The Games Industry: a UK Success Story - Assignment Example

E-Business Report Word Count: 2375 {Business Case Analysis to Data Security} Contents of the Report Business Case Analysis Introduction: The Organization Frameworks of E-Business E-Business Implementation Web Solution Specifications Technical Functionalities Elements of Web Design User Interface Information Management Potential Data Threats Data Security References Appendix Business Case Analysis The following sub-sections aim at introducing the company, the market it operates in, a literature survey about the various E-Marketing Models which relate to the company and the outline implementation of the proposed E-Business. Introduction: The Organization 'GameODrome', is a new company, which deals in selling Computer Games, TV Video Games, and Games on all leading consoles, such as Nintendo Game Boy, Sony Play Station and Microsoft XBOX and all accessories needed for gaming in any environment. Although the gaming industry across UK is experiencing a major boom, the main beneficiaries are the makers of the games and gaming products. Traders, who act as the deliverers who reach to the actual consumer play a crucial role in this business. In UK, the major players include Amazon, EBay, Play (www.play.com), GAME (www.game.co.uk) and others. According to the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), "the UK gaming industry recorded a trade close to 200m in 2005 and is on a continuous inclination". These facts are favorable to the success of GameODrome. Being nave, GameODrome has to compete with several competitors and prove to the consumer that striking a deal with them is easier and more accessible. Frameworks of E - Business The advent of Internet has drastically changed lifestyles. E-Marketing is the latest revolution in Internet which allows buying goods while sitting at the luxury of one's home. Many companies now provide their sales and services through internet. With the help of E-Marketing, GameODrome, can promote its products, increase sales and establish a wider techno-savvy clientele. One should know and understand various frameworks of E-marketing and their role in promoting a company. E-Marketing consists of several theoretical models, which provide a company with the tools to support the essential elements of marketing, namely price, promotion, product and place. The important models are: Merchant Model: This model is typically used by traders, resellers, wholesaler and retailers of goods and services. It includes 24x7 ordering and one to one custom marketing (embellix, 2000). This would be the most efficient solution for GameODrome, as its main form. It provides catalogues which make it easy for the consumer to choose a product. Auction Model: This model emulates the traditional 'bidding' model. It implements the bidding mechanisms by presenting goods and their value online. For GameODrome, this model would not be an immediate prospective. However once GameODrome establishes itself in the online industry, it can use this model to make 'year-end sales' and allow flagship firms to auction their goods. Manufacturer Model: It is used by the manufacturers directly to communicate to the consumers about their goods and services. Affiliate Model: In this model a company becomes an 'affiliate' of another company to advertise itself or its products and needs to pay certain amount for using it. This model can work well as a secondary model for GameODrome. Advertising Model: In this model, a company uses another website to advertise with the use of banners. Subscription Model: This model is generally used by Online Libraries and Scientific Organizations, where certain amount has to be paid as subscription charges to view or download any content offered (commissionjunction.com, nd). Logistics Model: In this model a company manages the logistical activities of another company. It is useful to organizations that have a strong foothold and already generated sufficient revenue. E-Business Implementation The implementation of the Internet solutions to GameODrome must incorporate all standards of quality and integrity. Specifically it should focus on the strategic issues that might arise out of this venture. Since GameODrome will be a new website among the several websites already monopolizing the online market, there is a risk of over-budgeting, if the online solution does not achieve its pre determined milestones. It must incorporate advanced functionalities such as 'easily accessible catalogues', 'easy search features', and 'hassle-free pricing options' in their website to score over other existing websites. Secondly, the website has to be user friendly or easily accessible with attractive color contrasts and effective advertising features. Finally care must be taken to nullify any risks arising out of issues such as 'religious sentiments', 'socio-cultural dynamics' and 'quality'. The elements of the website should not hurt any religious sentiments of people across the world. Furthermore, content that might disrupt the socio-economic conditions of a society must be avoided. Finally and most importantly the company has to take necessary steps to ensure that a high quality product as shown in the website is delivered to the customer. Web Solution Specifications The following sections will limn the various technical specifications of the prospective web site of GameODrome. Technical Functionalities The website of GameODrome must intend to promote itself to a large consumer base and act as a medium through which clients can get information about their favorite video games and buy them. To facilitate these necessities the main functionalities of the website can be enumerated as follows: Presentation of Information: The presentation of information should attract and captivate the interests of clients. Sufficient web pages should provide all information possible about the company, company policies, operating domain, products for sale, methodologies to work through the website and other relevant information. Catalogues: Since the web site of GameODrome emulates a merchant model, easily accessible catalogues must be programmed. The catalogues will present the products with all relevant information. Appropriate catalogues must be triggered depending on the search interests of individual clients. Search Options: Too much of unnecessary information in bulk pages are a major put-off for any client. Easy options must be provided to the client to narrow down the search results depending on his preferences. For example, if a client intends to buy SONY Play Station Games, within the price range of 100 to 300, he must be shown catalogues with products matching these requirements. Shopping Cart: The Shopping Cart holds the products that have been selected by the client. It should retain all the information and when the user wishes to 'check-out', he must be shown the products selected and ask for confirmation. The shopping cart must also have features to add more products and remove some products. Billing: This is an extremely sensitive part of the website. Firstly the client must be presented with various Billing and Shipping options that GameODrome provides. If the client chooses 'Online-Pay', as the option a secure page should show the client the proof of security. All sensitive information such as credit card numbers and addresses must be sent to the server through a secure connection. Ad Rotators: Website must present advertisements to the client depicting new and top selling products. The shopping trends of the client must be taken into account while displaying the advertisements. By analyzing the pages that the consumer commonly visits, the Ad Rotator must display those advertisements that match the interests of an individual. Elements of Web Design The proposed website of GameODrome serves as a 'Business-to-Consumer', model and hence it will contain both static as well as dynamic data. The static data can be provided through 'Hyper Text Markup Language' (HTML) and Dynamic content can be powered through a server side scripting language such as 'Active Server Page'. To make the webpage user friendly, a client side scripting language such as J Script may be used. HTML is a mark up language that contains several marking codes using which information can be edited. The client may view all the information on a web browser such as Internet Explorer or Mozilla Fire Fox. All the textual information must be presented with the help of HTML. Default codes of HTML should be used to make the text look elegant. Color contrasts and hue must be taken care while coding a page. Scripting language personalizes the page depending on the user interests. Using scripting languages client can be allowed to interact with the layout of the page. Appearances such as background and foreground colors and status bar descriptions can be personalized as the user wishes. Powerful client side scripting languages that provide these features are J Scrip at VB Script. Finally a powerful server side scripting language provides all the essentials using which the client can interact with the database and server. Search Engines, Query Fields, Searching Options, Catalogue Display, Shopping Carts and Payment Systems are all powered through a server side scripting language. For this purpose languages such as ASP, JSP or PHP may be used. User Interface Some of the prominent prospective interfaces that might be incorporated in the website are explained below. Main Page MyDROME: Consists of the favorite list which internally consists of all the previously downloaded games and new ones added to the cart. Login: Directly login the existing users by granting the basic permissions. Register: Requests all the new users to register in order to inform them of new arrivals. Search: Enables the user to search for a specific game and the operations that can be performed over it. News in Drome: Presents the statistics of games, the hit lists and new sales schemes. Catalogues & Downloads: Presents all the games catalog under various sub fields and the available downloads. Login Page User ID: Takes the specified ID as input from the user. Password: Takes the specified Password as input and validates it with the data present in the server. Specifics: It will connect to the specified page. For example: Downloads, News, MyDROME. Registration Page Full Name: Includes the name of the user. Email: Electronic mailing address of the user. Address: Postal address of the user. Contact Preferences: Check boxes for various field such that the user is informed of new games arrivals based on the preferences. Search Page Search: will generalize the search options. Customize your search: Will enable the user to utilize the advanced search options by various options present in drop down boxes. Type of Game: Refers to the field the game relates to. E.g. Cricket, Soccer. Etc. Age Group: This will enable the user to check the catalogue depending on age group specified by game developers. Price Value: This will quicken the search as the price is approximately known. Platform: Categorize all the games based on the platform utilized. Billing Billing: Presents the billing details of the products purchased. Products added to cart: Lists out all the products the user is willing to purchase. Payment Options: Presents Payment options. E.g. credit card, cash, DD, Money transfer. Confirmation: final confirmation of products, or any new changes. Shipment: Presents all the details related to delivering the products. Shipment Preferences: They include all the shipment details which can help in delivering the product as soon as possible, like selecting the city, etc. The schematics presented above only intend to serve as crude ideas of what will be finally implemented. For example screenshots refer the Appendix. Information Management One of the most critical issues related to E-Marketing is to secure the information pertaining to the customers. Security breach of customer data stored at the retailer's server is common news since the advent of hackers. The management of information in a secured manner is very crucial to the company to progress in the market economy Potential Data Threats Customer will not strike a deal with a retailer who cannot safe guard his personal information such as credit cards details which lead to huge losses in sales. GameODrome must ensure that such losses are avoided by analyzing the various security threats possible to their customers and then taking necessary steps to curb them. The common data threats can be classified as follows (Reece Rushing, Ari Schwartz and Paula Bruening, 2006). . Credit Card Number The cyber criminals steal credit card number and make huge amount of purchases, which might leave the consumer bankrupt. This has been a bothering situation for the consumer when he has to make an online purchase. Identity Theft Gaining the identity of a consumer on the net and using it in illegal activities has become common. The criminals try to get the identity of a consumer and then commit a cyber crime, leaving the consumer to face the harsh repercussions forced on by the judicial government (ConsumerWebWatch. org). Spam Mails Breach of consumer's data security can also take place in form of excessive spam mails. This usually happens when the hackers implement "phishing" activity over the e-mails. Forwarding Viruses The best way to grab a consumer's attention is to put up a snare. This is easily done by generating a false website that cons the consumers to take part in certain online activity. In the process viruses are sent to the client's system destroying valuable information. These are the major threats bothering the consumers to trust the retailers and turning out to be the main reason for a sharp decline in the customer relationships. Data Security GameODrome may consider several of the available security measures to overcome any sort of security breach or frauds. The website of GameODrome must be designed such that, users can interact with their website directly without having to surf across several other sites that may be inherently insecure. GameODrome's database that holds user information should delete the credit card details of consumers after the transactions are successfully carried out. If there is no data there is no theft. Access permissions at various levels should be implemented to restrict the staff and users. This helps in keeping away the intruders from the systems server (Gary Palgon, 2006). GameODrome website must ensure that all sensitive information must be encrypted when stored in the databases. Until the transaction is carried out successfully the sensitive details must be encrypted before being stored on to the database and not in plain text. Advanced coding must be used to ensure the safety of audit files from hackers. Hackers usually try to delete the audit file and if it is avoided then there is a scope for the forensic data team to investigate and rectify any catastrophe. GameODrome should consider adapting new technology based on the requirements and any loopholes in security issues should not be accepted. Some of them can be implementing Secure Socket Layer encryption (SSL), Public key Infrastructure (PKI), Digital Signatures and so on (Andrew K. Burger, 2007). References ELSPA (2005), "The Games Industry: A UK Success Story", ELSPA et al, Pg 1 Embellix (2000), "E Marketing Planning: Accountability and eMetrics", Sponsored by Embellix Software, Pg 4 Commission Junction (nd), "What is Affiliate Marketing", found at: http://www.cj.com/frame_hom.asp Reece Rushing, Ari Schwartz and Paula Bruening (2006), "Protecting Consumers Online-Key Issues in Preventing Internet Privacy Intrusions, Fraud and Abuse", Center for Democracy and technology. Consumer Reports Web Watch (2006), "Leap of Faith: Using the Internet Despite the Dangers", found at: http://www.consumerwebwatch.org/pdfs/princeton.pdf. Gary Palgon (2006), "Securing Customer Data: Moving from Defense to Offense" Andrew K. Burger (2007), "Is That Really You ID Theft and Authentication", found at: http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/55888.html Appendix Presented below are some screenshots of existing websites that can be used as a reference to GameODrome's website. Main Page of http://ww.chipsworld.com Registration Page of Amazon UK Shopping Cart of GamesWorkshop Read More