E-Government in Malaysia: Its implementation so far and citizen’s adoption strategies.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

E government is a system information technology applied by government agencies to convert relations with citizens, businesses, and other arms of government .It provide services to citizen in Malaysia through Wide Area Networks, the Internet, and mobile computing to make their government management more efficiency and effectively.



E-government recently has developed seven services in Malaysia

Electronic Services (E-Services)
E-Services conduct e- transactions between citizens and government agencies such as the
Road Transport Department (RTD) and private utility companies such as Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) and Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM) .Citizens can easily make a transaction anytime and anywhere by using internet .

Electronic Labour Exchange(ELX)
ELX is one stop-centre for labor market information, as supervised by the Ministry of Human Resource (MOHR), to enable employers and job seekers to communicate on the same platform. Citizen can easily get labor market information and references through the services.

e-Syariah
A case management system that integrates the processes related to management of cases for the Syariah Courts. It will benefit the public such as plaintiffs and defendants, who will be able to pre register cases via the Internet.

E-procurement
A system allows suppliers to sell goods and services to the Government through the Internet. Suppliers advertise their product, present their pricing, process orders and deliveries in “open shop “on the World Wide Web.

Human Resource Management Information System (HRMIS)
HRMIS is an integrated of technology enabled Human Resource Management Information System for the Malaysian Public Service, incorporating Global Best Practices in HR that would enable the Public Service to successfully deal with the Challenges of the K-Economy

Generic Office Environment (GOE)
GOE is a fully web-based system customize by local package based on office management solution system which enables users to manage their office environment effectively and efficiency.
Project Monitoring System (SPP II)
SPP II is online system that monitors the entire lifecycle of national program to make effective decision based on analysis or forecasting of project information.




Citizen’s adoption strategies

Security
The government should make sure the service is secured to protect its citizens ‘personal data to ensure trust and confidence from citizens. Besides that, the information provided to citizen must always accurate, relevant, timeliness, updated and completed

Media
Government promote the services to citizens by launch a range of programs through attractive advertisement to make people aware the e-Government project and the availability or convenience by using electronic services online

User requirement
The website should also well design developed in multiple languages such as Chinese, English, Tamil and especially national language (Malay) to facilitate different races in Malaysia.


Reference link

http://www1.american.edu/initeb/ym6974a/egovernment.htm

http://www.mait.com/admin/enews_images/MAIT%20Country%20Intelligence%20eNews96_37.pdf

A review on a post on Legal from My E-Commerce blog: Royalty?

I have reviewed a post named "Google get sued in China over name"
Google started its Chinese subsidiary in 2005. Google's Chinese subsidiary has transliterated its name to Guge. Google is pronounce as GUGE in Chinese. GUGE is Beijing Guge Science and Technology Ltd. GUGE is suing Google for harming its business because it is too similar to its own name. Beijing Guge Science and Technology Ltd told Reuters news agency that people were constantly phoning its office trying to contact search engine Google. This actually has led to situation where numerous phone calls to get into contact with Google were made to Beijing Guge Science and Technology Ltd as Google is not being listed in the local telephone directory. Tian Yunshan of Beijing Guge stated that they just want Google to change their commercial name.

Due to this case, many IT firms such as Microsoft and Yahoo have been criticised for censoring themselves in order to enter the Chinese market.

Other similar stories:
YouTube.com vs Utube.com
Similar situation was also encountered by Utube.com (Universal Tube and Rollform Equipment) which caused the little known website server experienced dramatic increase in the page request up to 2 million hits per month as the popularity of YouTube.com is increasing. This caused the company server to crash a few times and a more reliable server were required.

China: Gmail vs Gmail.cn
Google is currently engaging in a domain name battle with another China firm for Gmail.cn.

Review a Local E-commerce Site: Maybank2u.com.my

Monday, July 6, 2009

Online banking has become an important facet in everyday living. Maybank2u.com is an instant online banking service that customers can access from the desktop or laptop anytime, anywhere, at your leisure and convenience. The most apparent benefit that Maybank online service are speed, secure, efficient and effective. Transactions are done at a much faster pace and management of assets becomes much easier, as online banking sites are very compatible with related programs.

Maybank website fall broadly into two categories, there are personal banking and business banking.

Personal banking
(http://www.maybank2u.com.my/mbb_info/m2u/public/personalBanking.do)

1. Fund transferFunds transfer between a customer's own checking and savings accounts, or to another customer's account.
2. Online payment
Customer are available to enjoys the ease and flexibility in managing their bills as they decide how much and when to pay via your preferred e-Channel
3. Loan or financing payment
Maybank provides home financing, vehicles financing, islamic financing and etc. Maybankwill provides greater rate and flexible terms in their loan program to meet customer’s need.
4. Investment and insurans




Business banking
(http://www.maybank2u.com.my/mbb_info/m2u/public/businessBanking.do)

May bank have online banking for business customers. It is designed specifically to change the way corporate transactions are carried out. Especially in businesses where finances change hands quickly, online banking services with their fast updates make it simple for businesses to keep up with every penny. Examples of the transactions of business banking are:

1. Payroll Services
Corporate customers can transmit salary, bonus and commission data files via the internet anytime, anywhere.
2. EPF Services
Corporate customers can submit their employer's and employees' monthly contributions to EPF.
3. SOCSO Services
Corporate customers can submit their employer's and employees' monthly contributions to SOCSO.
4. Payment Services
Corporate customers can make third party payments to Maybank account holders.

A discussion on E-learning offered in Malaysian universities: Pros and Cons from the students perspective

Sunday, July 5, 2009

E-learning involves the use of a computer or electronic device in some way to transfer of skills and knowledge such as deliver training, educational or learning resources through Internet or an Intranet. In nowadays, E-leaning has implemented in most universities to convenience their student to get information. Students have free access to these materials as when needed anytime and anywhere by just using the internet.

Pros of e-leaning

A main benefit of e-learning is save the cost of travelling such as petrol cost and public transport cost. Students can easily get their learning resources from internet by just login into website without physically present in a university. This system not only help student reduce a lot of cost travelling but is also help to save a time of traveling such as avoid traffic jam because student can easily get their leaning resources with the use of internet by just staying at their own house.

Second benefit of e-learning is time flexibility to communicate with their lecture or tutor or even classmates. Students can post or sharing their query and writing in learning website at anytime and anywhere with the use of the Internet. For example, e leaning website has consist a part which call forum ,it is a place of discussion between student and lecture to ask or answer the query It is much easier for them to interact between each other rather than face-to-face communications.

Another benefit of e-leaning is provides a wider leaning option which is not restricted to the geographic location. For example, student who studies in Malaysia can access to the resources upload by other foreign university such as get teaching materials through e-libraries. These help students easier to get additional information from foreign knowledge to make their process of studies easier .Thus, more information or opinion can be exchanges between local knowledge and foreign knowledge.

Cons of e-learning

Although e-learning have benefits students in their process of studies, but there are also some disadvantage that may occur a side effect to student. One of the disadvantages of using e-learning is that it might be charge a bit costly to subscribe high-speed internet to enhancing the speed of downloading. If the speed of internet was poor, it will make them difficult to download leaning resources from internet. Therefore, students must have budget before stating to implement e-learning system.

Since text format is only the tool of communication has implemented in e-learning, the conflict between student and lecture will arise due to lack of face-to-face communication. Without physically face to face communication, they may lose the directions and get confused on the course of activities.

Reference link

http://www.newman.ac.uk/Students_Websites/~m.m.friel/index.htm

The application of pre-paid cash card for consumers

Monday, June 29, 2009

Pre-paid cash cards look like credit and debit cards and they offer the same ability to purchase goods and services. It also designed to be used as a safer alternative as compare to cash. User must reload a credit with a sum of money before them start to using the card. This means there is no risk of running into debt as it has no credit or overdraft facility.

The prepaid cash card can be use in several ways,

1. Get cash-Withdrawing cash from ATM in anywhere and anytime of the day.

2. Transfer money - provide the convenient such as send or receive money via bank. This system is normally use to remittance money to friends and family either in the different of countries

3. Shop anywhere –can buys fuel at any petrol station such as petronas,shell,esso as long as the card using is accepted at different retailers.Thus,it also can be use to purchase good and services on internet such as ebay and amazon
1.Paying bills -can paid any bills immediately such as phone bill, rent, utilities, insurance, car payment, water and electricity

4. The card of travel –Traveler can buy prepaid debit cards denominate the currency in that countries .It can be used as a replacement for travelers’ cash
by using them to pay for goods and services. This is a best way to keep their money save and more secure than carrying large amount of cash

5. Pay for toll – Use card as an example"Touch n Go" ,by just top up the credit ,it can be used at all highways in Malaysia, major public transports in Klang Valley, selected parking sites and theme park .

Reference link

http://www.moneysupermarket.com/c/prepaid-cards/guide/

Credit Card debts: Causes and Prevention

With credit cards easily obtained in nowadays, a number of people burdened by unpaid credit card debts were increasing .That is a major cause of declare bankruptcies because people never consider consequences from their financial situation when using a credit card.

Causes for credit card debts

Less Income, More Expenses
It so happens when the people losing their job but monthly expenses are not cut down in line with the reduction in income. This obviously leads to a rise in debt. They are forced to use their credit cards for their daily spending to maintain their lifestyle

Poor Money Management
People are like to spending hundreds every month towards their daily entertainment life such as smoking, clubbing, and drunk. They do not realize it and unaware of where money is going on. This a a reason why so many people accumulate a lots of debts due to not having a planning for their spending.
Gambling
Gambling has become part of entertainments for many people in life. It is hard to stop when it becomes addictive. Thus, it will surely lead to a financial disaster if borrowing money through credit card. it so happen because most people hope to win back the money when suffer a loss in gambling

No saving culture in life
Due to the developing of e-commerce in internet, people are like using credit cards to purchase goods and services on internet. They would like to use the future money and have not extra money to save in bank. When people are spending more than their income, they will be very hard to manage their savings accounts.

reference link
http://www.3debtconsolidation.com/top10-causes.html




Prevention for credit card debts

Manage your finances
When using credit card to purchase goods and services, we must determining our monthly income and expenses. It will help to keep on track before you ever even pull out the credit card .Thus, we also need some savings to avoid having to put large amounts of debt on a credit card in times of a crisis.
Early Education
Due to the growing in e-commerce field, credit card payment has become a common way payment in daily life. It’s imperative to teach our younger generation very early about the value of money and how to manage finances. This is a best way to prevent them will be to fall into credit card debt problems in future

Use it like Cash, Not a Credit Card
Credit card is not cash. It is just a plastic card slides right out of your wallet with little effort at the checkout counter. Each time you pull it out it looks and feels the same. You cannot physically feel your charges climbing higher and higher. But with cash on hand can physically feel how much or how little you have. So, they have a self control with their money when spending for goods and services.

Pay on time
Due to universal default clause in credit cards’ terms and conditions, credit card companies can raise your interest rate if you are late paying any creditor. Thus, we must never make a late payment to anyone including car and house payments. This is a best way to reduce credit card debt.

reference link
http://www.cardratings.com/howtoavoidcreditcarddebt.html

e-currency

Electronic currency refer to money or cash in a which is exchanged only electronically in a digital form. In general, this involves use of computer networks, the internet and digital stored value systems. These technologies enabling collective system for electronic currency by implemented Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) and direct deposit in internet .




E-currency was providing several service benefit the user on the internet like e-gold and paypal.

1. The e-currency can be used to make payment for goods and services in Internet shops such as shopping on the internet and doing personal investment via internet.

2.The using of the e-currency services for example e-gold and paypal brings people a new way not to use their credit card as the only payment method on the internet.This service provide a safely store money funds on electronic account .After using this services, users does not have to provide their credit card information to the stranger merchant who most of them are far away in the other side of the earth .

3.The e-currency service companies such as e-gold ,paypal and can perform money transfers between both the buyers and merchant in the convenient way to send and receive the payment in various business projects in Internet.The users can just by clicking the confirm button and the deal is done.



In Malaysia, we have develop a electronic purse which call “touch N Go” .It is a smart card use to store money and transfer it to electronic payment .This smart card can be used at all highways in Malaysia, major public transports in Klang Valley . Besides that,This services has growth into a widely used electronic cash system in convenience stores, supermarkets, fast-food restaurants, on-street parking meters, car parks, and other point-of-sale applications such as service stations and vending machines.

reference link
http://www.giexc.com/

Mobile payment

Mobile payment (also referred to as mobile web payment or WAP billing) is the collection of money from a consumer via a mobile device such as their mobile phone, Smartphone, Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) or other such device. Consumer can easily to make a transaction by using their mobile device to purchase goods and services at anytime,anywhere without cash on hand,,cheque,or physically present a store.

As nowadays, many companies in Malaysia are implementing mobile payment to convenience their customer .The common services they provide to customer are include payment for transportation, parking, restaurants, convenience stores, retail outlets, e-ticket.For example, Maxis ,DIGI, CELCOM are the telecommunication companies that provide many type of mobile payment services to a customer. One of the services normally use by customer is top-up their phone credit via the mobile phone without physically present in counter to pay their phone bill..




Besides that, customer also can easily to get their digital goods such as ringtone, games and the wallpaper for mobile phone through by SMS based transaction payments or mobile web payment (WAP)

Mobile payment system have a great potential for to become an important electronic payment channel in the Malaysia considering most of the Malaysian population are subscribing to mobile phone services. The adoption for this service can help to save a lot of time without physically queuing up for bill payment in counter. It definitely benefits a people who busy routinely in a lifestyle. It will growth consistently and developing due to improvement

Strategies:
1. Educate consumers about mobile payments, how to use and introduce its functions (e.g. bill payment, mobile purchase)
2. Enchance security and confidence to mobile users
3. Collaborate with more banks and companies to widen the ability to pay via mobile at the same time it helps to increased customer’s satisfaction and confidence
4. Maintain customer’s loyalty



In Malaysia, most of the company adopt reward strategies system by provide free gift to consumer at certain level of purchasing goods and services or giving redemption of reward. For example, DIGI company reward their customer with double credit for who during a birth.

The application of 3rd party certification programme in Malaysia.

Friday, June 26, 2009

Security of data in transit over the Internet becomes increasingly necessary because of steadily growing data volume and importance. Nowadays, every user of a public network sends various types of data, from email to credit card details daily, and he would therefore like them to be protected when in transit over a public network. Third party certification has been adopted for protection of data in transit that encompasses all network services that use to support typical application tasks of communication between servers and clients.

Secure sockets layer (SSL) is a protocol developed by Netscape to ensure security of data transported and routed through HTTP, LDAP or POP3 application layers. SSL is designed to make use of TCP as a communication layer to provide a reliable end-to-end secure and authenticated connection between two points over a network.

VeriSign is a leading Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificate Authority and is the trusted provider of Internet infrastructure services for the networked world. Billions of times each day, their SSL, identity and authentication, and domain name services allow companies and consumers all over the world to engage in trusted communications and commerce. VeriSign offers strongest SSL encryption and makes it easy to keep track of all your SSL Certificates and maintain the security of your online services with VeriSign® Certificate Center.

MSC Trustgate.com Sdn Bhd is a licensed Certification Authority (CA) and was incorporated in 1999 to meet the growing need for secure open network communications. MSC Trustgate to provide digital certification services, including digital certificates, cryptographic products, and software development. They also provide the finest Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) to assist all types of companies and institutions conducting their business over the Internet. Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) enables encryption, digital signature and certificate authentication capabilities to be consistently and transparently applied across a broad range of applications and platforms. Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) providing key and certificate management services that enable encryption and digital signature capabilities across applications in a way that is transparent and easy to use.

The reasons that E-commerce online store would need SSL certificate is because E-commerce websites typically require buyers to sign up on the website before they can buy online. Your website gathers customer personal data and hence it should have an SSL certificate to guarantee the safety of your customers' details and information. SSL Certificates help you secure online payments. Most of your visitors now expect security as part of e-commerce website so that they can safely make a purchase and provide their personal details and credit card number, they anticipate all the details provided by them over the Internet should be confidential and secured.

How to safeguard our personal and financial data?

As Internet criminals grow smarter and sneakier, it's increasingly difficult to keep your personal and financial information safely. If you don't take basic steps to protect your information, you may find yourself a victim of fraud or identity theft. However, maintaining as much control as possible over your personal information can go a long way toward protecting your privacy.

There are some practical tips on how you can protect your personal information yourself::

1. Protect Your Personal Data
Evaluate the sites you visit, and don’t give away personal information on sites that are not secure. Read privacy policies to find out what a site will do with any personal information you divulge.



2. Managing Your Access ID/PIN/User ID, Password and Security Codes
Create passwords and PINs that provide grater security. Change your Password regularly and use combinations of letters, numbers, and "special characters". Memories your User ID and Password and do not record it anywhere.

3. Avoid Sharing Personal Computers
Avoid using shared personal computer such as those in cyber cafes to access financial or sensitive personal information. If you really need to do so, make sure that the computer is free of viruses.

4. Install computer’s security software
keeping your personal computer up-to-date with security software is the primary step in protecting your personal information and maintaining online security. The following security features are recommended for every personal computer:
• Up-to-date anti-virus software
• Up-to-date anti-spyware software
• A personal firewall
• Security updates, installed regularly



5. Clear your cache
It is strongly advice that you clear your cache after each financial and personal data transaction you made. Clearing it occasionally or regularly can protect your privacy and this is a secure ways to protect your data from stolen by others

Phishing: Examples and its prevention methods.

What is Phishing

Phishing is a con game that scammers use to collect personal or financial information such as username, password and credit cards detail from unsuspecting users. They send out e-mail or instant message that looks like they are from respectively company to request for update or confirm account information. However, even if you visit the false website and just enter your username and password, the phisher may be able to gain access to more information by just logging in to you account.

Signs of Phishing:

1.Unsolicited request for personal information
Most of the company will not further request on your personal or financial details especially like bank or credit card company because they should have this information on file. If they have some questions about your account they will call you on phone and not to get your information online.

2.Alarmist warnings
Something else to watch out for is emails that tell you that if you don't respond in a certain period of time then your account will be closed. Phishers often attempt to get people to respond without thinking and a message that conveys a sense of urgency, this is trying to got your respond quickly.

3. Mistakes
The little things can often reveal the biggest clues. Some mistakes that is a sign of phishing such as formatting errors, typos and grammar mistakes, you can search by looking closely to the layout of the page.

4. Email Address and links
Users need to pay close attention to the addresses that are being included in the email. Mostly, the email address that is being used to send the email to you is from an unidentifiable source. Sometimes the links that you are urged to click may contain all or part of a real company's name, but the link you see is actually taking you to a phony Web site.

Phishing Prevention

There are some phishing prevention method which should hopefully help you in the future when you receive an email which you are unsure of where it has originated from.
=> It is important that you learn to recognize all types of phishing emails.
=> Never send any kind of sensitive personal information using an email.
=> Always ensure that you are using a secure website
=> Do not click on suspicious website

eBay Phishing Examples
(http://www.bustathief.com/what-is-phishing-ebay-phishing-examples/)


Re-entering account information

Message from eBay member



Update Credit Card information

The threat of online security: How safe is our data?

Nowadays, online security threats are one of the biggest challenges on the Internet. As internet users display their personal information on website and upload some sensitive data to online software programs, they are most probably at risk. Some users exploit the internet through the criminal behaviors and other harmful practices. These users are called hackers or internet intruders, they uses their stealth tactics to attack on the online computer users.
There are number of potential threats on the internet such as:

1. Viruses
A computer virus is a dangerous computer program with the characteristic feature of being able to generate copies of itself, and thereby spreading. Viruses exist on local disk drives and spread from one computer to another through sharing of "infected" files.

2. Spyware
Spyware is a form of malicious software designed to interrupt or to steal the personal and confidential without the consent of that computer’s user. Spyware can be delivered in a variety of ways including being attached with the legitimate software.

3. Trojans Horse
A trojan horse is a self-contained malicious program that does not replicate nor infect other files. Trojans are most often used to gain backdoor access remote, surreptitious access to the computer. The examples of Trojans are Remote Access Trojan (RAT), Backdoor Trojans (backdoors), IRC Trojans (IRCbots), and Keyloggers.

4. Pharming
Pharming refers to a technique of changing Domain Name System (DNS) servers that hackers get into Domain Name Servers to redirect visitors to a look alike site or change the host files inside your computer that take you to a sight that is designed to steal your identity.

5. Spam mail
Spam is flooding the Internet with many copies of the same message and most spam is commercial advertising. Spam by e-mail is a type of spam that involves sending identical or nearly identical messages to thousands of recipients without the permission of the recipients.

Security vulnerabilities and threats are file sharing applications, instant messaging, week passwords and outdated antivirus or anti spyware programs. The solutions to protect personal data, privacy and identity on internet is to install an up-to-dated antivirus program on your computer, install anti spyware program, update your operating system regularly by installing latest security program, never download a software program from the websites who has no integrity, never open an email attachment from the unauthorized source and encryption your data while transmitting over the internet.

Google is Changing Everything

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Among all the companies that associated with E-commerce, Google still is the search engine that has most impact in our work and life. With the effective and efficient IT and EC management, Google has grown and generate profit faster than any other EC company.

Google is trying to deliver technology that may organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. For example, Google is trying to reinvent the spreadsheet as a Web-based application. This application let the user input and share data easily. Furthermore, it can be shared with up to 10 users at one time. The data in the spreadsheet will be saved automatically onto Google computer servers.

By working with Google Base, Google may know the demand for Google Spreadsheet. This online database is use by the analysts to classify e-advertising, e-commerce activity. Google also supply enterprise search capabilities together with Bearing Point, which is an IT consulting firm. Bearing Point help Google enable to provide various data sources at a company. It also integrated with other applications such as Cognos Go! to access strategic enterprise information.

One of the real world examples is Kaiser Permanente which is the America’s largest non-profit health organization (HMO). Keep upgrading new knowledge is very important for Kaiser Permanente since the amount of available medical information of this HMO is doubles for about 7 years. The Permanente Knowledge Connection gives the medical staff available to access to diagnostic information, best practices, publications, educational material, and other clinical resources from anywhere in the Kaiser wide area network. As Keiser turned to Google Search Appliance, clinicians can search for leisurely research, urgent care. While the Doctors and nurses enable to search diagnoses and specify treatments, side effect of new medication and so on.

An example of an E-commerce success and its causes

E-commerce success story: eBay
Now, the conduct of business transaction over the Internet is becoming the dominant force in business and society. Many people decide to online shopping and trading because internet provides high speed communication, ubiquitous access to information. eBay is the world’s largest online trading community which seems to have been a success.





eBay.com is an online auction and shopping web site that allows people buy and sell products or services worldwide. This site offers users an opportunity to come together and allows buying and selling a wide range of items including fine collectibles. A gross merchandise sale is the key factor in determining success in Internet space. eBay.com doing $8 million (US$) a day in gross merchandise sales which quite lead over the other competitors such as Amazon.com auctions do about $300,000 a day in gross merchandise sales and Yahoo!’s auctions are somewhere in the neighborhood of $480,000 a day. Besides, according to a Compete.com study, the eBay.com attracted at least 902 million visitors annually by 2008.

Why eBay can be successful to be the world’s largest online trading community?
I found out that eBay continues to develop new ideas, new programs, new services which lead eBay to be attractive and safety online trading location.

From time to time, some people are coming to the site to list items that are in direct violation of user agreement such as the couple in Chicago that were going to put their baby up for auction and the person who put a human kidney up for auction. eBay were investigated the listing and able to find those individuals, suspend their accounts, suspend them from eBay and remove the items from the auction site. Well, in order to reduce those infrequent occurrences to much greater extent, eBay require all new users to eBay, who are going to sell items, to provide eBay with credit card. This not only discourage people from coming to the site to engage in fraud or listing pranks, but also allows eBay has a credit card to assist them in working with the law enforcement community. Thus, eBay was creating a trust and safety trading environment which the great majority of people who are selling on eBay are really warm, decent, trustworthy and honest people.

Besides, more and more traditional brick-and-mortar types of businesses making entryways into the Internet space. Those people feel that eBay was so enticing, fun and in many ways profitable that they created a brand new business for themselves on eBay. eBay will also help users create own web site on eBay. This let users feel that there is an investment required to participate and accountability.

In addition, eBay will continue provide new services to achieve user’s needs. For examples, eBay purchased Butterfield & Butterfield which now called eBay Great Collections that designed to bring higher valued items to the site. Besides, they also purchased a company called Cruise International Auctioneers and created an automobile site on their site which allows people to list automobiles in a separate category, and it also creates a site where collector automobiles can be auctioned off on eBay. The idea for those two purchases are came from their user community because users were sending signals to eBay that they were interested in listing additional higher priced items

An example of an E-Commerce failure and its causes

Potential causes for DotCom failures
Many newly formed DotCom companies around the world failed as the online bubble began to burst in mid-2000. It was predicted that a high percentage of e-commerce start-ups or newly formed pure DotCom companies would fail.
The causes of failure can be separated to two main categories – controllable and uncontrollable causes – as shown in chart. Controllable causes can be further divided into strategic, operational and technical causes, while uncontrollable can be divided into technical and behavioral causes.



Controllable causes
The analyses involve managerial decisions regarding strategic, operational and technical issues, which were under direct control of decision makers.

Strategic causes
Strategic causes evolved from decision making that determined the objectives, resources, and policies of the organization:
1.Lack of business experience. Most wrong decisions were made because DotCom entrepreneurs lacked a clear understanding of business fundamentals in the areas of finance, marketing, distribution and inventory.
2.Poor business model. The absence of sound business strategies can lead to poor business models and the absence of declared business benefits. Many DotCom firms were offering free services, totally depending on advertisement revenue.
3.Free-spending pattern. One of the reasons behind the failure of many DotComs was a wrongly focused free-spending pattern to support or to initiate high growth. The companies tended to overspend on marketing and IT infrastructure in an attempt to grow quickly.
4.Coders as planners. During the DotCom boom, many business ideas came from coders (programmers) who were inexperienced in devising sound business plans, proper utilization of funds, business strategies and decisions.

Operational causes
1.Vulnerable financial structure (back-up funds). Although most DotCom start-ups raised funds through venture capital for initial operations, they struggled to bring additional capital from an increasing number of reluctant investors.
2.Managerial incompetence and misuse of funds. Many spent money on fancy offices, expensive travel, free food, wrong projects and even hired unqualified staff.
3.Poor customer support. Most DotComs, however, was mainly interested in getting customer orders, but overlooked the importance of after-sales interaction with the customers.
4.Inefficient promotion. Most online companies invested massively on promotion without the backing of sound market research and, thus, failed to use the most effective media to penetrate the target market for the company's products or services.
5.Slow delivery. Resulting dynamic changes posed by e-commerce, many DotCom companies were caught off guard and were too slow to respond to the changes.

Technical causes
1.Web design: slow loading. Having a Web page with JavaScripts, Flash or frames, pop-up advertisements and lots of graphics does not guarantee success. On the other hand, too many graphics and other bells and whistles may slow down the loading time of the page on a user's computer, and the user may become too impatient to stay with the Web site.
2.Down server. Web servers need to be up and running with minimal interruption. Long server down time is also responsible for many DotComs' failures because customers quickly lose their interest if the site is down quite frequently due to repair or improvement, and may not want to visit the site again.

Uncontrollable causes
Like conventional businesses, companies offering products on the Internet are also negatively affected by factors that are uncontrollable. Uncontrollable causes can be classified into two categories: behavioral and technical.

Behavioral causes
1.Over-expectation. Over-expectation is seen as one of the many factors behind many failed DotComs. Many firms did not have adequate planning when they entered into the market with a dream that the products they were offering were good enough to attract consumers. They expected too much too soon.
2.Weak reliability. Reliability and trust in commercial transactions on the Internet are required for the involved parties so much, which may make or break an e-commerce project. Customers need guarantees that the product quality, delivery time, and customer service will be reasonable, and the confidential information will not be misused.
3.Weak customer loyalty. A common belief associated with e-commerce is that a weak customer loyalty to brand names or particular sites will lead to few loyal customers. Online brands that have a very short history fell into the trap of improper advertisement and low quality. It takes some time to build customer loyalty, but very little to destroy it.
4.Mushroom growth. Many DotComs flooded the market with similar products or services and created intense competition among them. Since the online industry was in its infancy, the acute competition seriously reduced the survival chances for some companies.

Technical causes
Some technical issues, categorized as uncontrollable, negatively affected Internet start-ups. In the technical issues are including Internet security and lost transactions are discussed:


1.Internet security problems. “Most of us who have purchased items via the Internet have felt reluctant about the transaction at some point – usually when entering our credit card number”. Hackers are unauthorized people who access in any firm's database as valid users and perform actions intentionally to adversely affect the company's business.
2.Missed transactions. Another hurdle that DotComs faced was missed transactions, where customers created purchase orders. For example, due to problems such as connection drops, busy signals and other technical glitches, the transactions were not processed.

The history and evolution of E-commerce

Nowadays, E-commerce plays a great role in our lives. E-commerce is the process of buying, selling or trading products, goods, services and information through computer network.

Back in 1970s, E-commerce is defined as the process of facilitation of commercial transactions electronically by using Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT). Company trades and transacts products and information with other companies with the assist of these technologies. However, the use of EDI was not widely accepted because there are variety format of EDI which had caused companies difficult to interact with each another. In 1984, ASC X12 Standard was introduced. It is more stable and companies had used it to perform business transactions and transferred large amount of information.




E-shopping concept was introduced by Michael Aldrich in United Kingdom on 1979. Following the years in 1980s, credit cards, automated teller machines (ATM) and telephonic banking were also introduced.

The first web browser, World Wide Web (www) was written by Time Berners-Lee. The first "point and click" browser, Mosaic web-browser was also created in 1993 which quickly adapted into a downloadable browser and Netscape in 1994 under the code name Mozilla which allowed easier access to E-commerce. In 1990 onwards, E-commerce also includes the ERP, data mining and data warehousing.

Although the use of internet was popular around the globe in 1994, but the world took about 4 years to develop security protocols which allowed rapid and persistent access or connection to the internet. The succession founded of Amazon and E-bay in 1994 and 1995 have caused E-commerce become more popular. People started to online and thus E-commerce evolves to be what we have known now, which is buying and selling goods over the internet.

Arthur's Profile

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Hi, I'm Arthur, 21 years old and currently studying at UTAR. I have an elder sister and a younger brother, who like to play computer just like me. However, my house has only 1 computer, so we have to vie for it. Our rule is, the person with most IT knowledge shall use the computer. My mum doesn't interest in computer, and so, my dad win. This is my family.

I love to surf internet during my leisure time as well as non-leisure time. No matter how busy, I will dig out some time surfing the net. I surf the net even my mum has restricted me from using computer; final exam is around the corner; on vacation; I'm sick or in midnight. I believe this unhealthy learning attitude helps a lot in building my IT knowledge. I find myself not facing difficulties much in completing school's assignments.

I was introduced to internet when i was 13. However, my favourite internet activities remain unchanged during the last 8 years. My favourite websites are http://www.runescape.com/ and http://www.silkroadonline.net/. Both websites are 2 different online games' official homepage. Other than that, I like to visit http://www.friendster.com/, http://www.facebook.com/ and http://www.tagged.com/. These websites allow me to stay connected with my friends. I can easily locate and send my regards to them even we are not standing in the same latitude on the earth.

This is only a chapter of my biography. Kindly add me in facebook or friendster so that we can be friends. Although this blog is created for tutorial purpose but I hope that my group and I can take this opportunity to enhance our knowledge about e-commerce along with all the readers. Thank you. =)

Thiam's Profile

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Hello to everyone! I'm Yee Seng Thiam from BAC group 9 and currently proceeding degree in accounting in year 3 semester 1. My hometown is at Rawang where it is located in Selangor. My family consist of 4 members who include father, mother, brother and me. I am the eldest son in my family.

I like to sport during my leisure time. The sport i like most is basketball. I usually invite my friend to play basketball in balakong during evening. I enjoy playing basketball because it helps to reduce stress and it is challenging especially when playing with different players.

Besides that, I also like to watch drama such as Hong Kong drama in Astro on demands in house to pass my leisure time. I like to watch drama when I felt boring because it is easy to pass the boring time. On the other hand, I also like to catch up the latest entertainment news by reading newspaper and surfing internet.

I like to surf Google and Yahoo websites when I want to find some information for my assignment because those websites have powerful search engine which provide many resources and information. Besides that, I also like to visit Facebook and Friendster. Through these websites I can easily gather the latest updates from friends, share photos with them and keep in touch with them. In addition, I also like to download the latest songs and latest movies from hdzone.org because the quality of the media in that website is nice and always being updated.

This is a good opportunity for us to enhance our e-commerce knowledge and share the e-commerce information with you all by opening this blog. If u have any comments about our blog, please don't hesitate to leave any comments. Thanks for your visiting.

MayE's Profile

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

My name is Ooi May E. I am 21 years old in year 2009. I was borned and raised in the state of Kuala Lumpur. My lovely family consists of four members, there are my dad, mum, brother and me. I am passionate about the things that interest me, such as food, shopping and some indoor activities.

I'm studying in UTAR which is located in Bandar Sg. Long campus and currently pursuing Bachelor of Commerce (Hons) Accounting. At this moment my goal is to graduate from UTAR and I'm trying to do my best to study hard and to achieve good grades in my studies.

Surfing net is one of my daily routine because internet is a good searching tools. During studies period I will visit google.com to get more information for some guidance on my assignment. This is because it is easy to use, once u put in any of those words you want to find, a ton of information will be ready for you. I also use it to search for maps during trips. The website that I visited most is Facebook to get new updates from my friends and also enjoying some of the mini games. Once in a while, I will log on to WBLE and UTAR website for more detail on my entire course.

This is the first time I am writing blog and this is a good opportunity for me to write blog about E-commerce. Our blog url is www.ultra-thiam.blogspot.com feel free to visit our blog frequently so that you will catch more information about E-Commerce. Hope that it will reflect in your daily life style.