Standardizing ebusiness Practices

Standards are definitions or formats that have been either approved by a recognized organization or are accepted as de facto by the industry. There are several standard-setting organizations that specialize in different areas of computer technology. Those organizations are described in this table.

In addition to those standards that are approved by organizations, there are also de facto standards. These are formats that have become standard simply because a large number of companies have agreed to use them. They have not been formally approved as standards, but they are standards nonetheless.

Standards exist for programming languages, operating systems, data formats, communications protocols, and electrical interfaces. For the user, standards are important because they allow the combination of products from different manufacturers to create a customized system. Without standards, only hardware and software from the same company could be used together.

In order to choose your solutions technologies wisely, it's important to know that eBusiness technologies fall into two "standards camps." These camps are:

1. Proprietary technologies
2. Standards-based technologies

There are distinct risks to using proprietary technologies and benefits to using standards-based technologies.

E-business advocates often make e-business models sound like an easy solution to business and financial challenges. E-business can offer specific advantages, such as reaching out to a wider customer base and faster transactions. Customers frequently consult the Internet to find stores and service providers or to make purchases. Before jumping into the world of e-commerce, business owners also need to know the risks.

One of the biggest selling points of e-business is the low start-up costs. Domain names and web hosting incur relatively low costs when compared with renting or buying a physical space like a restaurant or pizzeria. While some business owners choose to build a website in house, many outsource the work to build the site. The costs of a custom site can run into the thousands of dollars. Maintaining and updating the website also requires time, which can mean either hiring someone to do that work or using your own time to do so.

Every business faces the problem of data security, and e-business maximizes these challenges. Customers enter a considerable amount of sensitive information, ranging from phone numbers to credit card numbers, on your site. As the site owner, you take responsibility for protecting that information with appropriate security measures, such as Secure Sockets Layer encryption or contracting with third parties to provide secure transaction processing. Failures in data security can lead both to fines and loss of faith on the part of your customers.

Online and offline businesses both rely on effective marketing to drive growth and sales. Unfortunately, the techniques and strategies for online marketing diverge radically from offline techniques. Business owners can find themselves lost in talk of pay-per-click, viral techniques and social media. Businesses new to e-business may find it necessary to hire an individual or company that specialize in online marketing, in addition to any offline marketing services they already use. Without effective online marketing to drive traffic to the website, the entire project can turn into a waste of time and financial resources.

Click the Exercise link below to assess what standards your e-solutions technology should adhere to.
Standards ebusiness - Exercise
The next lesson describes the tools necessary for developing an eBusiness solution.