To develop the company site and meet the needs of different users, I would change design, graphics, add more info or attract with images at regular intervals. This enables the website to be improved and modernized as well as being made more appealing to customers. Including security features such as encrypted pages and protection against theft/hackers. A scalable website is one designed to grow or change to continually meet business needs. Amazon or My places are example for a extent of a website that could range from passive brochure ware, to a limited interactivity by customers to those which are fully interactive.
Interactivity by customers is where they could communicate or order online. More specialist skills are needs if more functionality is required and the greater the cost of developing the website. If the business would like to sells online then consideration should include which stock is to be feature, where it would be stored, if any additional stock could be required, how will the payment be accepted and how the goods will be sent and will be legal issues of selling online. The website also would need to cope with the projected number of visitors on the site; otherwise it will crash or work so slowly that it becomes useless.
This means carefully considering the projected amount of ‘traffic’ to the site and the website capacity. A very good famous example of website crashes includes the BBC site on 9/11 and the government census site on its launch date. 5) All websites should be accurate, must be kept up to date and should relevant to the customer. There are some cases where the needs and demand of the customer could change over period of time, so that the website will have to be revised to incorporate increased service levels, such as online order tracking, online communication with staff and automated confirmation of order.
To ensure that the website always meets the needs of its users the updating and reviewing of it must be planned. Changing of the design at regular intervals also has its benefits, because it makes the website to be modernized and improved as well as being attractive and appealing to the customer. 6) Setting up an online operation is likely to involve collaboration with several partners. 7) Additional finance: Might be required to pay for additional stocks or raw materials that are required, site development costs and also if any expert staff that need to be hired.
There may be also problems coping with the legal requirements of trading online or with dealing with cultural expectations or other restrictions relating to foreign buyers 2) Businesses could struggle to adapt that used to operating on a small scale or dealing with customers face to face. They also might misjudge the quantity or type of orders they may receive, cost of distribution, packaging and time taken for a staff to fulfil online requests and popularity of their websites. A business could struggle to repay any money that was borrowed to pay for the website development and it may have unsold stock if it was less successful.
If it can’t fulfil order promptly or enquiries quickly due to insufficient stock or too few staff then it will not only fail to take advantage of new business but customers are unlikely to contact it again in the future if it has done itself a disservice. There might also be problems with dealing with cultural expectations or coping with legal requirements of trading online or order restriction relating to foreign buyers. It may take some time before it can respond to all the pressure and challenges it may meet unless the businesses can obtain specialist help and advice.
3) To minimise customer errors order forms should be designed to be foolproof. The website also should be made to prevent any obvious mistakes by the customers such as submitting the same order form twice. Most websites are designed in such way that key information in an order form has to be entered before the form is accepted. It’s also useful if large quantities or any obvious errors are queried before the order is processed. Online customers are protected by the sale of goods act and the supply of goods and services act 1982 in the way other consumers are.
Sale and supply of goods to consumers regulations 2002 also gives them the right to return any goods that are faulty whether they are brought online or from the shop. 4) Any organisation that stores and processes any information about individuals must register with information commissioner whether the information is on a computer system or in written records. Comply with the terms of the data protection act 1998, meaning the data must be secure, accurate and not kept for longer than necessary. This also means a business can’t put any private information on its website or disclose any details about the customer to other people.
Websites provide privacy policy and electronic communications regulations also allow business to send e-mails only to people who have ‘opted in’ by giving their active consent to receive these. These kinds of e-mails also include an option for the recipient to unsubscribe at any time. Websites also include visitor’s details by during a registration or ordering process. 5) What is cyber crime? Crime committed using a computer and the internet to steal a person’s identity or sell contraband or stalk victims or disrupt operations using malevolent programs.
Examples of Cyber crime: ? The computer or network is a tool of the criminal activity include spamming and criminal copyright crimes, particularly those facilitated through peer-to-peer networks. ? In which the computer or network is a target of criminal activity include unauthorized access (i. e. defeating access controls), malicious code, and denial-of-service attacks. ? Which the computer or network is a place of criminal activity include theft of service (in particular, telecom fraud) and certain financial frauds.
? Traditional crimes facilitated through the use of computers or networks include other gullibility or social engineering frauds (e. g. Hacking “phishing”, identity theft, child pornography, online gambling, securities fraud, etc. ) Cyber stalking is an example of a traditional crime – harassment – that has taken a new form when facilitated through computer networks. Why do businesses need to be aware of it? This is because businesses can lose financially or suffer brand damage. The move by organised criminal networks into cyber crime demonstrates how much money is to be made from this medium.
These loosely-formed networks are different from what have been known as traditional organised crime groups, which are characterized by structure and a defined hierarchy. 6) For the information provides it’s current and product description/information and lists are accurate the business needs to update websites regularly. There are some cases were incorrect or out-of-date information creates problems. There is nothing worse than for a customer to see pages that have not been changed/upgraded for a year or more.
There may be a case to answer if a customer took action based on outdated or inaccurate information. To cover these kinds of problems most websites have a disclaimer clause. However it depends upon the type of website. An example would be NHS and Tesco or Asda, NHS has to be more careful about the accuracy of the information it provides than Retail stores such as Asda or Tesco. 8) Multinational businesses with overseas customers normally have a facility to enable users to choose the website version they want, sometimes by identifying their national flag for example as at www.
mcdonalds. com or www. burton. com When foreign buyers want to purchase goods, smaller organizations will not have this facility to deal with it and that causes more confusion. This is the reason why many firms would include disclaimer clause, for example at the Marks and Spencer website where orders are only accepted if the description accurately matches that on the site and company takes no responsibility for goods to be used abroad or any local laws that would affect the purchase in any way.
Small firms that would want to sell to any foreign business customers have two choices. They might have enquires for their services translated or try to work through a local agent. It should be done by an expert. Online translation services such as Google’s might be useful for a pen friend but not recommended for any important business documents. 9) Every computer users are dependent upon their Internet Service Provider to stay online. If the system develops a technical fault, then Internet access is lost until the fault is repaired.
This can create serious problems for an online business, particularly if the website is ‘down’ for any length of time. The system itself may develop a fault even if there aren’t any problems with an ISP. The software may be corrupted or the hardware may malfunction. Most businesses have back-up servers for this reason; so if the servers goes down they can simply switch to another. Due to programming errors or through a virus, software problems can be caused.
If there is any major disaster none of these measures will help. To repair and restore the system quickly, problems relating to hardware and software failures, and loss of data, some businesses have their website offsite in a secure location where there are some specialist staff available to deal with problems. If there is a major system problem they may have to deal with calls from angry customers and the staff will not be able to do their jobs. If there are any breakdowns it puts more pressure on the staff.
