E-Commerce How Do Business-Oriented Networks and Enterprise

E-Commerce

How do business-oriented networks and enterprise social networks differ?

Various differences exist between business-oriented networks and enterprise social networks. For instance, business-oriented networks focus in conducting their business activities via online social networks. It entails joining an online network and gaining the highest number of followers, subscribers, or rather 'likes' to use the platform to market the business or create public relations. Its primary role is to enhance business profitability (Wang & George, 2006).

Enterprise social networks are online platforms that allow users of online social networks or those who share social relations to share their business interests, ideas, and/or activities. Enterprise social networks are used within or without an organization. They primarily promote employees' interactivity unlike business-oriented network seeking to enhance business performance in terms of profitability (Wang & George, 2006).

2. Why do organizations need a business continuity plan?

Business organizations need business continuity plan to enable them to recover quickly and effectively from unforeseen emergencies or disasters. This is vital for business success because it can minimize loss margin and stabilize revenue. The plan also boosts business reliability and ensures that customers/clients are not inconvenienced from possible disasters (Doughty, 2001).

A business continuity plan should also cover following critical issues:

The chain of command: For example, who is in charge of and who is responsible for the activities.

Critical equipment necessary for the business to continue: It is important to identify a plan of action involving alternative measures. These may be undertaken in case a major machine or infrastructure is destroyed during business operations.

Contingency measures that describe the list of measures undertaken in case an unexpected event occurs.

The following are two factors that influence a company's ability to recover from a disaster:

Availability of the support structure including capital base reserves: a company that has sufficient capital base reserves to take care of unexpected disasters is most likely to recover at a faster rate than that which has limited resources. It is always recommended that sufficient resources should be set aside to take care of such eventualities (Doughty, 2001).

Managerial power and prowess: companies that have strong and experienced management team are most likely to recover faster than those companies lacking this quality. This is because disaster recoverability is a factor of expeditious and efficient action. Experience management team is likely to avoid errors that could otherwise cripple the operations of the business organization much further (Doughty, 2001).

3. In Chapter 10 read the Opening Case on pages 514-515 and answer the following questions:

a) What sort of micropayment system should it use in order to run this business profitably?

Closed-loop systems/account-based systems or product. Under such a system, consumers of online products are expected to open an account with the online-based company that facilitates exchange of products and services between the consumer and the business organization. Some effective plans allow the consumer to make purchases to a given total before cumulative deduction is done. On the other hand, other effective plans operate on the prepaid basis. Such options are viable to such a business (Bidgoli, 2002).

b) What types of business and legal issues would it encounter in this business?

The business may not make economic sense in the end as some consumers may decide to share or redistribute the products acquired to others. This may be done freely or at a lower cost. For example, a single consumer may access a whole book or part of the book and redistribute it to others in the iTunes or e-books (Bidgoli, 2002). It is like that infringement of patent rights and the number of infringement lawsuits are may rise.