Assignment: E-commerce Research Report & Prototype Website

Learning objectives and graduate skills tested

1. demonstrate an understanding of the key drivers and challenges faced by digital enterprises that include technology infrastructure, business processes, social media, consumer behaviour and global markets (Problem solving)

2. demonstrate the ability to research and critically evaluate e-commerce business models to gain an understanding of their business application for transforming digital enterprises (Academic, professional and digital literacy)

3. demonstrate the practical skills required to formulate and evaluate a coherent plan for a digital enterprise, develop a prototype business website based on this plan and document and critically evaluate the end-product (Problem solving).

4. demonstrate the ability to write effectively in a clear and concise manner in report style for senior management (Written and oral communication)

Assignment Specification

Assignment requires you to research and develop a report to examine contemporary issues in the e-commerce management sector, including further extending your prototype website to facilitate e-commerce transactions based on the same online business category.

You will be required to extend the development of your prototype website using the Joomla! content management system in cloudaccess.net. Details about setting up your website at CloudAccess.net is provided in Joomla Workshop 1.

Your research report and prototype website must be related to the online business category assigned to you. Failure to do so will result in your assignments being rejected and no marks will be allocated.

Report Structure and Presentation

Your report should include a title page, Table of Contents (including List of Tables and List of Figures if applicable) and Appendices.

Note: Make sure to state your name and student number in the report on the title page. State the word count of the report (Introduction to Conclusions & Recommendations)

Report Section 1 - Social E-commerce & Social Marketing (approx. 1000 words)

One of the trends that is currently impacting e-commerce is the growing use of social media to sell products and services. This concept is known as social e-commerce. Discuss some strategies that your online business can adopt to facilitate social e-commerce.

Social marketing on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are on the rise. Facebook is the dominant social network in terms of visitors and engagement. What are some of the challenges you see in social marketing campaigns for your online business?

Report Section 2 - Mobile Platform (approx. 1000 words)

Lately the use of smartphones has disrupted the personal computing and e-commerce landscape. More than 25% of Facebook visits originate from a mobile device.

As mobile platforms become more widely adopted, they are becoming more useful for accessing sites and apps. What implications do you think the mobile platform has for your online business?

Report Section 3 - E-commerce Security Plan (approx. 1000 words)

The e-commerce environment holds threats for both consumers and business owners, such as malicious code, phishing and identity theft, hacking, cybervandalism and data breaches.

There are several measures an online business must undertake for a secure e-commerce environment. Adopting new and tested technologies is one thing but these technologies do not solve the problem themselves. Organisational policies and procedures are required to ensure the technologies are not undermined. Industry standards and legislations are required to enforce payments and commercial transactions.

What are the key activities that you should consider to establish an e-commerce security plan for your online business?

Report Section 4 - E-commerce for B2B Procurement (approx. 1000 words)

For this question, let's assume that your new online business is currently in a B2C model and you are interacting only with your customers for marketing, sales and support.

The supply chain refers to the series of transactions that links your business to your suppliers for purchase, production and logistics of your products and services.

Discuss how you can extend your online business for B2B procurement and how e-commerce technology can support automation in the supply chain?

Report: Conclusions and Recommendations to the Business (approx. 500 words)

Your report should include separate conclusions and recommendations sections.

Conclusions provide a summary of your key findings from the body of the report.

Recommendations provide a summary of the recommendations to your online business based on the research conducted in the report.

Report: Appendix 1 Journal 10

Prepare a journal that records your activities and research related to completing this assignment. In date order, clearly list the following:

-Date of research & project activity

-Full description of activity / discussion

-Time duration of the activity

-Web sites visited to collect information; other references accessed (using Harvard AGPS Referencing style - submitted separate to the List of References in the report).

Submit this journal as Appendix 1 in the Report. Any references to web pages and online documents, such as white papers, should be listed at the end of the Journal.