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• Developed by the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts (DCITA) in June 2003

• Two main components:

1. a getting started booklet – explains how to get a computer and get online

2. the e-businessguide website - a detailed guide to using e-business

The e-businessguide


This is a brief presentation that contains content sourced from the e-businessguide. The e-businessguide has six main components:

The e-businessguide

1. Understanding2. Planning3. Building4. Protecting5. Managing6. Improving

Comprehensive information on these topics can be found by accessing the e-businessguide website: www.e-businessguide.gov.au

The website also contains downloadable fact sheets and template documents for you to use and links to other useful sites.


Broadly speaking, the term “e-business” refers to using the Internet for doing business.

Every time a business uses the Internet to conduct business, it is doing e-business.

What is e-business?


• You communicate with customers or clients via e-mail

• You send emails to other businesses to order products and services

• You sell your products or services via your website

• You use the Web to find information, such as prices, phone numbers and reviews of products

• You use the Web for research, such as the latest industry trends

• You use your website to provide information about your products and services

• You use your website as a means of managing the information in your business

• You use the Internet for online banking and paying your bills using BPay

Are you doing e-business?

If you conduct any of the following business activities using the Internet, then you are doing e-business .……


What are the benefits?

• Create cost-savings and operational efficiencies • Create additional revenue • Reach more customers and markets • Improve marketing and promotions • Meet the needs and expectations of customers and

suppliers • Concentrate on the things that matter • Make it easier for people to do business with you • The cost of not being there • Play on a level playing field • Help meet business goals

Participating in e-business can …


Getting started

To get started with e-business you will need …..

• A computer that can connect to the Internet reliably and at an acceptable speed

• Software on the computer that allows you to send email, browse the Web for websites and protects your computer

• An email account with an Internet Service Provider (ISP)

• Training in using the equipment and software efficiently

Detailed information, advice and minimum equipment specifications on the above can be found in the e-businessguide getting started booklet


Planning

Planning is absolutely essential to ensure that your precious time, money and energy is not wasted and that potential risks are minimised.

The person responsible for developing the e-business plan must decide:

• who should be involved in the process

• the responsibilities of the planning team

• what the plan is to include

• what background research is required in order to produce the plan

• the time-frame for delivering the plan

• how best to inform staff about the plan to engage them

• when and how the plan will be reviewed and updated


Planning - The planning process

• Research the opportunities

• Consider the key issues

• Decide on what level of e-business is right for you

• Prepare your e-business plan


Planning – What level of e-business is right for you?

1. ParticipatingThe business is connected to the Internet and has an email address which provides participating in the online world.

2. Supporting The business has a website which promotes and supports the existing business activities.

3. ExpandingThe business uses its website to develop new business activities and to accelerate growth.

4. AssimilatingThe online and offline business activities and operations are fully integrated and mutually dependent.

5. TransformedThe use of Internet technology by the business has fundamentally changed its core business and the way it operates and projected it onto a higher level of business activity and profitability.

The “modes” of e-businessNote: many businesses will move on from one mode to the next but not all businesses will follow this path. The ultimate goal is not whether a business has been transformed, but whether the business is enjoying the optimum benefits of e-business.


Building

• Technical issues

• Choosing and preparing contents

• What do you want users to do?

• Marketing and your website

• The look and feel

• Organising the contents

• E-commerce - selling via your website

• Maintenance considerations

• Developing the website

This section covers key technical, content and design issues to enable business owners, staff and advisors to confidently brief technical experts about their e-business needs. Main areas covered in this section:


Building – Technical issues

• Should the contents of the website be held in a database?

• Database security

• Should the website be the central source of information for everyone?

• What type of Internet connection do you need?

• Powering and hosting your website

• Getting a website name

There are a number of key technical issues that need to be addressed before the building a business website can commence:


Building – Choosing and preparing contents

Website ‘contents’ include the words, tables, graphs, images, audio and video

The decision about what content to include should be guided by:

• the aim and purpose of the site

• the audiences for which it is intended

• the resources available to provide and sustain the content

• the format of the content (eg too many rich images may result in a site which is slow to download and view)

• its availability in a web-ready format (eg it is in a word processor document or photo that has already been scanned)

• its importance within the operation of the organisation

• legal issues such as copyright and privacy laws.


Building – What do you want users to be able to do?

To give users a sense of ‘control’ over your site, consider some of the tools and features you can include in your site:

• Search • Online forms

• Members only’ section to the site • ‘Interactive questionnaires/surveys/polls

• Animations • Subscription email lists

• Links to other sites • Downloadable files

• Contact Us • Site map

• Text-only version of the site • Multilingual requirements

• Provision for printing and bookmarking

Note: Time and budgets usually mean organisations have to restrict the features used on the site, so prioritising is an important task.


Building – Marketing and your website

1. Customer service• Your website is for your target audience, not you, so make sure everything is

focused on them. • Give users the information and services they want, don’t hold back. • Create a “customer service” section in the website that encourages users to

make enquiries. • Create a "frequently asked questions" section.

2. Make it easy for people to do business with you• Work out what customers’ online priorities are and make them your priorities • Let people configure your products and services • Provide a search feature on your site

Before the website is built, and as its features are being planned, consideration should be given to how to use the website as a marketing tool:


Building – Designing your website: The look and feel

• The design of the website refers the art of using colour, form, shape, typography, illustration and layout to convey a message.

• Familiarise yourself with various website designs, including your competitors’ websites – note what you like and don’t like to discuss with a web designer.

• Consider whether you need to make your website accessible to people with vision impairment and/or people with slow connections. Consider the following:

– Build a text-only version of your website so it is fast to access

– Make sure your website complies with the World Wide Web Consortium’s accessibility guidelines - check with www.w3c.org


Building – E-commerce

• E-commerce refers to buying, selling or ordering goods on the Internet. It occurs when any commercial transaction is facilitated by the Web or email.

• E-commerce is a sub-set of e-business.

• Websites or email can be used to allow customers or clients to order, purchase or pay for things such as:

– products and services – information in the form of papers, images, video or audio clips – perhaps

held in a database on the site – membership subscriptions – rates, licences and taxes – subscription to specialist services, newsletters etc for which you normally

charge – specifically requested research conducted by the organisation’s staff – bookings and tickets – venue/facilities bookings.


Building – Maintenance considerations

• Before the website is built, it is important to consider how you want to maintain the website so that appropriate features can be built into the site from the beginning.

• There are a number of levels of sophistication and options for maintenance of a website:

– outsourced: requests for change and the new contents are emailed to a web developer who makes the changes

– in-house – manual: the business makes the changes itself by accessing the web server and changing the programming code ie the HTML

– in-house – semi-automated: the business makes the changes itself by using an off-the-shelf editing program eg FrontPage or Dreamweaver

– in-house – automated: the business makes the changes itself by using a maintenance tool built by the web developer specifically for the business to enable it to maintain its own site – this solution is often referred to as a content management system.


Building – Developing the website

1. Writing the development brief

2. Preparing the development contract

3. Selecting the web developer

4. Staging the development • The technical specifications exercise

• The construction phase

• Testing the site

• Delivery and deployment

The step-by-step process for developing a website involves:


Protecting

As the Internet becomes an increasingly important tool for businesses, electronic security (e-security) has emerged as a major issue.

If your business is connected to the Internet, it is essential to ensure that your business data, including customer information, is safe and that your transactions are carried out securely - otherwise, there is a risk of transactions being intercepted, privacy codes being breached, company information being stolen and loss of money.


Protecting – Why be secure?

• Connecting computers to the Internet allows consumers and businesses to access a wealth of information and resources.

• However, it also creates the risk that computers may be tampered with by hackers, or attacked by viruses distributed via email. It is important to protect yourself against these risks.

• A survey* of Australian companies conducted in 2001 found that 98% had been subject to some form of computer abuse that included:

– virus infection – data theft – data compromised from internal or external sources – unauthorised use of computer equipment – unauthorised network access – website damage – denial of service (DoS)

* Source: Trusting The Internet, produced by DCITA


Protecting – Where do I start?

• Any information transmitted over the Internet can be intercepted at any point if appropriate security precautions have not been taken. This is particularly important where businesses are using broadband technology because of its continuous connection to the Internet.

• Unauthorised users can take your data and disclose it, modify it, destroy it, sell it or post it on the web.

• They can hi-jack your homepage or your website, overload systems so customers cannot contact your company, shut down production lines and forward confidential staff details, personnel records and quality assurance reports.

Cont/..

What part of my business is at risk?


Protecting – Where do I start?

To help you determine your approach to information and system security, ask yourself the following questions:

1. What is most important to my customers, business partners and suppliers? Most likely that:

– your information systems provide business data that is reliable and accurate

– systems that process data are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (ie 24/7)

– any customer or business partner information that is handled by the system is secure

– customer personal information will remain private and will not be shared with others

– financial data will be secured and not compromised, corrupted or destroyed

– systems are in compliance with any regulations requiring that critical business data will not be available or disclosed to unauthorised persons.

2. What security promises do I want/need to make to my customers, business partners and suppliers?

What part of my business is at risk?


Protecting – Top ten e-security tips

1. Use protection software “anti-virus software” and keep it up to date.

2. Don’t open email from unknown sources.

3. Use hard-to-guess passwords.

4. Protect your computer from Internet intruders – use “firewalls”.

5. Don’t share access to your computers with strangers.

Cont/..


Protecting – Top ten e-security tips

6. Disconnect from the Internet when not in use.

7. Back up your computer data.

8. Regularly download security protection update “patches”.

9. Check your security on a regular basis.

10. Make sure your family members and/or your employees know what to do if your computer becomes infected.

Source: US-based National Cyber Security Alliance - http://www.staysafeonline.info/sectips.adp


Managing

Like any key aspect of your business, e-business requires good management if it is to be benefit the organisation.

Just as people require managing, systems need to be maintained and budgets have to be monitored, any strategic use of the Internet by a business needs to be closely controlled.


Managing – Who does the managing?

An e-business management team comprising members of key areas of the business should meet regularly to:

• Report on actions arising from the previous meeting • Outcomes this period – successes, benefits, costs • Content update – additions, deletions, editing and quality issues • Marketing and promotion – usage, feedback • Resources report – budget, staff training, time • Technology issues – speed, equipment • Risk management review – new risks, security and legal issues • Actions arising from this meeting


Managing – Maintaining e-business systems

• An organisation’s e-business systems comprise the Internet technologies, office systems and processes that support its e-business activities.

• Maintaining your e-business systems includes:

– Website content maintenance

– Quality assurance

– Making improvements

– Technical maintenance

– Managing the maintenance system


Managing – Internal policies and guidelines

• Depending on how much you rely on your website as a business tool and how much you use the Internet, especially email, it may be very useful to establish policies and guidelines about the use of those tools.

• E-business policy statements are high-level statements about the aims and intention of particular aspects of e-business. They state the overall approach that the business is taking to, say, e-commerce.

• An e-business policy might be a brief document that makes statements about your organisation’s general approach and aims.

• Policies then need guidelines and procedures that direct individual staff in their day-to-day use of the Internet. These might be in the form of step-by-step procedures or statements about what can be done online and what is discouraged or even not allowed.

• There are many e-business policies and guidelines published by government departments that may prove useful examples to follow when developing yours.


Improving

• Most businesses using the Internet as a business tool know that the technology and use of email, e-commerce and just about everything to do with the Internet is always changing.

• So looking for ways to improve current uses of the Internet is necessary and makes sense.


Improving – Evaluating your e-business

• Evaluating your e-business is not just about asking users whether your website looks good or is easy to use.

• There are many issues that need to be evaluated beyond your website or use of email.

For example:– are your e-business plan and business plan integrated? – are you utilising the Internet to drive cost-savings as well

as you might?



• Strategic issues: How else can we use the Internet to improve profitability? • Management: Do we have an up-to-date and appropriate website strategy, policy and

procedures? Are we using email responsibly?• Content and features of the website: Is the quality and scope of content and its

maintenance as good as it could be? • Revenue: What else can be done to generate revenue via the Internet? • Efficiencies and cost savings: How else can the Internet be used to cut business

costs?• Marketing and promotion: Are we doing enough to promote our Internet services?

How could we do it better? Are we using it effectively enough to manage customer relationships? Are we using email correctly - ie according to ethical uses of email and avoiding spamming?

• Supplier/distributor management: How can our use of the Internet improve the way we manage our suppliers/distributors? Cont/..

What to evaluate?



• Distribution: How else can we use the Internet to help distribute our services and products?

• E-commerce: What (else) should we be selling online?

• Budget: Is the e-business operating to budget?

• Competitors: What are our competitors doing online and what can we learn from it?

• Resources: Is sufficient time and money allocated to maintaining our e-business?

• Risk assessment: Do we have a risk management strategy? Is it effective? Is the website, and our computer systems that support it, secure enough against hackers?

• Legal and contractual: Does any content on our website or the way we use/sell things online, or our use of email, break any laws? Do we have an appropriate contract with our web developers and ISP?

• Website usability: Is our website easy to use? Does it make it easy for people to do business with us?

• Technical issues: Is the website speed and reliability appropriate, and our connection to the Internet fast enough?

What to evaluate?



How to evaluate?

• Focus groups• Interview internal users• Interview external users • One-off reality checks• Surveys and polls• Feedback from the website • Benchmarking

Do not rely on one evaluation methodology alone.


Improving – Doing business with government online

• e-government refers to the use of information and communications technologies to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, transparency and accountability of government.

• Consider the range of business activities that you engage in where there is a requirement or need to work with government. These activities might include:

– starting-up a business – taxation – paying taxes – applying for licenses and permits – checking legislation – training and apprenticeships – importing and exporting – employing people – grants and financial assistance – closing down a business


Improving – Doing business with government online

• Investigate whether these services, help or information are available online by exploring the relevant sections of the following websites:

• Business Entry Point (BEP): an online government resource for the Australian business community - www.businessgov.au

• The Commonwealth Electronic Tender System (CETS): a web-based e-tendering facility operating as a pilot system - www.tenders.gov.au

• Doing Business Online with Government: assists suppliers to trade electronically with Australian Government agencies - www.agimo.gov.au/publications/2002/11/dbowg

• Commonwealth Purchasing and Disposal Gazette: The business opportunities section of the Government Advertising website www.ads.gov.au provides information on government tenders to the public free of charge and The Gazette Publishing System (GaPS) located at www.contracts.gov.au, contains information about resulting contracts and standing offers and provides searching and reporting facilities for users.


Improving – Managing the supply chain and logistics

• A supply chain encompasses all activities and information flows necessary for the transformation of goods from the origin of the raw material to when the product is finally consumed or discarded.

• This typically involves distribution of product from the supplier to the manufacturer to the wholesaler to the retailer and to the final consumer, otherwise known as nodes in the supply chain. The transformation of product from node to node includes activities such as production planning, purchasing, materials management, distribution, customer service and forecasting.

• Ultimately the ability to do business effectively depends on the efficient functioning of the entire supply chain.


Improving – E-catalogues

• One of the components of interacting along the supply chain is the cataloguing of products that could be used as inputs for the next node in the supply chain.

• Putting this catalogue online can improve internal business efficiencies and ultimately the functioning of the entire supply chain.

• An e-catalogue is an online presentation of information on products and services that are offered and sold by an organisation.

• For organisations that do not have a large range of products or services, putting its catalogue on the Internet is not a difficult task. However, for those with large product lines and many service offerings, multiple buyers, complex supply-chains and logistics, converting to an e-catalogue system is a complex task and requires careful planning and implementation.


Improving – E-marketplaces

• An e-marketplace is an electronic exchange where firms register as sellers or buyers to communicate and conduct business over the Internet.

• Services offered by e-marketplaces include business directory listings, electronic catalogues for online purchasing of goods and services and trading or transaction services.

• E-marketplaces that are worth considering are those that interconnect with other marketplaces and allow low-cost connection to a firm’s financial accounting systems.

• There has been significant rationalisation in the number of e-marketplaces operating over the last few years, and careful consideration is needed before making a commitment to join an e-marketplace, to determine whether it is appropriate for your business needs.


For the full picture access the e-businessguide:

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