DEVELOPMENT OF E-BUSINESS & E-COMMERCE IN GLOBAL MARKET

Electronic business or known as E-business is any business which makes use of computer and related electronic devices. E-business is the most valuable tool used in the present day in order to improve productivity as well as profitability in business. This type of business mainly utilize internet as a communication network and proved to be most cost effective for any type of business. Electronic commerce (E-commerce) is merely a subset of e-business and it essentially refers to activities involving monetary transactions.

All other traditional business features can be handled well by e-business other than buying and selling. Download of small programs is another pattern of getting pertinent information and other specifications related to particular service or product. This is the main motive of turning all business in to e-business effectively today. The broad purview of e-business includes running a website that informs the prospective clients about the available products in detail, so that they could be converted into customers.

Trust is the major limitation for such business as not all people depends on electronic networks for all type of business.  Furthermore, all the countries and regions do not have internet facility and do not have smooth and easy access to internet especially in developing country. In addition, food and regulatory procedures are very complicated and protection is high for such matters and electronic commerce does not provide such protection. All the items cannot be purchased using electronic commerce like food items in which selection and delivery become difficult electronically. Not all the people are aware perfectly for the use and function of e-business. As the main concern for electronic commerce is standard, some alterations should be done and new strategies should be applied to overcome this. Electronic commerce is different to e-business to some extent as electronic commerce is only related to buying and selling whereas e-business is a large action.

Most firm and its products have a worldwide presence when they implement E-business or E-commerce. IBM is one of the first companies to use the term e-business and it activated to collaborate with business partners from all over the world. Other than that, Amazon.com also helps customers to buy internationally, from third parties.  E-business also has greatly contributed to improvement in customer service.

(sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_commerce)

ROLE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES (IT) IN DEVELOPING MALAYSIA INTO A KNOWLEDGE-BASED ECONOMY

The knowledge-based economy provides the platform to sustain a rapid rate of economic growth and improve international competitiveness to achieve the objectives of Vision 2020. This article focused to the role of IT in developing Malaysia into a knowledge based economy because it will also strengthen Malaysia’s capability to innovate; adapt and create local technology. Information technology (IT) will be the fundamental enabling tool which support by human capital to create, innovate, generate and exploit new ideas as well as apply technology and exercise superior entrepreneurial skills. Technology transformation is very important to ensure the connectivity to the rest of the world because it has a reliable infrastructure which encourages information and technology sharing.

Furthermore, IT development and communications technology will lead to better interaction among employees in any organizations and there will be active involvement of employees in contributing ideas and decision-making. This is important in order to develop the environment of knowledge based economy in Malaysia. It is because employee and skills is closely related as a “key assets” to introduce Malaysia throughout the world to be competitive. Other than that, access to networking is essential in obtaining and distributing knowledge and the Internet is a key driver of ICT especially in the development of E-based activities, resulting in new approaches to doing things.


The rapid creation and dissemination of knowledge and information on the back of advances in IT are changing the manner in which goods and services are produced and marketed, and investments are made. Trade and investment transactions are conducted on-line and are becoming increasingly virtual using IT. Other than that, several Malaysian portals and sites have been set up with regards to the development of local content in IT and multimedia. Incentives will be provided to individuals and institutions of learning to produce local content in local languages as well as to produce user-friendly software and appropriate Internet access technology. The private sector and NGOs will be encouraged to play a significant role in the area of content development.

(http://www.epu.gov.my/html/themes/epu/images/common/pdf/3rd_OPP_cont_chap5.pdf)

MOBILE BUSINESS INTELLIGENT

What is Mobile Business Intelligence (Mobile BI)?

Mobile Business Intelligence (Mobile BI or Mobile Intelligence) refers to the distribution of business data to mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. Business intelligence (BI) refers to computer-based techniques used in spotting, digging-out, and analyzing business data, such as sales revenue by products and departments. Mobile BI has shown a growth only very recently. This change has been partly encouraged by a change from the ‘wired world’ to a wireless world with the advantage of smartphones which has led to a new era of mobile computing, especially in the field of BI.

:: Information delivery to mobile devices

The predominant method for accessing BI information is using proprietary software or a Web browser on a personal computer to connect to BI applications. These BI applications request data from databases.

:: Mobile client application

Wireless e-mail of Blackberry proved to be the “killer applications” that enhanced the popularity of the smartphone market. The BlackBerry smartphones reduced the difficulties to mobile business intelligence. BI vendors re-entered the market with offerings spanning different mobile operating systems (BlackBerry, Windows, and Symbian) and data access methods. The two most popular data access options are:

   () To use the mobile browser to access data, similar to desktop computer.

      () To create a native application designed specifically for the mobile device.

:: Development

Developing a natural mobile BI application poses challenges, especially concerning data display rendering and user interactivity. Mobile BI App development has traditionally been a time-consuming and expensive effort requiring businesses to explain worth investment for the mobile workforce. They do not only require texting and alerts, they need information customized for their line of work which they can interact with and analyze to gain deeper information.

1)    Custom-coded Mobile BI Apps

Mobile BI applications are often custom coded apps specific to the underlying mobile operating system. In addition to the user functionality of the app, the app must be coded to work with the backup server infrastructure required to serve data to the mobile BI app. While custom coded apps offer near limitless options, the specialized software coding expertise and infrastructure can be expensive to development, modify, and maintain.

2)    Fixed-formed Mobile BI Apps

Business data can be displayed in a mobile BI client that serves as a user interface to existing BI platforms, eliminating the need for specialized server infrastructure since it is provided by the BI platform. This option offer fixed-formed data visualizations such as charts and tables

3)    Graphical Tool-developed Mobile BI Apps

Mobile BI apps can also be developed using the graphical, drag-and-drop development environments of BI platforms. The advantages of using graphical tool are can be developed without coding, can be easily modified using BI platform, can use any range of data conceptions and can incorporate specific business workflows.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_business_intelligence)