The last potential disadvantage relating to exposure is the inability to cope with massively increased marked interest. If an online presence website has too many people trying using it simultaneously it can result in the site crashing. This means that the enquiries cannot be answered quickly or the orders cannot be filled because there is few staff to process them. The online presence can lose customers and there is chance that they never contact it again in the future. An online presence that may suffer such problem are zonepoint.co.uk
Vulnerability to hostile attack
Large businesses are threatened by phishing, spoof websites or denial of service attacks. Small businesses are more vulnerable to staff misuse of company websites and lack of care in relation of security. But all businesses are threatened by the virus.
Businesses can suffer from DOS attacks and other cybercrimes. A DOS attack occurs when a website is overwhelmed with data in a short time. Nowadays websites suffer more from hacking. Hacking is when a person gains authorised access to a computer for the purpose of stealing information. Cybercrime and DOS attacks cost billions of pounds for businesses.
ISP collapses is another disadvantage. Online Businesses presences are dependent upon their ISP stay online. The Internet access can be lost if a system develops a technical fault. This can create huge problems for businesses if the website is “down” for a long period of time. Some examples of online businesses presences that are regularly “down” are pc-wizards.co.uk and maccentre.com
Potential unpopularity with staff
When people develop an online presence it can create worry and anxiety for staff. Staff may be concerned that their jobs may change.
New staff will be needed with specific skills such as managing the website and keep-up-to date. Also the jobs and the working methods of existing will change. Existing staff will need to learn new skills, dealing with customer queries online, and ways of working.
To perform an online presence, staff will need to adapt new skills to their jobs. If the adaptation fails it can create a disadvantage to the online presence.
Financial uncertainties
This section covers the disadvantages relating to money. The major disadvantage is to having an expensive online presence which brings few financial benefits.
The initial investment cost is very important. An online presence will require extensive hardware, sep-up costs (ISP charge), staff training and marketing and promotion costs. This cost large amount of money. The first stages of an online presence are very feeble as they require to invest lot of money to set up the business. But then, if the customers cope with the business, it would bring many financial benefits. Then the online presence can think about improving the services and the website.
In conclusion, the initial investments of a new online business presence are a disadvantage as they will require to invest a large amount of money to set-up the business.
Potential pitfalls associated with e-business implementation
When an online business presence goes online there is a big risk not having the right staff, budget, equipment and time. Without these, the business will fail the customer demands. It is very important that an online presence creates a website that stays competitive and helps the business.
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Potential requirements for customisation – A basic website can be created using a simple program called Microsoft FrontPage. More complicated websites can be created using programs such as Dreamweaver, Flash and Fireworks. The greater the need for customisation the greater the need for specialist skills. The disadvantage is that an online presence having a complicated website increases the money spent on the website.
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Desired extent of online operations – Some businesses are basic which are only catalogues while others are interactive (order online or customers can communicate). But some websites such as the Amazon website are fully interactive. The size of the actions affects the specialist skills required and the cost of carrying out the actions. If a business wants to sell online it must know what stock to show, how to deliver the goods, how much stock to be brought, where to keep the stock and the legal issues of selling online. The online presence also needs to know how to manage the amount of visitors (considering the amount of traffic and the capacity of the site).
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Changing user specification – All websites must be accurate, up-to-date and relevant to the customer. The expectations and demands of the customers change over time, so the website needs to plan and take place with regular times over a year. This can consist to increase the service levels such as the online communication with the staff (emails).
Desired speed of change and other aspects
The amount of pressure on the staff increases when the speed is changed, giving the staff less time for all the potential effects. The speed of change can be influenced by the following factors:
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Pace set by competitors – If the competitors all doing well, it would put a lot of pressure to change the website as well in order to remain in the competition. The situation is a lot easier if the business is the market leader and has the “edge” over other businesses.
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Adaptability of key staff – Businesses expect people to have certain skills in order to get to job. The businesses do this to ensure they have the right staff to care about the business. But when the business is deciding to change the website, the staff should be informed quickly; this will increase the cooperation with the business. The staff needs to have a proper training as the jobs will significantly change.
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Potential redundancies and industrial relations problems – When the online presence is doing well in the market, the business may reduce some of their cost, get rid of some of the brick and mortars and the employees there within. This would leave many employees unemployed and out of jobs. For redundancy pay only the employees that have worked more than two years would be eligible.
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Timescale for effective online operation – The time to achieve an online presence this will depend upon several factors such as the size of the business, the number of operations, the scale of change, the amount of staff training required etc. Time should be left for testing and some time left for unexpected problems. By leaving this time, the plans would be not affected.
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Difficulties in transition – In the most of times a “pilot run” is carried out so that any problems can be identified and solved before the whole system “goes live.” This is related to the actions affecting the customers and staff e.g. paying wages electronically, handling customer enquiries etc. The website could be tested before it goes online by the staff so any issues can be identify and deal with. By this the information can be used to make the website better and easy to use.
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Increased sales or service supply – The aim of any business online should be to improve the following: the customer service, the efficiency, the sales etc. The areas to examine such as the quality of service, the performance of the business, the important decisions, the speed of operation etc. should be frequently monitored.
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Anticipated timescale of benefits – The benefits should be given priority so that these are achieved over everything else. If the main aim of the business is to improve sales and customer service, then these targets should be looked more. However, not all things can be achieved at time such as the sales of new products; the development etc may take longer to be achieved. In general, businesses use the method to set benchmarks. Benchmarks include the main objectives to be achieved and it includes the number of visitors etc.
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Anticipated competitive disadvantage of not going online – This depends on the products or service being provided or sold whether these are suited to online trading or whether competitors are online.
In conclusion, in this task I have described the potential disadvantages of an online presence giving examples of businesses who suffer from these problems; looking at the problems relating to exposure, vulnerability to hostile attack, potential unpopularity with staff and financial uncertainties. After this, I identified and described the difficulties of an online presence may come across when implementing its e-business operation.
