ITECH 6210 IT Management Group Assignment

Introduction

In this report I will take one business and explain the characteristics of the business as well as
the many topics will cover in detailed that aspects of the business, ERP system, and social
networking services related to the business, how the digital economy involved in this
business.so in the first I will explain about the business and give description of the business.
Alibaba Group is a family of Internet-based businesses which makes it easy for anyone to
buy or sell online anywhere in the world. Since its inception, it has developed leading
businesses in consumer e-commerce, online payment, business-to-business marketplaces and
cloud computing, reaching Internet users in more than 240 countries and regions. Alibaba
Group consists of 25 business units and is focused on fostering the development of an open,
collaborative and prosperous e-commerce ecosystem.
Alibaba Group was founded in 1999 by 18 people led by Jack Ma, a former English teacher
from Hangzhou, China who has aspired to help make the Internet accessible, trustworthy and
beneficial for everyone. The privately held Alibaba Group, including its affiliated entities,
employs more than 24,000 people in some 70 cities in Greater China, India, Japan, Korea, the
United Kingdom and the United States.
Alibaba.com International is the leading global e-commerce platform for small businesses
around the world. It aims to be the go-to English-language platform for cross-border trade
and help small businesses worldwide expand to overseas markets. As of December 31, 2012,
the platform had around 36.7 million registered users from more than 240 countries and
regions and showcased more than 2.8 million supplier storefronts.

Digital Economy and management of IT:

Business characteristics;

They have established a strong company culture based on a shared mission, vision and value
system as the cornerstone of Alibaba Group and its subsidiaries. Our business success and
rapid growth is built on the spirit of entrepreneurship, innovation, and an unwavering focus
on meeting the needs of our customers.
When new employees join Alibaba Group, they attend an extensive orientation and teambuilding program at the company's headquarters in Hangzhou, China. This program includes
a strong focus on the company's mission, vision and values; reinforced in our regular training
programs, team-building exercises and company events. Strong shared values have enabled
us to maintain a common company culture and community, no matter how large they grow.
Because of the nature of our businesses, Alibaba Group subsidiaries are repositories of
massive amounts of market information and statistical data. As part of our commitment to
SMEs, they are working to be the first company to make this market data available free to all
of our users, enabling them to adjust their strategies to suit fast-changing market conditions
and to expand the reach of their businesses. In addition, they strive to be the company with
the highest employee satisfaction and to build a company that flourishes for at least 102
years.

Business pressures;

I have research on this company for SWOT analysis that include all the details,
Strength:
1. The site has a team of three (Britain, China, Japan), to include broader customer base, and
conducive to information exchange, an increase of the amount of information, but conducive
to building momentum to expand its influence.
2. Alibaba increases segmentation of information and comprehensive, so that more targeted
and effective.
3. The world's largest Chinese Forum has created a great convenience for traders around the
globe to exchange, and also closer to the distance between the various traders, but also to
enhance the visibility of the website.
4. A large number of members, to enhance the visibility of the brand so that the set of
information Alibaba increasing coverage, the advent of attracting business.
5. To open the "Golden supplier", a web-based transactions to ensure security

Weaknesses
1. Alibaba's Web site model is an intermediary form, and reliability of this model, which
other competitors from entering the industry to provide a sample; it increased by competitors
for itself.
2.Alibaba membership system to increase the fees in the process of transformation, will lead
to the loss of existing members, will create the opportunities for competitors, the
development of the site will be difficult.
3. Alibaba's business platform large and cluttered that it had 27 industries, 800 - 900
categories of industries as a business platform to optimize the greatest obstacles.
Opportunities

1. In China, several large banks and credit companies to participate fully in the field of ecommerce, which the depth of the development of e-commerce has created opportunities.
2. China is now speeding up the development of e-commerce legal provisions, and actively
creates a safe and regulated business environment.
3. China's existing small and medium enterprises cannot afford to start their own b2b
business website, so that online intermediaries such as the popular Alibaba their welcome.
4. The Internet continuous development and improvement, the popularization of computers,
there will be more companies have joined the online business.
Threats
1. Alibaba profits mainly in China, but China b2b business environment has constrained the
further development of Alibaba, such as a sound law, loopholes in online payment security,
not so good infrastructure in some cities, which will hold back the development of Alibaba.
2. B2B business site model, not only in the last few years with the rapid development of the
world, and gradually formed a trend - e-business alliance - that is, the trend of mergers and
cooperation, which will lead to more competitive.

Competitors
For most industries, this is the major determinant of the competitiveness of the industry.
Sometimes rivals compete aggressively and sometimes rivals compete in non-price
dimensions such as innovation, marketing, etc. The most competitive firms of Alibaba.com
are the search-websites such as Baidu.com and Google.com. The potential customers may
search the results just through these free and simpler websites but not through the B2B eplatform, which will lead Alibaba.com to lose lots of profit.
Global Sources company private limited
Global Sources is a Hong-Kong based business-to-business (B2B) Media Company that
facilitates trade between Greater China and the world. It provides sourcing information to
volume buyers and integrated marketing services to suppliers. A wide range of media is used

to connect suppliers and buyers worldwide online portals, magazines, research reports, and
trade fairs.
Global Sources advantage
1. The promotion of more channels and market research reports and organize their own event.
2. Promote experienced Global Sources has been done for 38 years, is the old platform to
promote and experience.
3. Has its own fixed base of buyers, manufacturers.

Relevant or potential new technologies.

Alibaba Cloud Computing was established in September 2009 with the mission of building
an advanced data-centric cloud computing service platform. The company is committed to
supporting the growth of Alibaba Group and the whole e-commerce ecosystem by providing
a comprehensive suite of Internet-based computing services, which include e-commerce data
mining, high-speed massive e-commerce data processing, and data customization. Alibaba
Cloud Computing is wholly owned by Alibaba Group.
The cloud OS will feature cloud services including e-mail, Internet search, weather updates
and mapping&GPS navigation tools. A distinguishing feature of the cloud OS is its support
for web-based apps. These offer users an Internet-like experience and do not require the user
to download or install application software on their mobile devices. Cloud OS users can
seamlessly synchronize, store and back-up data such as contact information, call logs, text
messages, notes and photos to AliCloud's remote data centre, and can also access and update
this data across all their PC and mobile devices. AliCloud will provide each cloud OS user
with a total of 100 gigabytes of data storage initially, with plans to expand according to user
needs.

E-Business and online social networks services

E-commerce management

Alipay is a third-party online payment platform. According to analyst research report, Alipay
has the biggest market share in China with over 700 million registered accounts as of the end
of 2012. However how many active or unique accounts this translates to is unknown, with
Alibaba Group refusing to provide an answer. It is highly likely that this figure will surpass
PayPal's 117 million active users regardless.
Alipay provides Escrow service, in which consumers can verify whether they are happy with
goods they have bought before releasing money to the seller. This has been a significant
advantage to the service as China's weak consumer protection laws have reduced consumer
confidence in C2C and even B2C quality control.
Alipay partners with more than 100 financial institutions including Visa and MasterCard to
provide payment solutions for Taobao.com and Tmall.com as well as more than 460,000
Chinese businesses. Internationally, Alipay connects more than 300 worldwide merchants

directly to consumers in China. It currently supports transactions in 12 major foreign

currencies. Alipay is an affiliate of Alibaba Group.
Alibaba.coms Escrow Service will hold your payment while the order is being processed.
Payment will be released to the supplier upon your confirmation. Available for Sea
Freight, Air Cargo and Express shipping methods. Place an order, pay, and track your
delivery online.

How Escrow works?

Buyer Starts an Order
1. Buyer starts by placing an order on the supplier's Company Website on Alibaba.com or
on a product's details page.

2.

Buyer

creates

a Purchase

Order

or

Draft

Contract

After choosing the shipping method, buyer fills in other required information about the order
and

sends

it

to

the

supplier.

Tips: Click on "Contact Alibaba for Help" to get assistance from a customer service
representative.

3. Buyer Pays to Escrow

Payment methods available: T/T, Western Union, Credit Card.

To

manage

your

order,

sign

in

to http://us.my.alibaba.com/order/index.htm.

to My

Alibaba

-->

Transaction or

go

4. Supplier Ships the Order

To check the status of your order, sign in to My Alibaba --> Transaction or go
to http://us.my.alibaba.com/order/index.htm.
Tips: For help or other inquiries, please contact our customer service representatives.

5. Buyer Confirms & Releases Payment

Before releasing payment, please make sure you have received and verified all the shipping
documents

To

manage

specified
your

order,

in
sign

in

to My

the
Alibaba

-->

order.
Transaction or

to http://us.my.alibaba.com/order/index.htm.
Tips: For help or other inquiries, please contact our customer service representatives.

go

Impacts of online social networks on the business

Facebook
Impacts of social site

Respond rapidly

Achieving

Goals-

the

continued growth

of

social

networking technology is helping more businesses achieve goals

that had previously been almost unreachable. Before the advent of
social networks, viral marketing, in which friends or associates
recommended products and services to each other, was considered
more of an ideal than a reality

Efficiencies Grow- E-businesses continue to gain more efficiencies as

the number of people using the technology grows. Companies are
maintaining one-to-one marketing strategies regardless of how large
the number of customers or partners involved gets. These networks
are making recruitment efforts more precise and reducing the cost
and time involved in recruiting

Doing e-business Globally

Contact Info
Website

http://www.alibaba.com
http://au.alibaba.com
http://www.aliexpress.com

Facebook page link

https://www.facebook.com/Alibaba.AU

Combining e-business and online social networks

YouTube
Using this YouTube site Alibaba provide all the information to their consumer, business
people and all over the world.

Gives information about current economies and opportunities

Successful small business stories

Provide all the information that

1. Why choose Alibaba
2. How to use it?
3. How to search it?
4. supplier information
5. membership of e-business

6. Business tips and good ideas

YouTube link
http://www.youtube.com/user/TeamAlibaba

Refrees

Jones, Terril Yue (28 July 2011). "UPDATE 2-Alibaba launches smartphone running

its Cloud OS". Reuters. Retrieved 23 September 2012.

http://www.alibaba.com/help/safety_security/products/escrow/how.html#buyer-start-

order
Kanawati, R., & Malek, M. (2007). Computing Social Networks for Information
Sharing: A Case-Based Approach. In Online Communities and Social Computing,

LNCS (Vol. 4564, pp. 86-95). Berlin: Springer.

Kannan, P. K., Chang, A. M., & Whinston, A. B. (2000). Electronic communities in e-

business: Their role and Issues. Inform Syst Front, 1 (4), 415-426.
Kaplan, A. M., & Haenlein, M. (2010). Users of the world, unite! The challenges and
opportunities of Social Media. Business Horizons, 53, 5968.

Mayer, A. (2009). Online social networks in economics. Decision Support Systems,

47, 169-184
Turban, E., & Volonino, L. (2011). Information Technology for Management:
Improving Strategic and Operational Performance. Hoboken NJ: John Wiley & Sons,
Inc.