COURSE CODE: CAP 417

COURSE NAME: Planning and Managing IT

Infrastructure
HOMEWORK 3

Submitted To– Submitted By-

Lect. Pankaj Sharma Surendra
MCA 4th SEM
D3804A15
10806601
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I declare that this assignment is my individual work. I have not copied from any
other student’s work or from any other source except where due
acknowledgment is made explicitly in the text, nor has any part been written for
me by another person.
Student’s Signature:
surendra
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Content of Homework should start from this page only:
 PART A:

Q.1) B2B, B2C and C2C are some of the strategies that have contributed a
lot in the growing business needs and helping world to be a global village?
Comment on the statement and site some real world examples to illustrate
this?
ANSWER:
B2B is the exchange of goods and services between businesses via computer
networks. This is operating on websites as private stores, customer portal,
private company marketplaces, and industry consortia-sponsored marketplace.
 It is cost reduction technique for the company so as to overcome mediator
 With advancement in technology B2B can be done with the help of
Electronic commerce.
 With the help of online auction the buyer of industrial goods can get the
product at a cheap deal, as there are many competitors in an online
auction.
 With E-Com electronic funds transfer-using EDI can be done between to
organizations.
 B2B helps in lowering the cost for selling and marketing.
 It also shortens the selling cycle.
 The most important advantage of B2B is to have JIT just in time
delivery; the company can have the track of good as to which place it has
reached with the help of electronic commerce.
Business-to-consumer (B2C, sometimes also called Business-to-Customer)
describes activities of businesses serving end consumers with products and/or
services.

An example of a B2C transaction would be a person buying a pair of shoes from

a retailer. The transactions that led to the shoes being available for purchase,
that is the purchase of the leather, laces, rubber, etc. as well as the sale of the
shoe from the shoemaker to the retailer would be considered (B2B) transactions.

B2C websites must focus on attracting prospects, converting them into customers,
and retaining them to capture additional future sales.

Consumer-to-consumer (C2C) (or citizen-to-citizen) electronic commerce

involves the electronically-facilitated transactions between consumers through
some third party. A common example is the online auction, in which a consumer
posts an item for sale and other consumers bid to purchase it; the third party
generally charges a flat fee or commission. The sites are only intermediaries, just
there to match consumers. They do not have to check quality of the products being
offered. Examples of the c2c are

 eBay
 Craigslist
 Amazon.com
 Rentalic.com
Q.2) E-business is one of the most sought advantage of internet has given
us, but in spite of advantages what can be the various issues that can be
major obstacle for the end users? Take suitable examples and explain?
ANSWER:
Customer fear that their personal data may be stolen or used
inappropriately:
An organization that wants to dominate by using superior customer service as a
competitive advantage must not only consider how to service its customers, but
also how to protect its customers. Organizations must recognize that many
consumers are unfamiliar with their digital choices, and some e-businesses are
well aware of these vulnerabilities.
Cultural and linguistic obstacles: Web site designer must avoid creating
cultural and linguistic obstacles that make a web site less attractive or effective
for any sub-group of potential users. So the designer must aware to provide the
selection to change the webpage into visitor’s home country language.
Leveraging Existing Systems
Most companies already use information technology to conduct business in non-
Internet environments, such as marketing, order management, billing, inventory,
distribution, and customer service. The Internet
represents an alternative and complementary way to do business, but it is
imperative that e-business systems integrate existing systems in a manner that
avoids duplicating functionality and maintains usability, performance, and
reliability.
Adhering to Taxation Rules
The Internet is not yet subject to the same level of taxation as traditional
businesses. While taxation should not discourage consumers from using
electronic purchasing channels, it should not favor Interne purchases over store
purchases either. Instead, a tax policy should provide a level playing field for
traditional retail businesses, mail-order companies, and Internet-based
merchants. The Internet marketplace is rapidly expanding, yet it remains mostly
free from traditional forms of taxation. In one recent study, uncollected state and
local sales taxes from e-business are projected to exceed $60 billion in 2008.
High costs associated with the development and operation of an effective
web site:
Major companies have spent in excess of $140 million to create their online
retail web site and additional ongoing operating and support costs in excess of
$10 million per year. The cost of web site varies considerably depending on
business requirements.

The other issues for customer protection are

• Unsolicited goods and communication
• Illegal or harmful goods, services, and content
 • Insufficient information about goods or their suppliers
• Invasion of privacy
• Cyberfraud

Q.3) For E-business to grow and its smooth functioning how E-governance
plays its role in contributing to make it advantage for business and what
will happen if E-governance and IT governance will not be used in E-
Business ?Site some real world examples for the application of E-
governance and IT-governance in E-business?
ANSWER:
Corporate governance is the set of processes, customs, policies, laws,
and institutions affecting the way a corporation (or company) is directed,
administered or controlled. Corporate governance also includes the relationships
among the many stakeholders involved and the goals for which the corporation
is governed. The principal stakeholders are the shareholders, management, and
the board of directors. Other stakeholders include employees,
customers, creditors, suppliers, regulators, and the community at large.

Corporate governance is a multi-faceted subject. An important theme of

corporate governance is to ensure the accountability of certain individuals in an
organization through mechanisms that try to reduce or eliminate the principal-
agent problem. A related but separate thread of discussions focuses on the
impact of a corporate governance system in economic efficiency, with a strong
emphasis on shareholders' welfare.
E-governance smooth functioning includes some basic corporate principle;
 Rights and equitable treatment of shareholders

 Interests of other stakeholders

 Role and responsibilities of the board

 Integrity and ethical behaviour

 Disclosure and transparency

The overall objectives of IT governance activities are to understand the issues

and the strategic importance of IT, to ensure that the enterprise can sustain its
operations and to ascertain that it can implement the strategies required to
extend its activities into the future. IT governance practices aim at ensuring that
expectations for IT are met, IT's performance is measured, its resources are
managed and its risks are mitigated. IT governance addresses issues such as:
• Preparation of the firm’s financial statements

• Monitoring the choice of accounting principles and policies

• Establishment of internal control

• Hiring of external auditors

• Management of risk

• Dividend of risk

The basic objective of e-governance is to support and simplify governance for

all stakeholders - government, citizens and businesses. Other functioning of e-
governance is:
Improve government processes
increase the efficiency and speed in a transparent manner
electronic interactions and transactions
simplify administrative operations
interconnect citizens, businesses and government to save significant
costs
Improve democracy
citizens have access to information and knowledge about the political
process and choices
citizens can participate in the decision-making process
citizens can communicate with each other

PART B:

Q.4) SAP is one of the biggest companies which make ERP for the
organizations, what are the various modules which are made by SAP for
the organizations and which its module is most commonly used by the
organizations and what are the various advantages it offer to an
organization where a SAP ERP has been implemented?
ANSWER:
SAP Modules:

SD Sales & Distribution

MM Materials Management MRP
PP Production Planning MRPII (with others)
QM Quality Management
PM Plant Maintenance
HR Human Resources
FINANCIAL FI Financial Accounting
CO Controlling
AM Asset Management
PS Project System
R/3 INTERNAL WF Workflow: prompt actions
IS Industry solutions: best practices

Advantages:
  ERP systems connect the necessary software in order for accurate
forecasting to be done. This allows inventory levels to be kept at maximum
efficiency and the company to be more profitable.
 Integration among different functional areas to ensure proper
communication, productivity and efficiency
 Design engineering (how to best make the product)
 Order tracking, from acceptance through fulfillment
 The revenue cycle, from invoice through cash receipt
 Managing inter-dependencies of complex processes bill of materials
 Tracking the three-way match between purchase orders (what was
ordered), inventory receipts (what arrived), and costing (what the vendor
invoiced)
 The accounting for all of these tasks: tracking the revenue, cost
and profit at a granular level.

ERP Systems centralize the data in one place. Benefits of this include:

 Eliminates the problem of synchronizing changes between multiple

systems - consolidation of finance, marketing and sales, human resource, and
manufacturing applications
 Permits control of business processes that cross functional boundaries
 Provides top-down view of the enterprise (no "islands of information"),
real time information is available to management anywhere, anytime to
make proper decisions.
 Reduces the risk of loss of sensitive data by consolidating multiple
permissions and security models into a single structure.
 Shorten production lead-time and delivery time
 Facilitating business learning, empowering, and building common visions

Q.5) Installation of ERP in an organization offers many advantages to its

end users, but what can be the various issues that can be confronted by an
organization for installation of ERP and even after its installation? Take
suitable examples to explain?
ANSWER:
Installation of ERP in an organization offers many advantages to its end users,
but it also associated with the various issues that can be confronted by an
organization for installation of ERP and even after its installation, are given
below:
 Post start-up problems
 High costs
 Lengthy implementation
 Organizational resistance
 Failing to staff the team with “A” players from business and technical
sides of the organization, including program management

Post start-up problems: There are several major ERP start-up problems
depending on the organization capabilities.
Whirlpool which is uses the ERP system; it faces the problems with
orders with quantities less than one truckload in order processing,
tracking and invoicing.
According to the Waste Management, Inc. forced to terminate ERP
project after incurring major implementation expenses.

High costs:
The cost of a typical ERP implementation is quite high, running from
several hundred thousand dollars to hundreds of millions of dollars.
There are key cost driver for an ERP implementation are
Degree of business process change expected, degree of customization
required, number of implementation locations, scope of business to be
impacted number of people impacted and degree of which legacy system
used.

Lengthy implementation:
Corporate Enterprise Outsourcing Companies providing IT services have
to clearly know what enterprise resource is planning before thinking of
implementing them. The faster it is implemented the quicker and better
are the advantages and delivery in terms of results. For example, cheap no
teletrack payday loans as well as small business credit cards are issued
much faster, teleconferencing with the help of online credit card
application forms and verifying through teleconferencing.

Organizational resistance: Organizational change and resistance is a

common experience for companies that are changing its core business
objectives. A reluctance of company employees to adopt new processes or
align with companies new strategic goals can hamper business
 performance, result in a reduction of productivity and contribute to costs
blowouts. It’s important that companies looking to implement
organizational change undertake strategic planning and evaluation to
determine how to manage the change process.

Q.6) Data ware house and data mining are the two key areas for the
storage of data in an organization and these two techniques have given
many advantages to an organization , with the help of some real world
examples site the pros and cons of these two techniques in an organization?

ANSWER:

A data warehouse is a repository of an organization's electronically stored data.

Data warehouses are designed to facilitate reporting and analysis.
Benefits
Some of the benefits that a data warehouse provides are as follows:
• A data warehouse provides a common data model for all data of interest
regardless of the data's source. This makes it easier to report and analyze
information than it would be if multiple data models were used to retrieve
information such as sales invoices, order receipts, general ledger charges,
etc.
• Prior to loading data into the data warehouse, inconsistencies are
identified and resolved. This greatly simplifies reporting and analysis.
• Information in the data warehouse is under the control of data warehouse
users so that, even if the source system data is purged over time, the
information in the warehouse can be stored safely for extended periods of
time.
• Because they are separate from operational systems, data warehouses
provide retrieval of data without slowing down operational systems.
• Data warehouses can work in conjunction with and, hence, enhance the
value of operational business applications, notably customer relationship
management (CRM) systems.
• Data warehouses facilitate decision support system applications such as
trend reports (e.g., the items with the most sales in a particular area
within the last two years), exception reports, and reports that show actual
performance versus goals.
Disadvantages
There are also disadvantages to using a data warehouse. Some of them are:
• Data warehouses are not the optimal environment for unstructured data.
• Because data must be extracted, transformed and loaded into the
warehouse, there is an element of latency in data warehouse data.
• Over their life, data warehouses can have high costs.
• Data warehouses can get outdated relatively quickly. There is a cost of
delivering suboptimal information to the organization.
• There is often a fine line between data warehouses and operational
systems. Duplicate, expensive functionality may be developed. Or,
functionality may be developed in the data warehouse that, in retrospect,
should have been developed in the operational systems and vice versa.

Data mining is the process of extracting patterns from data. Data mining is
becoming an increasingly important tool to transform this data into information.
It is commonly used in a wide range of profiling practices, such as marketing,
surveillance, fraud detection and scientific discovery.

Benefits:

Marking/Retailing

Data mining can aid direct marketers by providing them with useful and
accurate trends about their customers’ purchasing behavior. Based on these
trends, marketers can direct their marketing attentions to their customers with
more precision. For example, marketers of a software company may advertise
about their new software to consumers who have a lot of software purchasing
history. In addition, data mining may also help marketers in predicting which
products their customers may be interested in buying. Through this prediction,
marketers can surprise their customers and make the customer’s shopping
experience becomes a pleasant one.

Retail stores can also benefit from data mining in similar ways. For
example, through the trends provide by data mining, the store managers can
arrange shelves, stock certain items, or provide a certain discount that will
attract their customers.

Banking/Crediting

Data mining can assist financial institutions in areas such as credit

reporting and loan information. For example, by examining previous customers
with similar attributes, a bank can estimated the level of risk associated with
each given loan. In addition, data mining can also assist credit card issuers in
detecting potentially fraudulent credit card transaction. Although the data
mining technique is not a 100% accurate in its prediction about fraudulent
charges, it does help the credit card issuers reduce their losses.

Law enforcement

Data mining can aid law enforcers in identifying criminal suspects as well
as apprehending these criminals by examining trends in location, crime type,
habit, and other patterns of behaviors.

Researchers

Data mining can assist researchers by speeding up their data analyzing

process; thus, allowing them more time to work on other projects.

DISADVANTAGES OF DATA MINING

Privacy Issues

Personal privacy has always been a major concern in this country. In

recent years, with the widespread use of Internet, the concerns about privacy
have increase tremendously. Because of the privacy issues, some people do not
shop on Internet. They are afraid that somebody may have access to their
personal information and then use that information in an unethical way; thus
causing them harm.
 Although it is against the law to sell or trade personal information
between different organizations, selling personal information have occurred.
For example, according to Washing Post, in 1998, CVS had sold their patient’s
prescription purchases to a different company. In addition, American Express
also sold their customers’ credit card purchases to another company. What CVS
and American Express did clearly violate privacy law because they were selling
personal information without the consent of their customers? The selling of
personal information may also bring harm to these customers because you do
not know what the other companies are planning to do with the personal
information that they have purchased.

Security issues

Although companies have a lot of personal information about us available

online, they do not have sufficient security systems in place to protect that
information. For example, recently the Ford Motor credit company had to
inform 13,000 of the consumers that their personal information including Social
Security number, address, account number and payment history were accessed
by hackers who broke into a database belonging to the Experian credit reporting
agency. This incidence illustrated that companies are willing to disclose and
share your personal information, but they are not taking care of the information
properly. With so much personal information available, identity theft could
become a real problem.

Misuse of information/inaccurate information

Trends obtain through data mining intended to be used for marketing

purpose or for some other ethical purposes, may be misused. Unethical
businesses or people may used the information obtained through data mining to
take advantage of vulnerable people or discriminated against a certain group of
people. In addition, data mining technique is not a 100 percent accurate; thus
mistakes do happen which can have serious consequence.