ELECTRONIC COMMERCE
QUESTION 1: (30 MARKS) [COMPULSORY]
- Define the term Electronic Business (2 marks)
- Explain the difference between B2C and B2C2C types of E-Commerce giving examples in each case. (6 marks)
- A business person wants to apply Electronic Data Interchange in business. Explain how this can be actualized. (4 marks)
- State three types of Electronic Commerce. (3 marks)
- The County Government of Kisumu wants to incorporate e-commerce in its Supply Chain operations. Explain three ways in which this can be done. (6 marks)
- Discuss three ethical issues that should be dealt with in E-Commerce. (6 marks)
- Explain the functions of Firewall in E-commerce. (3 marks)
QUESTION 2: (20 MARKS)
- JKUAT Company wants to shift from manual payment to electronic payment methods. Advise on FIVE Payment methods that they can comfortably implement.
(10 marks)
- b) Discuss FIVE ways in which the payment methods implemented in 2a above would be beneficial to the company. (10 marks)
QUESTION 3: (20 MARKS)
- Electronic Commerce implementation requires a proper framework to be set up. Discuss FIVE categories of rules that are important in formation of a good strategic framework. (10 Marks)
- Security is very important in electronic commerce platforms.
- Explain three security vulnerabilities to these platforms
- Explain two counter-measures to the vulnerabilities above (10 marks)
QUESTION 4: (20 MARKS)
- a) Marketing is one of the main areas where E-Commerce has been applied. Explain FIVE ways through which marketing can be done in E-Commerce. (10 marks)
- b) Elaborate using examples how mobile commerce has transformed the way operations are being done in various business oriented organizations. (10 marks)
JOMO KENYATTA UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE AND TECHNOLOGY
University Examinations 2015/2016
EXAMINATION FOR BIT, BBIT AND BPSM
HBT 2306, BIT 2315 AND BBT 2211: E- COMMERCE
DATE: december 2015 TIME: 2 HOURS
Instructions: Answer Question ONE and any other TWO Questions
Question 1: (30 MARKS) [COMPULSORY]
- What is e-commerce? (2 marks)
The process of conducting business using electronic systems, networks or the internet
- Discuss B2B2C and C2B2C model giving proper examples. (6 marks)
Business to Business to Consumer (B2B2C) is an emerging e-commerce model that combines Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Consumer (B2C) for a complete product or service transaction.
Consumer to business to consumer (C2B2C) is a business model that is commonly associated with e-commerce transactions. In C2B2L, a business acts as an intermediary between two consumers who exchange goods. This exchange is a business transaction in which one of the individuals acts as a seller and the other acts as a buyer.
- A business person wants to apply Electronic Data Interchange in business. Explain how this can be actualized. (4 marks)
The following issues are important in implementation: Do you have senior management buy-in for EDI? , Can you create a multi-discipline EDI Steering Committee? Do you have the correct level of technical and business analysis experience in-house? , Will you develop your EDI system in-house or select a third-party EDI provider/VAN?, Which type of EDI is right for your business?
- What role does SCM play in Business to Business model i.e B2B e-Commerce? (3 marks)
Supply chain management, whether in a traditional or E-commerce environment, involves distributing products, goods and services from point of manufacture to the delivery of the final product. For supply chain management to work in a B2B or in a B2C environment, the focus must be on provider customers with the utmost in quality services.
- The government of Kenya wants to incorporate e-commerce in its operations. Explain three ways in which this can be done. (6 marks)
The government can incorporate e commerce in different areas. These include marketing/ advertising, procurement/ supply chain management, communication e.t.c. Explain these areas.
- Explain three differences between virtual auction and reverse auction. (6 marks)
- Explain the function of Firewall in e-commerce. (3 marks)
Generally the firewall has two network interfaces: one for the external side of the network, one for the internal side. Its purpose is to control what traffic is allowed to traverse from one side to the other. As the most basic level, firewalls can block traffic intended for particular IP addresses or server ports
Question 2: (20 MARKS)
- ABC Company wants to make payments to its clients for services already offered. Explain FIVE Payment methods in e-commerce that the company can use. (10 marks)
The student should discuss: Online cheque, credit cards, debit cards, PayPal Balance, PayPal Credit, bank account, PayPal Cards.
- b) Discuss how a company can use internet commerce concepts to ensure efficiency in their supply chain processes. (10 marks)
E commerce can be incorporated in the SCM systems. This wold bring the following impact:
Reduce SCM cycle time
Use of eCommerce information to reduce SCM cycle time – as more of the decisions are shifted from humans to computers due to reduction of control by paper forms, SCM processes are initiated with less constraints imposed by humans (leave, errors, misplacing of paper forms, overloaded, etc). This immediately cuts a significant delay out of the SCM cycle. And information becomes the controlling agent as opposed to paper forms.
Minimize excess inventory
Each link of the SC holds a certain level of inventory (raw, semi-finished, finished, parts) for event of uncertain interruption of supply in the SC. This is to ensure that the materials will continue to flow even in the event of an interruption in the upstream of the SC. These inventory are excess inventory. They can only be minimized with more timely flow of inventory among the many links of the SC.
Sales Order Fulfillment and Level of Customer Service
Customer services will improve as information becomes transparent. In traditional business, the various sales and warehousing supervisors are the gate-keepers to inventory availability information, resulting in delay of responses to customer’s request for information. With eCommerce many could provide self-service web customer services, allowing a quicker response to sales order fulfillment and a higher level of customers’ satisfaction.
Question 3: (20 Marks)
- A good framework is generally required to set up a good E-Commerce System. Discuss the elements that constitute a good E-Commerce framework. (10 Marks)
Discuss: Technology Infrastructure, capital infrastructure, media infrastructure and public policy infrastructure
- Malicious Software is a serious threat to e-commerce environm Explain four types of malicious software and how to handle them in a system. (10 Marks)
The student should discuss the following: Worms, Viruses, Trojan Horse, adware, bots, bugs, rootkits, spyware, Trojan horses, and worms.
Question 4: (20 MARKS)
- a) Discuss five network protocols that are most likely to be used in the development and handling of systems that can be used in electronic commerce. (10 marks)
-TCP/IP: TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) and IP (Internet Protocol) are two different procedures that are often linked together. The linking of several protocols is common since the functions of different protocols can be complementary so that together they carry out some complete task.
-UDP: Another member of the TCP/IP suite is User Datagram Protocol (UDP). (A datagram is almost the same as a packet except that sometimes a packet will contain more than one datagram.) This protocol is used together with IP when small amounts of information are involved. It is simpler than TCP and lacks the flow-control and error-recovery functions of TCP. Thus, it uses fewer system resources.
-ICMP: A different type of protocol is Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) . It defines a small number of messages used for diagnostic and management purposes. It is also used by Ping and Traceroute.
-HTTP: Web pages are constructed according to a standard method called Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). An HTML page is transmitted over the Web in a standard way and format known as Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). This protocol uses TCP/IP to manage the Web -transmission.
-FTP: File Transfer Protocol (FTP) lives up to its name and provides a method for copying files over a network from one computer to another. More generally, it provides for some simple file management on the contents of a remote computer. It is an old protocol and is used less than it was before the World Wide Web came along.
- b) Elaborate using examples how mobile commerce has transformed the way operations are being done in various business oriented organizations. (10 marks)
-Shopping on mobile devices is definitely time saving. You don’t have to always have a laptop or a PC available in order to buy things on the internet (although you also can buy things on e-commerce websites using desktop computers or laptops).
-Consumers have access to all the range of products. What they haven’t seen in your physical store, they will be able to see in your virtual mobile store.
-Lack of schedules. It’s a really convenient feature because lots of people have to work all day and don’t have time to go to physical store and don’t have a PC available. What’s the solution? Your wonderful mobile website
-Major accessibility. Thanks to the use of mobile phones users will be able not only to connect to the online store 24h, but they will also be able to do it from anywhere. This way the possibility of making sales will increase considerably.
-Easy purchase process. This innovative process makes it easier for consumers the task of purchasing products, since the applications designed for mobile phones are simpler and shows the consumer the specific information of the product he/she needs to buy.
-Instant updating of the information. Thanks to the use of mobile phones, the user can be contacted in whichever moment, the user being able to receive and read instantly the new update sent by the company, without the necessity of being connected to a PC or laptop. This way transactions are speeded up and a lot of time is saved.
