Business Skills for Ecommerce

Learning outcome

LO 1 Understand the structure and aims of business organisations   

1.1 Assess an organisation’s core business functions

1.2 Evaluate an organisation’s business aims and show how they relate to stakeholders

LO 2 Understand the impact of e-Commerce   

2.1 Analyse the impact, including the risks, of introducing an e-Commerce system to an organisation

2.2 Discuss the global impact of e-Commerce on society

LO 3 Be able to design e-Commerce solutions   

3.1 Investigate market potential for an e-Commerce opportunity

3.2 Evaluate current e-Commerce systems in use by organisations

3.3 Discuss the financial implications of an e-Commerce solution

3.4 Design an e-Commerce solution

3.5 Evaluate the suitability of an e-Commerce solution

Assignment title - ULKOM BICYCLE HIRE

Purpose of this assignment

To enable learners to apply the business skills needed to design an e-Commerce solution for an Organisation.

Company:

A small business store known as “ULKOM BICYCLE HIRE”, whose head office is located in Cambridgeshire, has hired out bicycles for many years. ULKOM has three branches: London, Manchester and Cardiff. All of its business activities were written by hand.  Recently, the company modernised the business to improve efficiency and reduce errors. The company has recently implemented software and all manual data is now in its database.

The store wants to keep track of bicycles, customers, employees, bicycle hire and location at which the bicycle was hired. At the moment each branch is maintaining its own database. When a customer hires a bicycle from one branch and returns it to another branch, the store has to update the branches over the telephone so that each branch can know the status of its bicycles.

The owner of the company wants to have a central database with a web-based solution. Data from all branches will be online and each branch will be able to see the updated status of the bicycles in each branch. Some of the features of the online system will be:

• A customer can book to hire a bicycle.

• A booking fee must be paid in advance which is 20% of the total hire cost.

• When a customer receives the bicycle the booking status becomes “hired”.

• Customers can return the bicycle to any of the three locations.

• The store wants to keep track of the availability, type and condition of the bicycles. The types of bicycles available are: road bike, mountain bike, touring bike, folding bike.

The owner of the company wants to have an e-commerce solution along with the web-based database system. Since customers can book online and they must pay booking fee, there should be some online payment system implemented.

You have been hired by the company to design an e-Commerce solution using your business skills. Before preparing a solution you have been asked to study the existing business model used by the organization and prepare a report on the following:

Task 1   

• What type of organization ULKOM is and what is their main aim?

• A full SWOT analysis table.

Task 2   

• The benefits to customers and to the organization of introducing the e-Commerce solution.

• The potential cost of implementing the system, any support staff that might be needed and what back-up systems are required.

• Your discussion should include a comparison of two countries across the world. Consider for example, the impact of e-Commerce in the US and UK.

Task 3   

• You must find organizations that are involved in the same kind of business.

Task 4   

• Use block diagrams to fully design the structure for the proposed system.