The Comparison of E-Commerce Operations Management in the UK and China

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION1

Background1

Benefits of E-commerce3

E-commerce is Everybody's Business4

Aims and objectives5

Rationale of the research5

Significance of the study6

Research questions6

Dissertation layout6

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW8

What is Business-To-Business E-Commerce?8

Business-to-Business E-Marketplaces9

Critical Success Factors and Success Concepts9

Previous Research on Factors Affecting E-Commerce Success10

E-Commerce Success: Description of the Key Factors11

Functional Factors11

Strategic Factors13

Technical Factors15

E commerce in china19

E commerce in UK22

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY25

Introduction25

Research design25

Rationale for Mixed Methods Research Design25

Secondary Research Methods26

Primary Research Methods27

Qualitative and Quantitative Research Method28

Data preparation and statistical procedures32

Sampling method32

Data Analysis32

Target Population and Sample Size32

Data collection33

Questionnaire33

Instrument34

Informed Consent34

REFERENCES35

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Background

With the development of technologies, the way in which people conduct transactions has changed significantly. It was in 1990s that e-commerce began to accelerate with the introduction of security protocols and high speed internet connections. Operations management is about activities, responsibilities and decisions that make up the task of managing of the process of transforming inputs into services and products (Schniederjans 2002 pp. 65). It is a critical business task. E-commerce operations management is the application of all operations management tasks applied in an e-commerce setting (Ritzman 2005 23).

E-commerce is defined as “business activities conducted using electronic data transmission via the Internet and the World Wide Web” (Porter 2005 32). E-commerce provides many benefits to both buyers and sellers.

Improvement in product quality, the creation of new ways of selling existing products, supply chain improvement, customization of products, and better customer service are other benefits cited in the literature (Naughton 2002 25). Not only have developed countries taken advantage of these potential benefits, but developing ones have as well (Leonard 2006 81). UK, for example, has started to provide its citizens with access to the Internet and has started to promote electronic businesses (Ahire 2007 43).

Most e-commerce systems include a Web server, an application server, databases, browsers, and usually a backend system. Web Server: Web servers use HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) over TCP/IP to send and receive HTTP requests for pages and return the data to clients' browsers. HTTP is the protocol that transfers hypertext files (such as html files) across the Web. The most popular Web servers include Lotus Go, NES, lIS, Apache, etc. Database Server: Database servers run database management software. Databases are kept in a directory that is part of a Web site, and accessed via server side programming. Popular databases include D82, Oracle, Access, Informix, etc. Electronic Commerce Development Team

The previous section talked about the software and hardware architecture of e-commerce system. More important than that is the human efforts in setting up an e-commerce system. To develop a fully functional e-commerce system, a development team is usually necessary. The team can be divided into three groups, Internet Marketing and Strategy Formulation: This group works to provide Internet marketing consultation and innovative site marketing strategies. Web Site Design & Development

This group contains both artists and programmers. Members work together to present site layout and design, create graphics, animations and video production. Programmers would mainly work on HTML, Java, JavaScript, Shockwave and other ...