Electric Commerce and Applications - Essay Example

Electric Commerce and Applications Table of Contents Question: 1 3 Introduction 3 Features of Privacy Protection 4 Explanation of the Features 4 Privacy Policies of Companies in the Banking Sector 6 DBS Bank Ltd’s Privacy Policies 6 United Overseas Bank’s Privacy Policies 6 Lloyds TSB 7 Barclays Bank 9 Conclusion 9 Question: 2 11 Introduction 11 Explanations of First Movers and Followers 11 First Movers 11 Followers 12 Illustration 12 Conclusion 14 References 15 Question: 1 Introduction Privacy in the field of information technology refers to the aspect of maintaining secrecy of individual data as well as information. Privacy protection can be defined as the steps taken by an individual or an organisation in order to protect the valuable data or information such as customer related information, personal important information secure from being misplaced or stolen. Privacy protection features are imperative to develop in order to maintain secured transaction of information especially through a website (Clarke, 2006). Therefore, various business enterprises in a number of sectors such as banking, information technology and retail among others have provided major consideration towards maintaining their compliance with the crucial features of privacy protection. In relation to this aspect four organisations i.e. DBS Bank Ltd, United Overseas Bank Limited, Lloyds TSB and Barclays Bank have been selected from the banking sector to recognise and to compare their privacy policies in comparison to certain recognised privacy protection features. Features of Privacy Protection The features of privacy protection in the websites help the organizations to keep their consumers’ and members’ information safe from any kind of threat. This aspect can largely ensure that consumer confidence towards a company’ website remains intact. A few of the recognised privacy protection features include proper maintenance of Personally Identifiable Information (PII), prevention of information from being disclosed to the third party, ensuring information security, upholding accountability of collected information, ensuring accuracy of the collected information and making use of the method disabling the cookies (Locke, n.d.). Explanation of the Features The privacy protection related features are described below that are quite crucial for a website to maintain. By ensuring compliance with these features a website can largely ensure that it is able to build a strong relation with its consumer as well as its members. Personally Identifiable Information (PII): While dealing with the online trader, the organisations generally collect the personal information of the consumers before trading. The Personally Identifiable Information (PII) includes information regarding name, contract number, address and email id (Business Link, n.d.; Real Media, 2007). Disclosure of Information to Third Party: The collected consumer information is not shared with any third person. However, it is shared only at the time when the information is required by the law for inspection. Information can also be shared to the third party by taking permission from the respective customers (Business Link, n.d.; Real Media, 2007). Security: Online trader takes various steps to protect the collected information such as through physical and electronic modes respectively (Business Link, n.d.; Real Media, 2007). Accountability: Accountability generally helps the online trader to collect and to arrange the information systematically (Business Link, n.d.; Real Media, 2007). Accuracy: The information should be collected within a specific time and with accuracy so that no one is served with improper information (Business Link, n.d.; Real Media, 2007). Disable Cookies: Cookies are information tools sent to computers or browsing devices at the time of accessing websites. Cookies help to experience good internet browsing features. Secure maintenance of cookies is quite paramount for a website so that a consumer’s personal data is not misplaced. Therefore, disabling of cookies can also be provided as a feature in websites so that a third party user can maintain data adequately. The user can disable the cookies if he/she does not want the personally provided data to be accessed by any other party (Krishnamurthy & et. al., 2007). Privacy Policies of Companies in the Banking Sector DBS Bank Ltd’s Privacy Policies DBS Bank Ltd is one of the foremost banks in Asia. DBS deals with financial services by 200 branches in 15 global markets. The privacy policies ensured by DBS in its website comprise it only collects personal information from the consumers for providing with better services, the collected personal information of DBS are accessed only by the recognised staff, cookies are being used to protect the information, and the policies are amended randomly in order to check the longevity and the legality. The policies of the DBS have certain similarities with the features of identified privacy protection in case of a website. The similarity features are the collection of personal information, security, accountability and use of cookies (DBS Bank Ltd, 2012) United Overseas Bank’s Privacy Policies United Overseas Bank Limited (UOB) is leading bank which operates mainly in the East Asian region. It has its branches in Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and China. Since its inception in 1935 as United Chinese Bank, the bank had altered its name as United Overseas Bank Limited in 1965. It has excelled in recent times in terms of overall growth of the banking services with having a network of in excess of 500 offices in 19 nations (United Overseas Bank, 2012). While providing the banking services, UOB has followed certain terms and conditions with related to privacy policies. The privacy policies of UOB include need for gathering the customer’s identity information before the contract is made between the consumer and the bank. UOB has taken strict confidentiality maintenance standards in order to preserve the customer identity information. UOB discloses information about a customer only at the time of requirements by law or customer himself. When a customer plays the role of introducer for another client, he can know the information related to the new clients after the fulfilment of banks requirements (United Overseas Bank, 2012). The privacy policies taken into consideration by UOB are collection of personal information, internet security like cookies, firewalls other related safety measures as well as security measures. The similarity features with related to UOB policies are personal identification information, disclosure of information, cookies and accountability. Lloyds TSB Lloyds TSB is a leading retail bank in the United Kingdom. While running the banking services, Lloyds TSB has planned for privacy policy which helps the bank to secure its information related to office documents and customer identification. The privacy policies take into deliberation safeguarding of personal information of the customer, how the personal information is handled and how the bank shares personal information with others and uses of cookies (Lloyds TSB, 2012). With due consideration to the privacy policies, it is seen that few of the policies of the bank are quite similar to the identified policies such as personal information, security, accuracy, accountability, cookies and disclosure of information to third party. Barclays Bank Barclays Bank is a leading bank in the United Kingdom. The privacy policies of Barclays Bank primarily take into account the aspects of personal information collection and uses of cookies (Barclays, 2012). While reviewing the privacy policy of Barclay Bank, it is recognised that a few of the identified features required to be maintained by a website are present in the bank’s policies. The similar features which are related to policies are security, uses of cookies and accuracy and personal information. Conclusion The study states about the feature of privacy protection in e-commerce which help the online trading organisations to deal with its customer. The feature helped the customer to deal with the companies safely through online trade. Along with it, the features also help to keep secrecy about the identification of information of their customers. From the findings of the features related to privacy protection of the banks it can be said that all the considered banks generally take into deliberation a number of crucial and imperative privacy protection features. They have also considered privacy of the customers’ data as one of the imperative aspects in their websites. Maintenance of the cookies feature in the website is quite crucial which is followed by all the banks. In order to rate the websites, it can be said that Lloyds TSB and Barclays Bank have ensured widespread and comprehensive privacy policies that can be quite beneficial for the two banks to attract consumer trust and confidence. Question: 2 Introduction In the sector of e-commerce, first mover advantage has been over the years recognised as one of the keys to success. The first movers are identified as the companies that generally introduce new services or products in the market and at the initial phase of product or service launch enjoy a monopoly advantage. Market followers are the companies that do not directly compete with the first movers. However, they closely follow the activities of the first movers or market leaders in order to bring in superior outcomes in their offerings and to increase their market share. Explanations of First Movers and Followers First Movers A company which is recognised as a first mover generally introduces a product and/or service for the first time in the market. When the demand for the new product increases, the first mover enjoys certain benefits like profit and a single distributor advantage in the market. The advantages of first mover companies are technological based leadership, pre-emption of resources and reduction in consumer switching costs. The disadvantages of first mover companies include free-rider difficulties on first mover investment, resolution with regard to technological as well as market ambiguity, discontinuity of technology leads to the entry of the follower and inactive presence makes difficult to serve business environment (Lieberman & Montgomery, 2007). Followers Generally, followers prefer to closely keep a track of the market leaders i.e. in most cases the first mover. They desire to identify the existing prospects from a particular product or service through analysing the success attained by the market leaders before initiating their own product brands. This approach at times can yield favourable results for the followers as the inevitable market risks from the product or service can largely be mitigated by considering the flaws that can occur. The advantages of followers comprise scope to avoid products without potential, relatively low Research & Development (R&D) expenditures, lower cost to reproduce than innovating, ability to catch leader with heavy marketing spending and lesser cost to marketing the product or service in the market (Knuutila, 2002). Illustration In this section, two companies involved in e-commerce business have been considered to illustrate the business facets of first mover and follower. The online e-trading companies are Amazon Inc and Bluefly Inc. Amazon initiated its business through online trading. It started its business as an online bookstore, however in the long run Amazon has also included other sections like household appliances, electronic goods, MP3 downloads, apparel and certain other products related to daily livelihood such as food section. In due course of time, by observing the increasing demand of the e-commerce or online trading a number of companies have introduced their operations in e-commerce. Among the companies that have followed the trendsetting path of Amazon.com include Bluefly. Bluefly introduced its business with shoes, dresses as well as other male and female goods. Bluefly can be called as the follower of Amazon as it has closely observed the track of business followed by Amazon however Bluefly has remained focused towards certain segments of product such as fashion products. It has not primarily attempted to express itself in a wide range of business segments as has been attempted by Amazon through online trade. Both the first mover and the follower in this instance of e-commerce are recognized to be significantly benefitted in their business dealings because the quality and the assortment of product offerings have been maintained by the companies. Amazon has various kinds of products and services and also geographical benefits as well. Bluefly generally deals with the luxury products and offers massive discounts on the goods (Bluefly.com, 2007). Source: (Bluefly.com, 2007). The figure above represents the position with respect to value vs. high quality clothing. The above depicted figure demonstrates that in accordance with quality of the offered clothing products Bluefly is at a superior place. This aspect enables to observe the fact that despite working as a follower in the online trade segment, Bluefly has been able to ensure its prominence through superior quality of goods. Thus, it can be stated that a follower company can attain substantial success in business if it ensures that right product or service is selected and quality is offered to the customers (Bluefly.com, 2007). Conclusion Therefore, through the illustration of Amazon.com and Bluefly, which are considered as the first mover and the follower respectively, it can be observed that significant amount of accomplishments can be achieved by a market follower by making certain that it selects the positive aspects of the market leader company and provides quality products. References Barclays, 2012. Privacy Policy. About Barclays. [Online] Available at: http://group.barclays.com/privacy-policy [Accessed June 11, 2012]. Bluefly.com, 2007. Bluefly, Inc. Media. [Online] Available at: http://www.bluefly.com/media/templates/pdf/investors/bluefly_goldmansachs_presentation_052407.pdf [Accessed June 11, 2012]. Business Link, No Date. Sample Privacy Policy. IT & e-Commerce. [Online] Available at: http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail?itemId=1076142085&r.i=1076142035&r.l1=1073861197&r.l2=1074448560&r.l3=1076141950&r.s=m&r.t=RESOURCES&type=RESOURCES [Accessed June 11, 2012]. Clarke, R., 2006. Introduction to Dataveillance and Information Privacy, and Definitions of Terms. The University of New South Wales. [Online] Available at: http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~se4921/PDF/Other/roger-clarke-intro.pdf [Accessed June 11, 2012]. DBS Bank Ltd, 2012. DBS Bank Online Privacy Policy. Privacy. [Online] Available at: http://www.dbs.com/privacy/Pages/default.aspx [Accessed June 11, 2012]. Knuutila, E., 2002. First Mover Advantage: Under What Kind of Conditions Does It Have the Most Effect? China Economics Education and Research Network. [Online] Available at: http://web.cenet.org.cn/upfile/55188.pdf [Accessed June 11, 2012]. Krishnamurthy, B. & et. al., 2007. Measuring Privacy Loss and the Impact of Privacy Protection in Web Browsing. Worcester Polytechnic Institute. [Online] Available at: http://web.cs.wpi.edu/~cew/papers/soups07.pdf [Accessed June 12, 2012]. Lieberman, M. B. & Montgomery, D. B., 2007. Special Issue: Strategy Content Research. Strategic Management Journal. Vol. 9, pp. 41-58. Lloyds TSB, 2012. How Your Personal Information Is Used By Lloyds Banking Group Companies. Privacy. [Online] Available at: http://www.lloydstsb.com/privacy2.asp [Accessed June 11, 2012]. Locke, G., No Date. The Department of Commerce Internet Policy task Force. United State Department of Commerce. [Online] Available at: http://www.commerce.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2010/december/iptf-privacy-green-paper.pdf [Accessed June 12, 2012]. Real Media, 2007. Privacy Policy. Home. [Online] Available at: http://www.247realmedia.com/EN-US/privacy-policy.html [Accessed June 11, 2012]. United Overseas Bank, 2012. Privacy & Security. Privacy. [Online] Available at: http://www.uobgroup.com/privacy/index.html [Accessed June 11, 2012]. Read More