Page 178 - Introduction to Electronic Commerce and Social Commerce

Summary 159

4. Define file sharing. SUMMARY
5. Describe file sharing and the legal issues involved (see the
Pirate Bay case in Chapter 12). In this chapter, you learned about the following EC issues as
they relate to the chapter’s learning objectives.

MANAGERIAL ISSUES 1. E-government activities. Governments, like any other
organization, can use EC applications for great savings
Some managerial issues related to this chapter are as follows. and increased effectiveness. Notable applications are
e-procurement using reverse auctions, e-payments to and
1. How do we design the most cost-efficient government from citizens and businesses, auctioning of surplus goods,
e-procurement system? Several issues are involved and and electronic travel and expense management systems.
questions may be raised in planning e-government: How Governments also conduct electronic business with other
much can the governmental e-procurement system save on governments. As a result, governments can do a better job
procurement costs? How can the system be used for pro- with less money.
curing small quantities? How do you deal with bidders 2. Implementing e-government to citizens, businesses, and
from outside your country? How can illegal bribery be its own operations. Governments worldwide are provid-
prevented? What criteria besides cost need to be consid- ing a variety of services to citizens over the Internet. Such
ered? How should the online and off-line procurement initiatives increase citizen satisfaction and decrease gov-
systems be designed? How do you advertise RFQs online? ernment expenses for providing citizens’ service applica-
How should the portfolio of auctions and desktop purchas- tions, including electronic voting. Governments also are
ing be constructed? Can the government use commercial active in electronic trading with businesses. Finally, EC
B2B sites for procurement? Can businesses use the gov- can be conducted within and between governments.
ernment procurement system for their own procurement? E-government’s growth can be strengthened by the use of
All these must be considered in an effective design. wireless systems in what is described as mobile or m-gov-
2. How do we design the portfolio of e-learning knowl- ernment. Also, e-government 2.0 is becoming increas-
edge sources? There are many sources of e-learning ser- ingly popular with tools such as wikis, blogs, social
vices. The e-learning management team needs to design networks, and Twitter.
the portfolio of the online and off-line training applica- 3. E-learning and training. E-learning is the delivery of
tions, and the internal and external knowledge sources educational content through electronic media via the
(paid and nonpaid sources). The internal knowledge man- Internet and intranets. Degree programs, lifelong learning
agement system is an important source of training materi- topics, and corporate training are delivered online by thou-
als for large corporations, whereas external sources could sands of organizations worldwide. A growing area is dis-
be more cost-effective for small organizations. Obviously, tance learning via online university offerings, and virtual
justification of each item in the portfolio is needed, which universities are becoming quite popular. Some are virtual;
is related to vendor selection. For illustrative case studies, others are delivered as a combination of online and off-line
see brightwave.co.uk. offerings. Online corporate training is also increasing, and
3. How do we incorporate social networking-based learn- is sometimes conducted at formal corporate learning cen-
ing and services in our organization? With the prolifera- ters. Implementation is done in steps starting with just an
tion of social networking initiatives in the enterprise online presence and ending with activities on social net-
comes the issue of how to integrate these with the enter- works. New e-readers contain easy- to- read text, search
prise system, including CRM, KM, training, and other capabilities, rich media, as well as other functions. Add to
applications and business processes. One issue is how to this the low cost of e-books and the capability of storing
balance the quality of knowledge with the scope of knowl- hundreds of books on a single e-reader, and you can under-
edge in e-learning and training programs. stand the increased popularity of these devices.
4. What will be the impact of the e-book platform? If the 4. E-books and their readers. There is an increased inter-
e-book is widely adopted by readers, the distribution est in e-books due to their many benefits (Amazon.com
channel of online book sales may be disruptive. This new sells more e-books than hardcover ones). There is intense
platform may cannibalize the off-line book retail busi- competition among e-readers and tablet manufacturers,
ness. Additionally, there is the need for the protection of and the products’ capabilities are increasing while their
intellectual property of digital contents since it is easy to prices are declining. E-books are used both for pleasure
copy and distribute electronic files (see Chapter 12). In reading and for studying. E-books can be read on several
general, more e-books will be published and read. portable devices, including tablets.