 comparison engines that compare and recommend product

 auction sites, where they did for goods

E-Commerce advantages

 Reduced costs by reducing labor, reduced paper work, reduced errors in keying in data,

reduce post costs

 Reduced time. Shorter lead times for payment and return on investment in advertising,

faster delivery of product

 Flexibility with efficiency. The ability to handle complex situations, product ranges and

 Improve relationships with trading partners. Improved communication between trading

partners leads to enhanced long-term relationships.

 Lock in Customers. The closer you are to your customer and the more you work with

them to change from normal business practices to best practice e-commerce the harder it is for a competitor to upset your customer relationship.

 New Markets. The Internet has the potential to expand your business into wider

geographical locations

Market potential opportunities for producing an E-Commerce solution

For producing an E-Commerce solution, we should well analyze the selected market place. For that below factors should be analyzed,

Type of market – we have to analyze what type of a market that we’re dealing with. How the consumer behavior & how they’ll react to the E-Commerce solution that we’re going to produce.

Market size – market size is a very important factor when producing an E-Commerce solution. The selected marketplace is Matara city & it’s a kind of large market place which is suitable for a new E-Commerce solution.

Growth rate – The products of this type are required to be sold in a large quantities to be profitable and Cargills Foodcity is engaged in selling goods to customers in a B2C relationship, but the chance for sale will occur, only if the customers will visit the establishment. By introducing an e-commerce, the chances are, that customers will purchase products online, which will increase the overall sales.

Distribution channels – The quality of the product is highly dependent on the speed of the delivery to a consumer, from the time of production. Due to this time factor, it is important to use direct distribution and utilize company's own resources. This is achievable because the customers

are located in a close proximity to a restaurant and only on a local scale. Because of the small volume of sales, it is not required to hire another employee to carry out distribution, but it will be necessary to obtain a car dedicated to this purpose. Advantage of direct distribution is better understanding of customers through personal contact with them. Cargills foodcity will continue to offer a service, with a discounted price without the delivery charge, for a products purchased online.

Customer strength – The customers' composition is relevant from an age point of view, where customers of the age 16 and older, are able to purchase the goods online. Matara town accommodates a large number of the students, which prefer the home delivery and take away food. Customers' distribution is spread across the city limit in the walking and driving distance from the restaurant, which could motivate customers to purchase from known local establishment.

Level of competition – level of competition depends on the competitors’ existence of the selected marketplace. Keels super can be identified as the main competitor of Cargills foodcity. And they’re already step ahead providing a website where customers can purchase online. So if the Cargills foodcity also provide an E-Commerce solution, it will increase the competition.

Strength & weaknesses – It is important to understand threats and opportunities of an e-commerce and its impact on businesses. Ability of Cargills foodcity to attract online customers, especially new ones, is dependent on an advertising of the services offered.

current ones with added e-commerce expenses such as web hosting, cost of advertising, marketing and expenses related to the in house delivery operations.

Task 04

Evaluate the current e-commerce systems in use by competitor’s organizations of the selected company. How can e-commerce system promote knowledge sharing between the company, its customers and suppliers?



Each and every organization has their own competitors. Just like that, Cargills foodcity

Matara branch also has its’ competitor in Matara called Keels super which is also a supermarket.

What is Keels super?

Keells Super of the John Keells Group is the leading supermarket chain in the country which has been in operation for the last 20 years and has been focusing on offering the best in range, quality products and services to our valued customers reaching out to a cross section of Sri Lankan consumers. Currently we have 45 supermarkets in Sri Lanka and rapid expansion plans are underway to make our presence felt in more locations.

The wide range of products include groceries, essentials, meats, vegetables, fruits, bakery, dairy, household, toiletries and home-ware such as linen, books, stationery, pharmacy and beauty counters at selected outlets.

E-Commerce solution used in Keels Super

Keels super is providing an E-Commerce solution for their customers in order to save their time. They’re having an E-Commerce website where customers can purchase goods for the same price with the store & they provide free delivery too. By this E-Commerce solutions, Keels super stays a step upwards from the Cargills foodcity.

Figure 04: Keels super E-Commerce website (online marketplace)

Figure 05: Keels super product menu (online)

Source: https://www.keellssuper.com/ProductListView/G/GL

Task 05

Initial implementation of an effective e-commerce solution can be costs but it has benefits in the long run of the company. Discuss the financial implications of setting up and maintaining e-commerce solution to selected organization.

E-Commerce Advantages Advantages to Organizations

 Using E-Commerce, organization can expand their market to national and international

markets with minimum capital investment. An organization can easily locate more customers, best suppliers and suitable business partners across the globe.

 E-Commerce helps organization to reduce the cost to create process, distribute, retrieve

and manage the paper based information by digitizing the information.

 E-commerce improves the brand image of the company.

 E-commerce helps organization to provide better customer services.

 E-Commerce helps to simplify the business processes and make them faster and efficient.

 E-Commerce reduces paper work a lot.

 E-Commerce increased the productivity of the organization. It supports "pull" type

supply management. In "pull" type supply management, a business process starts when a request comes from a customer and it uses just-in-time manufacturing way.

Advantages to Customers

 24x7 support. Customer can do transactions for the product or enquiry about any

product/services provided by a company anytime, anywhere from any location. Here 24x7 refers to 24 hours of each seven days of a week.

 E-Commerce application provides user more options and quicker delivery of products.

 E-Commerce application provides user more options to compare and select the cheaper

 A customer can put review comments about a product and can see what others are buying

or see the review comments of other customers before making a final buy.

 E-Commerce provides option of virtual auctions.

 Readily available information. A customer can see the relevant detailed information

within seconds rather than waiting for days or weeks.

 E-Commerce increases competition among the organizations and as result organizations

provides substantial discounts to customers.

Advantages to Society

 Customers need not to travel to shop a product thus less traffic on road and low air

pollution.

 E-Commerce helps reducing cost of products so less affluent people can also afford the

products.

 E-Commerce has enabled access to services and products to rural areas as well which are

otherwise not available to them.

 E-Commerce helps government to deliver public services like health care, education,

social services at reduced cost and in improved way. (tutorialspoint, 2016)

Task 06

Explain all the areas to be considered when designing an e-commerce solution to the selected company. You can consider following aspects;

 Target markets,

 Business processes,

 Payment option,

 Security,

 Reliability

Task 07

Evaluate the suitability of implementing e-commerce solutions to the selected organization. Evaluate different e-commerce solutions and decide the most suitable solution out of identified possibilities.

Task 08

Gantt chart

Task 01

Task 02

Task 03

Task 04

Task 05

Task 06

Task 07

Task 08

1-Apr 3-Apr 5-Apr 7-Apr 9-Apr 11-Apr 13-Apr

Chart Title

Reference list

Pestleanalysis. 2014. Understanding Pest Analysis with Definitions and Examples. [Online] Available at: < http://pestleanalysis.com/pest-analysis/ > [Accessed 02 April 2016]

Investopedia. 2016. Macro Environment. [Online] Available at: < http://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/macro-environment.asp > [Accessed 02 April 2016]

Ukessays. 2015. The Core Business Functions of Food Chain Commerce Essay. [Online] Available at: < https://www.ukessays.com/essays/commerce/the-core-business-functions-of-food-chain-commerce-essay.php > [Accessed 12 April 2016]

Cargills. 2016. Sustainability Strategy. [Online] Available at: < http://www.cargillsceylon.com/Sustainability/SustainabilityStrategy.aspx > [Accessed 02 April 2016]