Assignment

Name Registration No. Learning Centre : Ajeet Singh Yadav : 521012598 : Apar India College of Management and Technology Learning Centre Code Course Subject : 01713 : MBA(Information System) : MB0052 Strategic Management and Business Policy Semester Module No Date of Submission Marks Awarded : IV : Set - 1 : :

Directorate of Distance Education Sikkim Manipal University IInd Floor, Syndicate House Manipal 576104

Signature of Coordinator

Signature of Centre

Signature of Evaluator

1. What is meant by Strategy? Differentiate between goals and objectives. Ans: Strategy is a common direction set for the company and its various components to accomplish a desired position in the future. A meticulous planning process results in strategy. It is the comprehension of the goals which has logical step by step process. It defines the general mission and vision of an organisation. It is important to consider that the decisions taken by an organisation are likely to affect the employees, customers and competitors. Strategy guides the organisation to achieve a long term goal. The strategy is advantageous to the organisation through its configuration of resources within a challenging environment. It helps to meet the requirements of market and stakeholder expectations. Strategy is a plan that is aimed to give a competitive advantage to the organisation over rivals through differentiation. Creating a strategy begins with extensive research and analysis. It is a process through which senior management concentrates on top priority issues tackled by the company to be successful in a long term. Differences between Organisational Goals and Objectives Goals Are long term Are general intentions with broad outcome Cannot be validated Are intangible can be qualitative as well as quantitative Are abstract Objectives Are usually meant for short term Are precise statements with specific outcome Can be validated Are tangible are usually quantitative and measurable Are concrete

2. Define the term Strategic Management. What are the types of strategies? Ans: Strategic management is a systematic approach of analysing, planning and implementing the strategy in an organisation to ensure a continued success. Strategic management is a long term procedure which helps the organisation in achieving a long term goal and its overall responsibility lies with the general management team. It focuses on building a solid foundation that will be subsequently achieved by the combined efforts of each and every employee of the organisation.

Types of Strategies : 1. Corporate level : The board of directors and chief executive officers are involved in developing strategies at corporate level. Corporate level strategies are innovative, pervasive and futuristic in nature. The four grand strategies in a corporate level are: Stability strategy : The basic approach of the stability strategy is to maintain the present status of the organisation. In an effective stability strategy, the organisation tries to maintain consistency by concentrating on their present resources and rapidly develops a meaningful competitiveness with the market requirements. Expansion strategy : The organisations adopt expansion strategy when it increases its level of objectives much higher than the past achievement level. Organisations select expansion strategy to increase their profit, sales and market share. Expansion strategy also provides a significant increase in the performance of the organisation. Many organisations pursue expansion strategy to reduce the cost production per unit. Retrenchment : Retrenchment strategy is followed by an organisation which aims to reduce the size of activities in terms of its customer groups, customer functions, or alternative technologies. Corporate restructuring : Corporate restructuring is the process of fundamental change in the current strategy and direction of the organisation. This change affects the structure of the organisation. Corporate restructuring involves increasing or decreasing the levels of personnel among top level, mid-level and lower level management. It is reorganising and reassigning of roles and responsibilities of the personnel due to unsatisfactory performance and poor results. Combination strategies concept of synergy : Combination strategy is a process of combining - stability, expansion and retrenchment strategies. This is used either at the same time in various businesses or at different times in the same business. It results in better performance of the organisation. 2. Business level : Business level strategy relates to a unit within an organisation. Mainly strategic business unit (SBU) managers are involved in this level. It is the process of formulating the objectives of the organisation and allocating the resources among various functional areas. Business level strategy is more specific and action oriented. It mainly relates to how a strategy functions rather than what a strategy is in corporate level. The main aspects of business level strategies are related with: Business stakeholders Achieving cost leadership and differentiation Risk factors

3. Tactical of functional level : The functional strategy mainly includes the strategies related to specific functional area in the organisation such as production, marketing, finance and personnel (employees). Decisions at functional level are often described as tactical decisions. Tactical decision means involving or pertaining to actions for short term than those of a larger purpose. Considering tactical decisions in functional level strategy describes involving actions to specific functional area. The aim of the functional strategy is doing things right whereas the corporate and business level strategy stresses on doing the right thing. The different types of strategies at functional level are: Procuring and managing : Procuring basically means purchasing or owning. In the management field procuring is the process of purchasing goods or services which includes ordering, obtaining transport, and storage for organisation use. Monitoring and directing resources towards the goal : Monitoring and directing is the essential part of management. Monitoring means knowing what is going on. Monitoring is also called as measuring. In an organisation monitoring includes measuring the performance of the organisation to check whether the strategy implemented is achieved or not. 4. Operational level : Operational level is concerned with successful implementation of strategic decisions made at corporate and business level. The basic function of this level is translating the strategic decisions into strategic actions. The basic aspects in operational level are: Achieving cost and operational efficiency Optimal utilisation of resources Productivity 3. Describe Porters five forces Model. Ans : Michael E. Porter developed the Five Force Model in his book, Competitive Strategy. Porter has identified five competitive forces that influence every industry and market. The level of these forces determines the intensity of competition in an industry. The objective of corporate strategy should be to revise these competitive forces in a way that improves the position of the organisation. Figure 3.4 describes forces driving industry competitions. Forces driving industry competitions are: Threat of new entrants New entrants to an industry generally bring new capacity; desire to gain market share and substantial resources. Therefore, they are threats to an established organisation. The threat of an entry depends on the presence of

entry barriers and the reactions can be expected from existing competitors. An entry barrier is a hindrance that makes it difficult for a company to enter an industry.

Figure 3.4 Forces Driving Industry Competitions Suppliers Suppliers affect the industry by raising prices or reducing the quality of purchased goods and services. Rivalry among existing firms In most industries, organisations are mutually dependent. A competitive move by one organisation may result in a noticeable effect on its competitors and thus cause retaliation or counter efforts. Buyers Buyers affect an industry through their ability to reduce prices, bargain for higher quality or more services. Threat of substitute products and services Substitute products appear different but satisfy the same needs as the original product. Substitute products curb the potential returns of an industry by placing a ceiling on the prices firms can profitably charge. Other stakeholders - A sixth force should be included to Porters list to include a variety of stakeholder groups. Some of these groups include governments, local communities, trade association unions, and shareholders. The importance of stakeholders varies according to the industry. 4. What is strategic formulation and what are its processes? Ans : Strategy formulation is the development of long term plans. It is used for the effective management of environmental opportunities and for the threats which weaken corporate management. Its objective is to express strategical information to achieve a definite goal. Process in Strategy Formulation The main processes involved in strategy formulation are as follows:

Stimulate the identification - Identifying useful information like planning for strategic management, objectives to achieve the goals of the employees and the stakeholders. Utilisation and transfer of useful information as per the business strategies - A number of questions arising during utilisation and transfer of information have to be solved The questions that arise during utilisation and transfer of information are the following: Who has the requested information? What is the relationship between the partners who holds the requested information? What is the nature of the requested information? How can we transfer the information? 5. Explain strategic evaluation and its significance. Ans : Strategy Evaluation : The core aim of strategic management succeeds only if it generates a positive outcome. Strategic evaluation and control consists of data and reports about the performance of the organisation. Improper analysis, planning or implementation of the strategies will result in negative performance of the organisation. The top management needs to be updated about the performance to take corrective actions for controlling the undesired performance. All strategies are subject to constant modifications as the internal and external factors influencing a strategy change constantly. It is essential for the strategist to constantly evaluate the performance of the strategies on a timely basis. Strategic evaluation and control ensures that the organisation is implementing the relevant strategy to reach its objectives. It compares the current performance with the desired results and if necessary, provides feedback to the management to take corrective measures. Strategic evaluation consists of performance and activity reports. If performance results are beyond the tolerance range, new implementation procedures are introduced. One of the obstacles to effective strategic control is the difficulty in developing appropriate measures for important activities. Strategic control stimulates the strategic managers to investigate the use of strategic planning and implementation. After the evaluation, the manager will have knowledge about the cause of the problem and the corrective actions. The five step process of strategic evaluation and control is illustrated in figure 5.1. Recognise the activity to be measured : Top management including the operations manager has to specify the implementation processes and the results that are to be evaluated. The processes and results must be compared with the organisations objectives in a consistent manner. The strategy of all the important areas must be evaluated irrespective of the difficulty. However, focus should be on the most significant elements in a process. Example The process that accounts for the highest proportion of expense, the greatest number of problems etc.

Figure 5.1: Strategy Evaluation and Control Process Retrieved from Concepts in Strategic Management and Business Policy by Thomas L.Wheelen, J.David Hunger (2002), Pearson Education, New Delhi. Create the pre-established standards Strategic objectives provide a crystal view of the standards to measure performance. Each standard defines a tolerance range for acceptable deviations. Standards can also be set for the output of intermediate stages of production along with the final output. Measure actual performance Actual performance must be measured on a timely basis. Status of actual performance If the results of the actual performance are within the tolerance range, the evaluation process stops here. Take remedial action If the actual performance result exceeds the tolerance range, corrective actions must be taken to control the deviation. The following questions must be answered: i) Is the variation, a minor or temporary fluctuation? ii) Are the procedures being implemented appropriately? iii) Are the procedures appropriate to the achievement of the desired standard? 6. Define the term Business policy. Explain its importance. Ans : Business policies are the instructions laid by an organisation to manage its activities. It identifies the range within which the subordinates can take decisions in

an organisation. It authorises the lower level management to resolve their issues and take decisions without consulting the top level management repeatedly. The limits within which the decisions are made are well defined. Business policy involves the acquirement of resources through which the organisational goals can be achieved. Business policy analyses roles and responsibilities of top level management and the decisions affecting the organisation in the long-run. It also deals with the major issues that affect the success of the organisation. Importance of Business Policies A company operates consistently, both internally and externally when the policies are established. Business policies should be set up before hiring the first employee in the organisation. It deals with the constraints of real-life business. It is important to formulate policies to achieve the organisational objectives. The policies are articulated by the management. Policies serve as a guidance to administer activities that are repetitive in nature. It channels the thinking and action in decision making. It is a mechanism adopted by the top management to ensure that the activities are performed in the desired way. The complete process of management is organised by business policies. Business policies are important due to the following reasons: Coordination Reliable policies coordinate the purpose by focusing on organisational activities. This helps in ensuring uniformity of action throughout the organisation. Policies encourage cooperation and promote initiative. Quick decisions Policies help subordinates to take prompt action and quick decisions. They demarcate the section within which decisions are to be taken. They help subordinates to take decisions with confidence without consulting their superiors every time. Every policy is a guide to activities that should be followed in a particular situation. It saves time by predicting frequent problems and providing ways to solve them. Effective control Policies provide logical basis for assessing performance. They ensure that the activities are synchronised with the objectives of the organisation. It prevents divergence from the planned course of action. The management tends to deviate from the objective if policies are not defined precisely. This affects the overall efficiency of the organisation. Policies are derived objectives and provide the outline for procedures. Decentralisation Well defined policies help in decentralisation as the executive roles and responsibility are clearly identified. Authority is delegated to the executives who refer the policies to work efficiently. The required managerial procedures can be derived from the given policies. Policies provide guidelines to the executives to help them in determining the suitable actions which are within the limits of the stated policies. Policies contribute in building coordination in larger organisations.

Assignment
Name Registration No. Learning Centre : Ajeet Singh Yadav : 521012598 : Apar India College of Management and Technology Learning Centre Code Course Subject : 01713 : MBA(Information System) : MB0053 International Business Management Semester Module No Date of Submission Marks Awarded : IV : Set - 1 : :

Directorate of Distance Education Sikkim Manipal University IInd Floor, Syndicate House Manipal 576104

Signature of Coordinator

Signature of Centre

Signature of Evaluator

1. What is globalisation and what are its benefits? Ans : Globalisation is a process where businesses are dealt in markets around the world, apart from the local and national markets. According to business terminologies, globalisation is defined as the worldwide trend of businesses expanding beyond their domestic boundaries. It is advantageous for the economy of countries because it promotes prosperity in the countries that embrace globalisation. In this section, we will understand globalisation, its benefits and challenges. Some of the benefits of globalisation are as follows: Promotes foreign trade and liberalisation of economies. Increases the living standards of people in several developing countries through capital investments in developing countries by developed countries. Benefits customers as companies outsource to low wage countries. Outsourcing helps the companies to be competitive by keeping the cost low, with increased productivity. Promotes better education and jobs. Leads to free flow of information and wide acceptance of foreign products, ideas, ethics, best practices, and culture. Provides better quality of products, customer services, and standardised delivery models across countries. Gives better access to finance for corporate and sovereign borrowers. Increases business travel, which in turn leads to a flourishing travel and hospitality industry across the world. Increases sales as the availability of cutting edge technologies and production techniques decrease the cost of production. Provides several platforms for international dispute resolutions in business, which facilitates international trade. 2. Discuss in brief the Absolute and comparative cost advantage theories. Ans : Absolute advantage Adam Smith (a social philosopher and a pioneer of politicl economics) argued that nations differ in their ability to manufacture goods efficiently and he saw that a country gains by trading. If the two countries exchanged two goods at a ratio of 1:1, country I gets one unit of goods B by sacrificing only 10 units of labour, whereas it has to give up 20 units of labour if it produced the goods itself. In the same manner, country II gives up only 10 units of labour to get one unit of goods A, whereas it has to give up 20 units of labour if it was made by itself. Hence, it was understood that both countries had large amount of both goods by trading. Comparative advantage Ricardo (english political economist) questioned Smiths theory stating that if one country is more productive than the other in all lines of production and if country I

can produce all goods with less labour costs, will there be a need for the countries to trade. The reply was affirmative. He used England and Portugal as examples in his demonstration, the two goods they produced being wine and cloth. This case is explained using table 2.1 and 2.2.
Table 2.1: Cost Comparison Labour cost of production (in hours) 1 unit of wine 1 unit of cloth Portugal 70 80 England 110 90

According to him, Portugal has an advantage in both areas of manufacture. To demonstrate that trade between both countries will lead to gains, the concept of opportunity cost (OC) is introduced. The OC for good X is the amount of other goods that have to be given up in order to produce one additional unit of X.

Table 2.2: Opportunity Costs Opportunity costs for Wine cloth 70/80 = 7/8 80/70 = 8/7 110/90 = 11 /9 90/110 = 9/11

Portugal England

3. How is culture an integral part of international business. What are its elements? Ans : Culture is defined as the art and other signs or demonstrations of human customs, civilisation, and the way of life of a specific society or group. Culture determines every aspect that is from birth to death and everything in between it. It is the duty of people to respect other cultures, other than their culture. Research shows that national cultures generally characterise the dominant groups values and practices in society, and not of the marginalised groups, even though the marginalised groups represent a majority or a minority in the society. Culture is very important to understand international business. Culture is the part of environment, which human has created, it is the total sum of knowledge, arts, beliefs, laws, morals, customs, and other abilities and habits gained by people as part of society. The following are the four factors that question assumptions regarding the impact of global business in culture: National cultures are not homogeneous and the impact of globalisation on heterogeneous cultures is not easily predicted. Culture is not similar to cultural practice. Globalisation does not characterise a rupture with the past but is a continuation of prior trends.

 Globalisation is only one of many processes involved in cultural change. Cultural elements that relate business The most important cultural components of a country which relate business transactions are: Language : Language is something more than just spoken and written words. Gestures, non-verbal communication, facial expressions, and body language all communicate a message. An interpreter is used when two people do not speak common language. Failure in understanding the cultural context when non-verbal communication takes place or failure in reading the person across the table results in sending a wrong signal. Religion : The dominant religious beliefs within a culture have a great impact on a persons approach to business than most people expect, even if that person is not a follower of a specific culture. Conflicting attitudes : Cultural values have a massive effect on the way business is carried out. The cultural values that are evident in everyday life are not only shown in business but they are exaggerated. If the cultural basics are not understood, then there is possibility that a deal ends even before the negotiations start. 4. Describe the tools and methods of country risk analysis. Ans : Methods of country risk analysis are : Fully qualitative method - The fully qualitative method involves a detailed analysis of a country. It includes general discussion of a countrys economic, political, and social conditions and prediction. Fully qualitative method can be adapted to the unique strengths and problems of the country undergoing evaluation Structured qualitative method The structured method uses a uniform format with predetermined scope. In structured qualitative method, it is easier to make comparisons between countries as it follows a specific format across countries. This technique was the most popular among the banks during the late seventies. Checklist method - The checklist method involves scoring the country based on specific variables that can be either quantitative, in which the scoring does not need personal judgment of the country being scored or qualitative, in which the scoring needs subjective determinations. All items are scaled from the lowest to the highest score. The sum of scores is then used to determine the country risk. Delphi technique The technique involves a set of independent opinions without group discussion. As applied to country risk analysis, the MNC can assess definite

employees who have the capability to evaluate the risk characteristics of a particular country. The MNC gets responses from its evaluation and then may determine some opinions about the risk of the country. Inspection visits Involves travelling to a country and conducting meeting with government officials, business executives, and consumers. These meetings clarify any vague opinions the firm has about the country. Following are the tools recommended: Chain of value - Includes the main countries that sustain trade relationships with the nation, broken by sectors and products. Strength and weakness chart - Focus the key aspects that warn the country. Table of financial markets performance - Follow up the behavior of bonds and stocks already issued and to be issued. Table of macroeconomic variables - Provides alert signals when the behavior of any ratio presents a relevant change. 5. Write short notes on: a. Spot and forward contracts b. Foreign currency derivatives Ans : Spot and Forward contracts - A Spot contract is a binding obligation to buy or sell a definite amount of foreign currency at the existing or spot market rate. A forward contract is a binding obligation to buy or sell a definite amount of foreign currency at the pre-agreed rate of exchange, on or before a certain date. The advantage of spot dealing has resulted in a simplest way to deal with all foreign currency requirements. It carries the greatest risk of exchange rate fluctuations due to lack of certainty of the rate until the deal is carried out. The spot rate that is intended to receive will be set by current market conditions, the demand and supply of currency being traded and the amount to be dealt. In general, a better spot rate can be received if the amount of dealing is high. The spot deal will come to an end in two working days after the deal is struck. A forward market needs a more complex calculation. A forward rate is based on the existing spot rate plus a premium or discounts which are determined by the interest rate connecting the two currencies that are involved. For example, the interest rates of UK are higher than that of US and therefore a modification is made to the spot rate to reflect the financial effect of this differential over the period of the forward contract. The duration will be up to two years for a forward contract. A variation in foreign exchange markets can be affected to any company whether or not they are

directly involved in the international trade or not. This is often referred to as Economic foreign exchange and most difficult to protect a business. Foreign currency derivatives : Currency derivative is defined as a financial contract in order to swap two currencies at a predestined rate. It can also be termed as the agreement where the value can be determined from the rate of exchange of two currencies at the spot. The currency derivative trades in markets correspond to the spot (cash) market. Hence, the spot market exposures can be enclosed with the currency derivatives. The main advantage from derivative hedging is the basket of currency available. 6. Discuss the importance of transfer pricing for MNCs. Ans : Transfer pricing : Transfer pricing is the process of setting a price that will be charged by a subsidiary (unit) of a multi-unit firm to another unit for goods and services, which are sold between such related units. Transfer pricing is a critical issue for a firm operating internationally. Transfer pricing is determined in three ways: market based pricing, transfer at cost and cost-plus pricing. The Arms Length pricing rule is used to establish the price to be charged to the subsidiary. Transfer pricing can also be defined as the rates or prices that are utilised when selling goods or services between a parent company and a subsidiary or company divisions and departments that may be across many countries. The price that is set for the exchange in the process of transfer pricing may be a rate that is reduced due to internal depreciation or the original purchase price of the goods in question. When properly used, transfer pricing helps to efficiently manage the ratio of profit and loss within the company. Transfer pricing is a relatively simple method of moving goods and services among the overall corporate family. Many managers consider transfer pricing as non-market based. The reason for transfer pricing may be internal or external. Internal transfer pricing include motivating managers and monitoring performance. External factors include taxes, tariffs, and other charges. Transfer Pricing Manipulation (TPM) is used to overcome these reasons. Governments usually discourage TPM since it is against transfer pricing, where transfer pricing is the act of pricing commodities or services. However, in common terminology, transfer pricing generally refers TPM. TPM assists in saving the organisations tax by shifting accounting profits from high tax to low tax jurisdictions.

Assignment
Name Registration No. Learning Centre : Ajeet Singh Yadav : 521012598 : Apar India College of Management and Technology Learning Centre Code Course Subject Semester Module No Date of Submission Marks Awarded : 01713 : MBA(Information System) : MI0038 Enterprise Resource Planning : IV : Set - 1 : :

Directorate of Distance Education Sikkim Manipal University IInd Floor, Syndicate House Manipal 576104

Signature of Coordinator

Signature of Centre

Signature of Evaluator

Q1.Why are ERP systems said to be flexible? Explain with an example. Ans : Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software is intentionally designed to model and automate many of the basic processes of a company. It established an effective link between the various functions of a company from the top level to the bottom level of the hierarchy, with the goal of integrating information across the company, for example, a communication channel is established between the finance department and the shop floor for information sharing,. This software helped in eliminating complex and expensive links between computer systems that were never meant to talk to each other. It also established a faultless and continues flow of information within the company.

Figure 1.1: Information Integration through ERP Systems Figure 1.1 shows how information is integrated within an organisation using an ERP system. This system is similar to the pre-ERP system but, in the ERP system all the different departments of an organisation are linked to a centralised system which stores all the information from various departments. Any department at any time can gain access to any required information from another department via ERP or from the ERP database itself. The manufacturing department can access information form quality management department via ERP system. This shows the flexibility of a system, where independent departments are bonded together as a unit and any two departments can establish communication at ease without depending on any other departments. ERP systems are a set of generic processes, they are capable of producing dramatic improvements, when used to connect parts of an organisation, and integrate its various processes seamlessly. For example, when a warehouse in Noida enters a customer order, for example, the data flows automatically to others

in the company who need to see it. Data flows to the finance department at the company headquarters in Mumbai, and to the manufacturing plant in Chennai. The advantage of ERP packages is their flexibility. Different languages, currencies, accounting standards, and so on can be covered in one system, and functions that systematically manage multiple locations of a company can be packaged and implemented automatically. To cope with company globalisation and system unification, this flexibility is essential, and we can say that it has major advantages, not simply for development and maintenance, but also in terms of management. Q2.Explain with an example the concept of supply chain management? Ans : A supply chain can be defined as a network of facilities and distribution options that performs the function of procurement of materials, transformation of these materials into intermediate and finished products, and the distribution of these finished products to customers. Both in service and manufacturing organisations supply chains system exist. However, the complexity of the chain may vary greatly from industry to industry and firm to firm. Traditionally, the departments like the marketing, distribution, planning, manufacturing, and purchasing of an organisation operated independently along the supply chain. This kind of traditional organisations each departments had their own objectives, which often conflict with other departments objectives. For example, Marketing's objective of high customer service and maximum sales revenue conflicts with manufacturing and distribution goals. Many manufacturing operations are designed to maximise throughput and lower costs, but very little concern was given for the impact of this on inventory levels and distribution capabilities. With the very little information and based on the historical buying patterns purchasing contracts were often negotiated. This resulted in chaos and there was not a single, integrated plan for the organisation there were plans as many as services the company offered. This clearly demanded a need for a mechanism through which these different functions can be integrated together. Supply chain management is a strategy through which such integration can be achieved. The integration process of Supply chain business process involves collaborative work between buyers and suppliers, joint product development, common systems, and shared information. But one has to understand that continues information flow is required to operate an integrated supply chain. Top management of many companies have reached the conclusion that optimising the product flows cannot be accomplished without implementing a process approach to the business.

Q3.Differentiate between Open Source and Commercial ERP. Briefly explain the key principles to a proper ERP system selection process. Ans : Differentiate between Open Source and Commercial ERP are : Commercial ERP Open Source ERP

Expensive Always backed by well known brands Assured training and after sales support Suitable only for bigger corporations Non flexible Usage modalities are rarely liberal and cause troubles when they are modified Deployment is costly and inconvenient Companies might have to change their business process to adapt to this ERP Enhancements in the product is intimated to its customers Consumes a lot of time during implementation Lots of training is required for the employees. It calls for lots of investments in terms of time and money Less secure

Free of cost Usually not backed by well known brands Training and after sales support is not guaranteed Suitable for small companies and bigger corporations Can be modified as licenses are available along with the source code Companies can do the necessary modifications in code rather than changing their business policies Does not interfere with the regular schedule of the company during implementation Enhancements in the product is not known Implementation time is very less Procedures for training employees are very easy does not require much training as source code is more than a training manual More secure and indicate whenever something goes wrong

Proper ERP system selection methodology It is important to apply key principles to the process to address common mistakes that lead to an improper ERP system selection, they include: Structured approach The first step in selection of a new system is to adopt a structured approach to the process. The set of practices are presented to all the stakeholders within the enterprise before the system selection process begins. Everyone needs to understand the method of gathering requirements, invitation to tender, how potential vendors are selected, the format of demonstrations, and the process for selecting the vendor. Focused demonstrations Demonstrations by potential vendors must be relevant to the business. However, it is important to understand that there is considerable amount of preparation required by vendors to perform demonstrations that are specific to a business. Therefore, it is imperative that vendors are treated equally in requests for demonstrations. Objective decision process "Choosing which ERP to use is a complex decision that has significant economic consequences, thus it requires a multi-criterion approach."4 There are two key points to note when the selection criteria used in evaluating potential vendors. First, the criteria and the scoring system must be agreed prior to viewing any potential systems. Secondly, in no circumstance should people with affiliations to one or more systems be allowed to advise in this regard. Full involvement by all personnel The stakeholders within the enterprise must decide on the system. "It requires top management leadership and participation it involves virtually every department within the company"5. Representatives should: Be involved in the project initiation phase Assist in the gathering of requirements Attend the Vendor Demonstrations Have a significant participation in the short-listing and final selection of a vendor.

Q4.What is ATO and how is it different from ETO? List the advantages of CAD/CAM. Ans : Assemble-to-Order (ATO): Assemble-to-Order (ATO) company is another variation of the manufacturing operations. The ATO company manufactures standardised, option modules according to the forecasts it has made and then assembles a specific combination, or package of modules, after receiving the customer's order. The classic example is the automobile manufacturer. After

receiving orders from a host of dealers, the manufacturer specifies the exact production schedule for the automobiles. The schedule is based on the options order by the customers, like automatic transmission or manual transmission, air-conditioning, standard or digital control panel, leather, cloth or vinyl seating, and so on. Many components for assembling the automobiles would have be ordered or started into production before receiving the customer's order based upon demand forecasts. Thus, the major processing that remains when the orders come in is assembly. This approach shortens the time between placement of the order and delivery of the product cycle time. Engineer-to-Order (ETO) : Yet another variant in the manufacturing operations is the Engineer-to-Order (ETO) company. The ETO Company is the ultimate in product variety, product customisation and flexibility. In this mode of operation, as per customer order the company manufactures any thing, but at a higher price. The expensive clothing of the 'bold and beautiful' is an example of this kind of production. Computer Aid Design/Computer Aid Manufacturing Computer Aid Design/Computer Aid Manufacturing (CAD / CAM) are the other major focus area for the manufacturing sector. Traditionally, the automotive and aerospace industries are the largest consumers of CAD/CAM. With the automotive sector in the depression, vendors were not able to meet their expectations from this industry. On the other hand, the farm auto sector did better in comparison. Mahindra & Mahindra (Tractor Division) has grown considerably in the last three years and their manufacturing capacity has doubled. This is accompanied with significant improvement in design capacity. Increasing design capacity is also a competitive edge for a company. For example, Tata Johnson Controls, which makes seating systems, started off by designing seats solely for Ford. With increased design capacity using advanced CAD/CAM, they went on to supply seating systems to many other auto majors. The major focus area in CAD/CAM is on design analysis, development, and manufacturing. Styling and ergonomics are the refinement areas to achieve design excellence. There were only marginal investments in modelling. There is also a trend developing for reverse engineering, especially in the engineering and appliances industry. Manufacturing, companies in the BPL Group have taken up reverse engineering.

Q5.How does the plant maintenance module help in achieving competitiveness? Write a note of Quality Management. Ans : Plant Maintenance : The achievement of outstanding performance demands delivery of quality products expeditiously and economically. Organisations simply cannot achieve excellence with unreliable equipment. The approach towards maintenance management has changed as a result of quick response manufacturing. Just-in-Time (JIT) reduction of work in process inventory and the elimination of wasteful manufacturing practices. Before breakdown in machine and idle time for repair was once an accepted practice. Times have changed. Today, when there is a break down in a machine, it can shut down the production line and the customer's entire plant. The Preventive Maintenance (PM) module provides an integrated solution for supporting the operational needs of an enterprise-wide system. The Plant Maintenance module includes an entire family of product; covering all aspects of plant/equipment maintenance. It becomes vital to the achievement of process improvement. The major subsystems of a Plant Maintenance module are: Preventive Maintenance Control Equipment Tracking Component Tracking Plant Maintenance Calibration Tracking Plant Maintenance Warranty Claims Tracking

Quality Management : With product quality under the microscope in all industries today, every company strives for superior quality in its products and services. All manufacturing modules track quality control activities across the enterprise, from intermediate producers to finished goods. These systems allow a wide variety of characteristics and parameters to be specified in test and inspection operations. They also maintain an extensive history of data, to improve product quality and identify recurring problems. Material Inspection subsystem offers a wide range of capabilities for process supervision and control. These capabilities are fully integrated with the other modules like purchasing, inventory management, and shop floor control functions, to ensure that the right quality control procedures are followed. It also includes various other functions like on-line maintenance of product specification by production method and customer, event driven sample requests, sample log-in, entry of test results, quality performance analysis, and equipment calibration support. Product quality metrics are collected and archived in a manner that offers full support for statistical process control techniques.

Q6.Explain the working of Warehouse Management and Purchase department with an example? Ans : Warehouse Management : This module provides real-time information about inventory levels across the enterprise and tools to manage the daily operational needs of warehouses. Coordination of an organisation's warehouse network is one of today's most important business needs and requires an understanding of the relationship between the different organisation units such as warehouses, production facilities, sales offices, and purchase offices.Components of a good Warehouse Management application include: Inventory Planning: This comprises of all planned inventory movements, which enable the accurate forecasting of trends and the consequent adjustment of reordering points, safety stock, lead-times for orders, and service levels. Inventory Handling: This allows monitoring of all warehouse order scenarios such as the receipt and issue and transfer of inventory. To ensure fast communication with suppliers and customer, advanced shipping notifications can be received or sent by means of EDI which enables shipments to be received and allocated ahead of time. Inventory Reporting: This function permits full visibility of inventory at single or multiple sites and provides a company with the tools to give customers accurate delivery dates. Inventory Analysis: This function enables the analysis of information that result from warehousing activities and the use of feedback in process optimisation. In addition, inventory analysis supports inventory forecasting and inventory valuation. Purchase Department : The purchase department of the organization is responsible for purchasing materials required for manufacturing products in the right quantities, of the right quality, and at the right time. In any company, the process of purchase begins with the material requirement. The requirement is as per demand by a department. These requirements are routed through the stores. The purchase department raises the purchase order to initiate the purchase process. Purchase orders are created when there is shortage of materials for production of products. The vendor supplies goods based on the purchase order. All purchase orders are treated as pending purchase orders till the time the material is received from the vendors. On receiving of goods, a receipt note is raised and stock accounts are updated. After the receipt note is created, purchase invoice is created based on which the finance department makes the payment. The stock ledger and the stock registers reflect the updated stock details. The balance sheet, Profit/Loss (P/L) statement, and general ledger reflect the updated general ledger account details.

Assignment
Name Registration No. Learning Centre : Ajeet Singh Yadav : 521012598 : Apar India College of Management and Technology Learning Centre Code Course Subject Semester Module No Date of Submission Marks Awarded : 01713 : MBA(Information System) : MI0039 eCommerce : IV : Set - 1 : :

Directorate of Distance Education Sikkim Manipal University IInd Floor, Syndicate House Manipal 576104

Signature of Coordinator

Signature of Centre

Signature of Evaluator

Q.1 Explain the framework of eCommerce in detail. Ans : Electronic Commerce Framework : A framework can be defined as a structure for supporting or attaching something else, particularly a support that is used as the foundation for something being created. Hence, an e-commerce framework comprises the set of infrastructure required for carrying out the e-commerce business. This set of infrastructure typically includes the network requirements and the different software applications that are for e-commerce. This framework must allow flexibility, interoperability and directness necessary for the successful development of electronic commerce. The e-commerce framework offers a set of options to the customers. They also vary in their business models. Such variations promote innovation and allows for supplier and customer options. This includes the following requirements and peculiarities of carrying out various business forms in this upcoming electronic environment. Interoperability: Electronic commerce is based on a common set of required services and standards that allow interoperability. Service providers and application designers use these services and standards as building blocks. They achieve the goals and objectives of e-commerce by combining, enhancing and customising these building blocks as per the requirements. Maximum flexibility for innovation: The innovation in e-commerce will grow and be established in ways that are impossible to visualise. This will result in evolution of new services and businesses. We can already see that many electronic marketplaces are giving rise to new openings for new services and businesses. Existing services and products will be specified and adapted. Information-intensive products: It is observed that the most important set of products that are sold through e-commerce are the pure information products. For example: electronic journals, catalogues, videos, interactive video games, software programs, electronic coupons, and so on. They also include electronic keys to cars, hotel rooms, storage sections, and airport boarding gates. Some of these products can be designed or modified by a customer. New revenue collecting techniques: electronic commerce supports more improved methods of revenue collection. For example, an information product service provider will allocate the product broadly and then charge on a usage basis -- which means charging the customer only when the information is used. This information can be a software program, a digital record, or an electronic key used to open and start a rental car.

Meterware is a new strategy implemented in recording and billing customers constantly depending on their product usage. Legacy systems: The legacy systems that are prevailing in electronic commerce field include mainframe-based agreement, paper cheques, and payment systems, and so on. Transaction devices: e-Commerce dealings include different kinds of legacy and recently formed devices, media, and systems over which transactions take place. Hence, it is necessary that e-commerce adapts the technologies and devices required for reaching and maintaining the mass market. Q. 2 List the advantages and disadvantages of eCommerce. Ans : The advantages of e-commerce include: e-Commerce helps people to run their businesses without any hurdles of time, distance, or place. The users can access the internet at any time, be it day or night to carry out online shopping. The cost-of-sale for online shopping done through a web site is less as compared to the shopping done via traditional means (retail, paper based). This is because there is no face-to-face human interaction during the on-line electronic purchase process. Also, online shopping is a faster and convenient mode of shopping. e-Commerce is the cheapest means of performing business. Operational advantages of e-commerce consist of reducing both the time and employees necessary for all the business procedures. e-Commerce is especially ideal for niche products. Customers for such products are usually few, but in the vast market place, that is the Internet, even niche products could generate considerable volume of sales. e-Commerce increases the sales income to the business. It helps in easy tracking of the customers segments. Immediate worldwide sales existence in quick time. It facilitates in opening the shop in any part of the world, independent of geographical locations. It also aids in reducing customer support expenses through e-mail marketing and customary or traditional newssheet. It also facilitates the customers to easily purchase their products via various payment accesses. It helps in developing more shopping carts.

 e-Commerce provides a lot of physical benefits from the customers viewpoint by: Reducing customers sorting out time Making better customer decisions Spending less time in resolving bills, demands, and order differences Increasing opportunities for purchasing substitute products. Disadvantages In e-commerce, anybody can easily start the business, irrespective of the fact if it is good or bad. Also, there are many bad sites wherein customers money is wasted. e-Commerce cannot provide guarantee of product quality. Mechanical breakdowns can cause unchangeable outcomes on the total processes. Customer reliability is very crucial here, because there is less chance of direct customer to company interactions in e-commerce. e-Commerce sites, services, and payment accesses are always in danger as there are many hackers looking for opportunities to get the access. Some customers are uncertain of buying products online. For example, online furniture businesses have been a failure as the customers would like to find the comfort level of a costly item such as a sofa before buying it. Some people consider shopping as a social experience. For example, some people prefer to go to a shopping mall with family and friends and purchase products rather than online shopping hence they may not like to buy online. Things like food, jewellery, antique items and so on. can never be sold with ecommerce technologies as it is impossible to check them from remove locations. Many organisations face problems with hiring and maintaining employees with the designing, technological, and business process skills necessary to create a successful e-commerce presence. It is impossible to totally remove frauds in the e-commerce transactions. Cyber laws are not correctly followed strictly, and the existing ones are not clearly defined in e-commerce. The most important disadvantage of e-commerce is shipping, as it takes several days to deliver physical products all over the world. Shipping Costs More: The more the weight of the product, the more will be the cost for shipping it.

Q.3 Prepare a scenario on the organization having shopping cart facility showing the advantages and disadvantages of having shopping cart facility. Ans : It is important to know when selecting your shopping cart what features you need. All the shopping carts below feature the following: Customer management Product management Variety of payment and shipping modules Order receipt emails Ability to use SSL secure layers for ordering process Advantages Varian the company who backs the cart is very active in updating the code and fixing bugs Multi-Store Capable Nice default template Flexible Coupons than any other cart Has the most available number of contributions and modifications Recent security update brings it up to date with MySQL 5 and PHP 5 No licensing fees Stable Many contributions from Oscommerce already installed Commercially supported and has very few if any bugs Uses Smarty Templates system which many programmers like to work for laying out the web site Ease of Deployment Integration of live Chat Text messages on sales and contacts Disadvantages Heavily layered and overly complicated coding style and thousands of files requires a lot of time to learn and do customizations Right now the technical documentation is very limited, making it difficult to customize and modify the programming of Magento beyond doing graphical changes Runs fairly slow Requires a good high end server It can take a lot of time and money to install all the contributions you want (add-ons)

 No graphic template system meaning it is harder to modify the design Not possible to use Oscommerce contributions, they must be converted to Zen Cart Admin interface is a little messy in certain areas because there are so many contributions installed Licensing fees for system and some add-on modules Microsoft licensing is required Some bugs need to be fixed Support is weak Q.4 Give examples for different models of ecommerce and explain what is the benefit of that model in your example. Ans : Depending on the parties involved in the transaction, e-commerce can be classified into 4 models. These are: Business to Business (B2B) : B2B stands for Business to Business. It consists of largest form of Ecommerce. This model defines that Buyer and seller are two different entities. It is similar to manufacturer issuing goods to the retailer or wholesaler. Dell deals computers and other associated accessories online but it is does not make up all those products. So, in govern to deal those products, first step is to purchases them from unlike businesses i.e. the producers of those products. It is one of the cost effective way to sell out product through out the world Benefits: Encourage your businesses online Products import and export Determine buyers and suppliers Position trade guides Business to Consumer (B2C) : B2C stands for Business to Consumer as the name suggests, it is the model taking businesses and consumers interaction. Online business sells to individuals. The basic concept of this model is to sell the product online to the consumers. B2c is the indirect trade between the company and consumers. It provides direct selling through online. For example: if you want to sell goods and services to customer so that anybody can purchase any products directly from suppliers website. Directly interact with the customers is the main difference with other business model. As B2B it manages directly relationship with consumers, B2C supply chains normally deal with business that are related to the customer.

Consumer to Consumer (C2C) : consumer to consumerC2C stands for Consumer to Consumer. It helps the online dealing of goods or services among people. Though there is no major parties needed but the parties will not fulfill the transactions without the program which is supplied by the online market dealer such as eBay. Consumer-to-Business (C2B) Model : The C2B model involves a transaction that is conducted between a consumer and a business organization. It is similar to the B2C model, however, the difference is that in this case the consumer is the seller and the business organization is the buyer. In this kind of a transaction, the consumers decide the price of a particular product rather than the supplier. This category includes individuals who sell products and services to organizations. For example, www.monster.com is a Web site on which a consumer can post his bio-data for the services he can offer. Any business organization that is interested in deploying the services of the consumer can contact him and then employ him, if suitable. Q.5 Write short notes on a. False and malicious sites b. Stealing visitors credit card information c. Stealing customers data from selling agent and internet service providers d. The use of cookies . Ans : False or malicious web sites : The basic idea behind building the false or malicious web sites are for stealing visitors IDs and passwords, stealing credit card information, spying on a visitors hard drive, uploading files from a visitors hard drive and so on. Users should be careful from these kinds of websites and users should never reveal their personal information like phone numbers, address and so on, to any such kind of websites. Stealing visitors credit card information : Malicious web sites may also be built and temporarily termed as legal businesses for the purpose of stealing visitors credit card information. Such kinds of websites are just built to steal the visitors credit card information. Setting up such false Web sites to cheat users into passing along vital information like passwords or credit card numbers is called spoofing. Stealing customer data from selling agents and internet service providers :Most of the customers who purchase goods and services on internet pay through their credit cards or cyber cash. Such customers also need to take the support of their internet service providers for accessing the internet. The credit card information is stored by the internet service provider and selling agents and many times hackers

are successful in breaking into the systems of selling agents and internet service providers and obtain the information on customers credit cards. The use of cookies : The use of cookies to get user information is a threat to the privacy of users. Cookies are pieces of information that a web site collects and transfers to a visitors hard drive for record keeping purposes1. Java Script programs related with web sites record information revealed by a visitor on request by the web browser. When a visitor visits any false or malicious websites for the first time, many web sites ask visitors to register themselves with the web site and when the visitors fill the information, it is recorded in a text (.txt) file along with a registration number assigned by the site. This file is stored on the visitors hard drive. The Web site server also stores the registration number and some other information such as the user ID and password if the user gives all this information. When the user visits the site again and again, the cookies record the details on the web links examined or clicked on into the server. Q.6 Describe the risk management paradigm in brief. Ans : Risk Management Paradigm : APRA Insight (2001) identifies that e-commerce poses a number of potential risks like operational risks, reputation risks, outsourcing risks, strategic risks, legal risks, increased liquidity risks, and narrowing of margins as shown in the figure 8.17 e-Commerce is highly vulnerable to operational risks, as it is dependent on the systems reliability and integrity. Hence, security raises significant concerns. We all know that the web is public, and anything published is technically accessible to everyone. Strategic risk arises from the rapidity of innovation in e-commerce and the considerable costs included in new technologies. Risk assessment : Risk assessment has become a critical task in risk management. Most of the organisations face increased levels of risk almost everyday. These risks may occur from software vulnerabilities hidden in the companys business technology systems, hackers and cyber crooks who try to steal confidential information. Hence, risk assessment is essential in all organisations and especially in organisations that conduct e-commerce business. Risks can be assessed through the following simple equation: Risk = Value of the asset x severity of the vulnerability x likelihood of an attack. Figure 8.1 explains the different dimensions of risk in e-commerce system development.

Figure 8.1: Different dimensions of risk in e-Commerce system development Control activities : Control activities in e-commerce are the rules and regulations, which assist in guaranteeing that the orders of the management are satisfactorily carried out. e-commerce risk and control activities are complex and evolving. The role of internal control in risk management : Technology has evolved in such a way that companies have started e-commerce websites through the internet to sell their products and services to customers and other businesses. e-Commerce business is a new form of business, which is prone to many of the internal control of risks of traditional businesses. Information risk: While doing business transactions in e-commerce, confidential information from customers such as credit card numbers, e-mail addresses, and residential addresses are collected. Companies implement internal controls to make sure that the internal employees do not steal or reveal the confidential information to outsiders. Websites risk: Protecting the company from internal and external risk is another internal control risk for e-commerce companies. Internal control should daily test their websites to check whether any virus has been entered in to their website or to know how vulnerable the website is to hackers and how easily the internal employees can misuse the website programs and functions. Financial risk: e-Commerce companies also face financial risk even though they are operated only through the internet. e-Commerce may face a lot of financial risk as it may find difficulty in generating positive daily cash flow because of the fees involved with website protection, hosting, e-shopping carts, and credit card companies.

Assignment
Name Registration No. Learning Centre : Ajeet Singh Yadav : 521012598 : Apar India College of Management and Technology Learning Centre Code Course Subject Semester Module No Date of Submission Marks Awarded : 01713 : MBA(Information System) : MI0040 Technology Management : IV : Set - 1 : :

Directorate of Distance Education Sikkim Manipal University IInd Floor, Syndicate House Manipal 576104

Signature of Coordinator

Signature of Centre

Signature of Evaluator

Q1.Define the term technology. Write a short note on evolution and growth of technology. Ans : Technology : Technology is derived from the Greek word technologia in which "techne" means craft and "logia" means saying. On the whole, technology means having the knowledge of making something.

Figure 1.1: Different Types of Technology Teaching technology: We can define the technology of teaching as the technology related to systematically designed approaches. This technology includes the objectives, instructional procedures depending on the tasks that the student has to perform. Instructional technology: As the name suggests, the instructional technology includes certain type of instructions that have to be carried out in a systematic way to achieve the objectives of the particular task. Assistive technology: As the name indicates, this technology is for the assisting people who want to work within a particular environment. The assistive technologies include technologies used in mechanical, electronic, or microprocessor based equipments. Medical technology: The medical technology refers to the technology including the inventions in the medical field. This has helped many of the individuals to stay alive. For example, artificial limbs, hip and knee implantation helps the disabled to lead a better life. Information technology: We can define informational technology as the technology that helps in accessing the knowledge and resources on a wide range of topics. For example, internet is the best example of information technology. Evolution and Growth of Technology : The history of technology dates back to the time when humans were able to prepare some simple tools with easily available natural resources. History indicates that the advancement in technology had a major leap with the invention of the wheel. From the invention of the wheel, much usage of the technology has started. The technology in all the fields has grown to a larger extent and now we can see the technology involved in almost all the things

we use in our daily life. We know that there are some advanced technologies at present which include the printing press, telephone and Internet which have helped us to communicate all over the globe. Till now we have mainly concentrated on technology management in general. Technology management in India: The Government of India is mainly focussing on the development of science and technology in the present world. The Indian industries are operating under the controlled and regulated economy. The technology management is generally lacking at the enterprise level except a few enterprises. There are many Indian companies which are able to develop and produce the internationally competitive products. The companies which use different kinds of technologies, and are excelling today, in India are the Punjab tractors, tata automobiles, amul food and certain drug and chemical industries. In the same way, there are many Research and Development (R&D) institutions which have developed and commercialised the technologies in the areas of drugs, chemicals, food technology, and computer software. Q2.Citing an example, state and explain the reasons that compel a company to go for the new technology. Ans : Reasons Compelling a Company for Obtaining a New Technology The use of new technologies plays an important role in the industry. Whenever a company wants to adapt the new technologies, it has to make decisions related to the acquisition of the technology. The company has to see the experience of its R&D for the actual need of acquiring the knowledge. The acquisition of technology becomes critical when the market lead time and competition is more. The following explains the reasons that compel the company for technology acquisition. Technology acquisition helps to bridge the gap in technology, in the developing countries like India. The fastest way of bridging the technology gap is through collaborations. Acquiring the technology from outside company is more costlier than acquiring technology from the R&D of the same company. It will be better, if we develop the new technologies from the in-house R&D. The dependence of the company on the collaboration is bad and we should have the self-reliance in the company every time. Technology acquisition depends on the policy environment. Sometimes the economic policies do not allow the foreign countries to sell their goods and services in the domestic market. In such times, the foreign companies can get the financial returns only through the collaboration and selling the raw materials and components.

 Technology acquisition is the process by which a company acquires the rights to use and exploit a technology for the purpose of improving or renewing processes, products or services. It does not include retailed or mass market off the shelf software which is generally governed by non-negotiable "shrink wrapped" licences. Technology acquisition is mainly designed for business-to-business technology acquisition. In few cases, technology comes from a university or research organisation. The origin of the technology can take place in any area but it has ton be tested, proven and ready to use. Technology acquisition helps for enhancing the productivity of an organisation. The company planning for technology acquisition has to make the agreement between the two companies and even the details of the costs are also present as part of the application. Q3.Describe some characteristics of technology forecasting. Explain in brief about the six phases in technology forecasting process. Ans : Characteristics of technology forecasting Generally, there are some characteristics that are associated with technology forecasting. We will now discuss them briefly. A technological forecast relates to certain characteristics such as levels of technical performance (e.g., technical specifications including energy efficiency, emission levels, speed, power, safety, temperature, so on), rate of technological advances (introduction of paperless office, picture phone, new materials, costs, so on). A technological forecast also relates to useful machines, procedures, or techniques. In particular, this is intended to exclude the items intended for pleasure or amusement from the domain of technological forecasting, since they depend more on personal tastes rather than on technological capability. A technology forecast can be for short-term, medium-term, and long-term. The six phases in technology forecasting process are : Identification of needs: This is the first phase in technology forecasting process. After identifying the expected outputs and the objectives of the future, a thorough analysis is done in order to make sure the relevance of technology forecasting. This phase ends with a decision of technology forecast. Prepare project: This is the second phase in technology forecasting process. In this phase, the forecasting activities that are planned and resources are allocated. The roles of each human resource are carefully prepared and explained. There are three

human resources, clients, core tem and external participants. The client includes both customer and user of technology forecast. The core team performs the activities like defining references, writing documents, creating the structure of the forecast and filling it. The core team co-ordinates the efforts of experts from team, external participants and clients which help to develop an entire forecast. The external participants help in providing data, information and experience. The major sources of information and data are identified in this phase. Define objectives: This is the third phase in technology forecasting. This phase once again goes through the objectives that are defined in the first and second phases. This phase decides the dimensions of the forecast. This includes both the normative and exploratory forecast. We use normative forecast, when the desirable future is seen and the normative forecast focus on finding the path, from the present to the desirable state. Perform analysis and develop Technology Forecast (TF): This is the fourth phase in the technology forecasting process. This is the central part of the present research. In this phase, we start with defining the boundaries of the technological system that has to be forecasted. After completing the definition of the boundaries, we get a shape of problem and also the contradiction network. The first step in this, is reformulating the technological barriers into the contradictions. The next step is, defining critical-to-X features, and third step involves the revising and reformulating the collected contradictions to match with the critical to X features.. The next step in the analysis and develop TF is the 'analysis of limitation of resources'. This helps to find the resources that are less and causes problems on the map. R&D helps to get the raw materials and solve the problem. This also helps in determining the time delays of the activities. The next step in the analysis and develop TF involves; build the time diagram'. This uses the results that we get after the problem mapping. The different order of critical to X features is developed by considering the different contexts. Validate results: The fifth phase in the technology forecasting process is to 'validate results'. This includes the customer satisfaction with the results of TF. There are different processes that are associated with the evaluation of the results of the forecast. Our R&D uses the traditional method of evaluating the result of forecast. We can do peer review with the external experts and our colleagues in between working hours of the forecast to make the evaluation easy.

Application of TF: The last phase in the technological forecast is the 'application of TF'. This depends mainly on the needs and the formulated objectives. We have seen the developing of TRF using the contradiction networking. This helps mainly in all the projects. Q4.Write a short note on technology strategy. Explain in brief about the innovation management. Ans : Technology Strategy : We can define technology strategy as a planning document that explains how technology should be utilised as part of an organisation's overall business strategy. The document is usually created by an organisations technology manager and should be designed to support the organisation's overall business plan. Most of the organisations use technologies in product and services generation, but all the organisations will not gain the positive competitive advantage from the technologies. There are many factors in competition, and technology is only one factor among them. Yet, some firms effectively use technology as a competitive advantage, and others do not. One important factor in the successful use of technology is the role of general management in technology strategy. In particular, it has been management's ability to foster corporate core technical competencies. Innovation Management : We can define innovation management as the systematic processes that help the organisations in developing new and improved products, services and business processes. This involves the use of creative ideas of an organisation's employees that brings new innovations to the market place, quickly and efficiently. In business, innovation should not be only limited to the big ground breaking ideas, creative workshops and product based companies. Innovation is often small, incremental changes to products, services and processes. The innovation involves all the managers from different departments. This needs to be planned and managed as a core business covering all parts of a business. This needs to be integrated at the strategic and operational levels. The activities of the innovation need to be driven by the strategy and current business imperatives. The successful innovation culture consists of all the aspects of a business, and these aspects have to be managed effectively and efficiently like any other core business. Innovation can be built into business, at three levels. The three levels are the annual business planning process, quarterly innovation and day-to-day activities. Innovation is managed through some sort of platform or application. There are two types of innovation tools that are, an electronic suggestion scheme, and a management system controlling the innovation process.

Q5.What is the importance of technology diffusion? What are the benefits of technology absorption? Ans : Importance of technology diffusion : Technology diffusion plays a major role in most of the countries today. The barriers to technology diffusion help us to determine the magnitude of technology diffusion. These barriers determine the volumes of diffusion. Diffusion enlarges the set of available technologies and increases the productivity of the country. In case of diffusion, productivity is determined by the domestic technology in the production country and the diffusion technology from other countries. The technology diffusion plays more important role in the sector of goods that are not tradable, than the sector with the tradable goods. The free technology diffusion generates more gains compared to that of the free merchandise trade. We can increase the merchandise trade by removing the diffusion barriers since the countries achieve higher productivity by taking the technology from the diffusion process. A well-managed technology diffusion system enables an organisation to plan its technology development projects in a more meaningful manner as well as transfer the technologies more successfully. Such an approach results in better returns for the investments made in R&D and technology development systems. Benefits of technology absorption are : Repeated collaborations for the same product/ process are avoided. Acquisition of further technologies becomes selective. Ability is developed to unpackage the technology. Savings can be affected in foreign exchange due to indigenisation /use of indigenous alternatives. Effective utilisation is made of available indigenous research expertise and facilities to achieve the desired results. Know-why and technology upgradation capabilities are built-up. Exports are increased. Technically competent groups of scientists and engineers trained in technology absorption get matured and strengthened. The base for technological self-reliance is enhanced.

We gain the benefits of technology diffusion, ranging from R&D services to the larger sales. Technology diffusion helps in sustaining the growth of the company through technical strength. Many developing countries, including India, have liberalised their industrial policies in the recent past. In the wake of the liberalised nature of New Industrial Policy and other policy measures in Trade and Finance, it

has become imperative for industry to accelerate its R&D efforts to meet the emerging competitive environment. Q6.Explain the implementation of new technology. Briefly describe the automation decisions. Ans : Implementation of New Technology : We know that planning is the key to success of a project. In the same manner, a sound planning is essential for the success of any technologys implementation. The failures that are likely to arise during the implementation process may be due to the poor planning or inadequate resources. Valuing the conflicts will facilitate the organisation to keep away from these problems, and for the management, to anticipate the likely trouble spots and ease it accordingly. You must keep in mind some vital preliminary considerations. These considerations are: Initial considerations: The management of the business needs to understand that the new system alone cannot find solutions to all the problems experience by the organisation. The whole implementation process involves the complete business process and/or academic practice, consumer services, communication with suppliers and a relationship among all other engrossed stakeholders. There are a number of less-substantial activities, which are critical and people those are involved must : Have an understanding of the organisation predominantly, in terms of its traditions and principles are essential. The underlying principle of any new system implementation should be able to provide all the better services to all concerned through it. This information has to be conversed to all concerned parties. A complete review of every business processes and, where required, academic practice, and developing and introducing new policies before tuning the system to meet the decided requirements should be undertaken. The complete approval of the difficulty and flexibility of the system should be determined. The inbuilt dangers of customisation of any software should be understood. A thorough system test procedures should be conducted, while accepting the likely need for software malfunction and improvements. The training and development to be conducted for the internal staff should be planned in advance. The users must be trained, to use the system. The users must be trained, to identify faults and correct freely.

 The essential nature of system documents has to be accepted and retain accordingly. Planning and implementation: A thorough plan with efficient management is necessary for success, and to work against the fear of high costs, extended time, losing key persons and common disappointment with the result Go-Live Considerations: Finally, it is essential that the go live day causes as tiny disturbance to the daily business, since it is practically possible. The various issues arising at this point of time will negatively affect the organisations status, sometimes irreversibly, with all stakeholders.

Assignment
Name Registration No. Learning Centre : Ajeet Singh Yadav : 521012598 : Apar India College of Management and Technology Learning Centre Code Course Subject Semester Module No Date of Submission Marks Awarded : 01713 : MBA(Information System) : MI0041 Java and Web Design : IV : Set - 1 : :

Directorate of Distance Education Sikkim Manipal University IInd Floor, Syndicate House Manipal 576104

Signature of Coordinator

Signature of Centre

Signature of Evaluator

Q.1 Explain the browser components and its features. Ans : The Web browser consists of seven main components, each having a specific task to perform and they are: User interface: It consists of an address bar where you can enter the URL, bookmark menu to save the links of your favourite Web pages, back/forward button to navigate to the previous Web page/next Web page, and so on. Browser engine: It is the interface through which you can ask questions to the browser and manipulate the rendering engine. It also sets the layout of a Web page formatted with HTML tags within a browser. Rendering engine: It is displays the content you had requested, after obtaining it from the respective Web server. Networking: It is used for calling the network for example, raising an HTTP request for a URL connection through the server. Display backend: It provides drawing tools, user interface widgets, and fonts that help to display text and graphics. Javascript interpreter: It is used to parse and execute the codes of written using the Java script. Data storage: This enables the browser to save all the data on the hard disk and acts as the database of the browser. Features of browser : Address field: This is the area on the browser window where you enter the Web page address or URL. At the right end of this area, there is a small arrow pointing towards the menu bar, when you click this arrow you will view a list of some of the Websites that you have visited recently. Back and forward buttons: The back button is used to go back to the previous page that you have opened in a particular browser window. The forward button allows you to view pages that you have previously viewed in that browser window. In some browsers, there is a small arrow pointing towards the menu bar arrow right next to these buttons, when you click this arrow you will see the list of Websites that you have visited after opening the browser window. Home button: When you click this button you will be able to view the page that you have set as home page. A home page is a default page that opens when you open the browser window. Menu bar: A menu bar is a part of each browser window, it contains menus like File, Edit, View, Favourites or Bookmarks, Tools and Help. Refresh or reload: When you click the refresh or reload button, the page is updated. For example, if you think that the contents of a browser window may have changed since the last time you viewed it, you can click this button to update the page.

Security indicators: At the left corner of the window, a lock icon appears when you use a browser and this is called padlock. If the padlock is in a lock position then you can say that your server connection is secure, i.e. the data being sent and received by the server is encrypted. This indicates that nobody else can access this data. Status bar: This is a bar at the bottom of the browser window which indicates the URL of the Web page currently being loaded into the browser window. It also displays the URL of the link on which the cursor of your mouse is placed. While loading, the Web page shows a progress indicator which shows how much percentage of a file has been downloaded. Stop button: This button is used to stop the browser from loading the Web page on to the browsing window. Q. 2 Describe in detail the building of webpage. Ans : Building a Web Page : Building a Web page involves great planning and design. Before you design the Web page it is very important to plan the structure of the Web page and also decide the kind of content that you insert in to the Web page. The first major issue that you need to address is gathering the right content and organising the gathered content on the Web page. While doing so, you need to understand the requirements of the audience who use the Web page clearly. Therefore, you need to define the objectives of your design clearly before gathering the content. While gathering the content, you must ensure that you do not include any content that does not define the objectives. This will make sure that only the right content is used for creating the Web page. After you gather the content you also make sure that you organise the content logically. This means you need to structure the content properly on the Web page. This involves providing proper names to the sections and subsections that you use to categorise the content. Also, there must be a logical flow in which you present the content. Some of the basic aspects of Web layout that you need to keep in mind while designing a Web page are: Space and white space: Try to use the entire space available on the Web page. However, make sure you do not overcrowd the page with too much information. You need to keep the screen resolution in mind so that your text does not look too small or too large. You can use colours to define spaces. For example, if you want to have a page which has a specific width, then you can centre it on the browser screen and make the background colour and the page colour different. (The page colour is the colour of your Web page and background colour is the colour of the browser window where the Web page is displayed.) When you aligning

Images and graphics: Images and graphics are a major part of your Web layout. You need to make sure that you check the image size and position before you put it on the Web page. Since, images have large impact on the audience than the text. Text width: Often referred to as scan length this defines the number of words you can display on one line. Most designers prefer to have seven to eleven words in a line just to make sure that the user is able to read it without any difficult. Since, most people are not comfortable reading lengthy sentences. Therefore, setting a proper width for your Web page is very essential and improves the efficiency of the design. Once you finalise the Web layout you can easily build the Web pages. With the Web layout, more than one designer can work on the same page and still maintain uniformity. First write a simple HTML code as shown below:
<html> <head> <title>My First Web Page!</title> </head> <body> <h2>My Web page</h2> <p>This is my first Web page. I have created this Web page using a Notepad. </p> </body> </html>

Q.3 How to use forms? Explain with an example. Ans : Using a Form : Let us now discuss about HTML forms. You might have signed up to Gmail, Yahoo! or any of the other online communities. When you visit the page, it asks you to fill and submit an online form. We can use the HTML tags to create such forms on Web page. Usually, forms contain input elements like text fields, checkboxes, radiobuttons, submit buttons and so on. You can create the forms using the <form> tag. First you create the form element using <form> and </form> tags. Next you define the elements that you want to display on the form within the form element. The syntax of the form is as shown below: <form> Input elements </form>

Let us learn how to create some of the input elements that we use in a Web page form; Text fields: This is a single line input filed where you can enter the text. The example code shows how to create it using the tag <input type="text"/>. First name: <input type="text" name="Name1"/> Last name: <input type="text" name="Name1"/> In the above code, the type attribute is used to specify the type of element you want to create. The text "First name" and "Last name" is displayed in the beginning of the text field as shown below:

The rectangular boxes are the text fields where you enter the text. Password field: This field is similar to text field and the only difference is that you can view the text you enter in the text field. However, in password field you cannot see the text that you enter, for every character that you enter you see either an asterisks (*) or dot (.). You can use the same tag that you used to create text field except that the value that you pass to the attribute "type" will be "password". This signifies that the field is a password field. Using the attribute "name" you can define a variable to store the password that you enter. The example code for the password field is given below, Password: <input type="password" name="PassWord"> The password field that we have defined in the above code appears as shown below:

Radio buttons: This button allows you to select only one of the items from the given list. For example, for a question asked in a form they provide four answers out of which only one answer will be correct and you have to choose only one out of the four. In such cases, you can use radio button. The code given below explains how to insert radio buttons on the Web page. <form> <p>Tiger is the national animal of India.

<input type="radio" name="answer" value="true" /> True <input type="radio" name="answer" value="false" /> False </form> In the above example code, you can see that we are passing the value "radio" to the attribute "type" indicating that the element that the browser is supposed to display is a radio button. Here, "answer" is the variable in which the value which we have defined using the attribute "value" is saved (true or false). The output of the above code is as shown below:

Checkboxes: The code to define the checkboxes is shown below: <form> <p>Select the vehicles that you have.<> <input type="checkbox" name="vehicle" value="Bike" /> I have a bike <input type="checkbox" name="vehicle" value="Car" /> I have a car </form> You can notice from the above example code that the code for checkboxes is similar to the radio buttons. The only difference is the value that we pass to the attribute "type". Submit button: This button is used to send form data from the Web page to the Web server. Q.4 Give an example for cascade style sheets and explain editing with cascade style sheets in detail. Ans : Introduction to CSS : Generally, every Web page has three major components: content, its presentation and behaviour. The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is used to handle the presentation of the content on the Web page. It helps you to improve the visual look of your Web page. With the help of CSS you can control the font colour, size and several other design aspects on the Web page.

Benefits of CSS : Separate content from presentation Reduces code complexity Fast loading pages Reduces use of JavaScript Saves time

Web Page Editing with CSS Now, before discussing about the text formatting let us discuss how you can create styles in a style sheet and incorporate it in the HTML document. This is achieved using the CSS class selector. So, what is this CSS class selector? The class selector is used to specify a style for a group of HTML elements (refer to Unit 2 for HTML elements). Using this you can specify a particular style for any HTML element. Below is an example that helps you understand how to use the class selector.
<html> <head> <style type="text/css"> .center { text-align:center;} </style> </head> <body> <h1 class="center">Center-aligned heading</h1> <p class="center">Center-aligned paragraph.</p> </body> </html>

This example uses internal method to apply style to the HTML document (refer section 4.2 for internal method). All the CSS class selectors will start with a ".", followed by the name of the class selector. In our example, the name given to the class selector is ".center" (refer previous section for syntax of CSS tag). The "textalign" attribute is used for aligning the text, in our example, we are passing the value "center" to the attribute "text-align" i.e. the text for which the style is applied will be aligned at the centre of the Web page. Now we have created a class selector named "center" to align the text at the centre of the Web page. "<h1 class="center">Center-aligned heading</h1>" this line shows how you can call the class defined in the <head> element to apply style. Note, you can choose any name you like for the class. In this case, we have chosen to call the class as centre, since it is being used to centre text. As you can see in the code line we are calling the class "center" using the attribute "class" inside the opening tag <h1>.

Q.5 Describe the working of search engine. What are the different types of search engine? Explain with its application. Ans : Search engines use the following processes in its working: Web crawling: When you search for information by typing keywords in a search engine Website it gives you a list of related information. Prior to listing the related information, it has to find it. In order to retrieve information from the numerous Websites that exist on the WWW, a search engine utilises special software robots known as spiders. The spiders are simple programs that scan the Web pages to create a list or index of words that are found on the Websites, and the process of creating a list or index of words by a spider is known as Web crawling. Indexing: After the spider program finishes the job of looking for information on the Web pages, the search engines have to store the information such that it is useful for the users. This is known as indexing. An efficient indexing helps us to quickly find information on the Web. We have to note that the data needs to be encoded and then stored in a more compact form in order to save the storage space. The information is ready for indexing once it is compacted. The two key components responsible for indexing or making the gathered data accessible to users are as follows: The information that is stored with the data: Here, a search engine can store the word and the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) of the Web page where the word was found. However, this result in limited use of the Web page as it will not inform the user if the word was used many times or only once The technique in which the information is indexed: Here, a search engine stores the number of times the word has appeared on the Web page rather than storing only the word and the URL. A particular word's value increases when it appears in the heading, sub heading or in the links. Considering this, a search engine assigns weight to every entry. Every search engine follows different formulas to allot weight to words in its index. Searching: It refers to the process of querying a search engine. A query should have at least a minimum of one word. You can also have complex queries. Complex queries are built using Boolean operators that help us to refine the search.

Types of search engine : Crawler based search engines: In this type of search engines the spiders crawl through the Web and create a listing or index of words. Whenever a user enters a query or a keyword using a search engine, the word is searched for against these listings or index. The index consists of a copy of all the Web pages that is found by the spider. Whenever a change is made to any of the Web pages, the spider will update the changes in the index. This is possible as the spiders are always crawling through the Web pages on a regular basis. This also affects the way your Website is listed. We should also note that it takes some time when the spiders crawl through the Web pages and an index is created. Until then the Web page will not be found when you search for it using a search engine. Google and Yahoo use a crawler based search engines. Human powered directories: In this type of search engine there is a directory which gets information from short descriptions about the websites along with the address and title of the Web pages that are submitted by the webmasters. These submissions are later reviewed by the editors. The disadvantage of human powered directories is that it can take months to get your Website reviewed unless you take up a paid inclusion program. We should also note that when a user searches for a topic these directories look for only the descriptions that are submitted on the Website and not the entire content of the Web page. As such any change made to the Website does not affect its listing. The only advantage of this type of a search engine is that a Website which comprises good content could be reviewed for free when compared to a poor site. Earlier Yahoo! was a human powered directory. However, today it uses a crawler based search engine. Hybrid or mixed search engine: It is a combination or mixture of crawler based search engines and human powered directories. The basic idea behind a hybrid search engine is to provide the users with a combination of results including spidered results and directory results. Google and Yahoo are today using hybrid search engines. Q.6 List the benefits and drawbacks of Lamp stack. Ans : The benefits of LAMP stack are as follows: It is open source software package and thus can be got free of cost. This helps organisations to develop Web applications without spending hefty amounts for its licensing. Even though Microsoft offers the ASP (Active Server Pages) extensions free of cost, they charge you for their Operating System, database servers, and Integrated Development Environment (IDE). However,

sometimes companies may have to pay for customer support for the open source products that they purchase from vendors. It can be installed on a wide range of platforms. We can use Windows instead of Linux if we are working on Windows platform, or use IIS instead of Apache Web server. This helps us to adapt to our companies current environments by utilising the existing infrastructure. It provides a greater support when compared to other commercially available software. This is because the components of LAMP stack are open source and thus we can find support from the actual developers who have worked on the project, and also from its community. It is possible for us to find various modules that can be reused. These modules are built by a community of developers who publish the modules developed by them. This saves time and results in rapid development of Web applications. It facilitates us with an efficient hardware support such as Linux that can run on almost all servers. This is possible as it facilitates the administrator with the choice of running only what is required to perform a particular job. It offers greater performance as we use Linux. When compared to Windows, Linux scales high in performance, memory management, and stability. It is possible for us to find constant updates and improvements for the LAMP stack. As you know, we can find developers and support communities that update new features and enhancements constantly.

The drawbacks of LAMP stack are as follows: The main disadvantages of LAMP stack is in updating the applications. This is because, whenever you have a new version released, we have to follow the same procedure that is used in installing the applications, to update the changes. There could be confusion as to where the application is installed as the application files are not placed in the file system in a standard way. One more disadvantage is that it is difficult to find people who are good and qualified in developing Web applications on LAMP platform. Hence, organisations fear to switch to LAMP.