Data Communications 2 Module 4

Module 4 Strategic Global Telecommunications

• Telecommunications and competitive advantage
• Lower costs
• Better service
• Faster service
• Case studies
• Failures
• Electronic Commerce
• Electronic Data Interchange
• Payment systems
• Virtual organisations

Module 4, Topic 10 Telecommunications and competitive advantage

Aims

At the end of this topic you should gain:

• an appreciation of the role of global networks in support of strategic organisational goals;
• an understanding of the opportunities from and threats posed by strategic application of global networks.

Syllabus

• Telecommunications and competitive advantage
• Lower costs
• Better service
• Faster service
• Case studies
• Failures

The Internet advantage

Read Cronin's view of the Internet advantage and answer the appropriate questions below. Cronin, Mary J. (1996) Global advantage in the Internet: from corporate connectivity to international competitiveness, Van Nostrand Reinhold, Chapter 1 Business without borders, see the Internet advantage pp 6 - 10.

In order to learn how a firm may gain competitive advantage from telecommunications, first look at other ways to gain competitive advantage, read about competitive advantage in Nasa's Design for Competitive Advantage home page.

Now use the Internet to locate some case studies of the use of the Internet and telecommunications, look at successful cases, but try to locate some unsuccessful cases.

It is very important to understand the factors that lead to the failure to achieve the expected benefits from a re-engineering or design project. Here are some reasons for failure:-

• adopting a technology too early, before technology/customers/staff/partner-firms are ready to join in (an essential component for communications technologies is a pair of communicators);
• standards divergence, adopting a technology that is left behind by developments;
• infrastructure bottleneck, underestimating demand for the new service or computer/communications capacity needed;

Locate examples of each type of failure.

Hint: what happened to home banking at the Comonwealth Bank of Australia for it's first ten years? What happened to Telstra Discovery? What happened to the Australian Comonwealth Government "Common Data Network"? Why did the New York Times web site close down for about 6 months last year?

Can you expand the list of failure types? Do you have examples?

Required reading

Cronin, Mary J. (1996) Global advantage in the Internet: from corporate connectivity to international competitiveness, Van Nostrand Reinhold, Chapter 1 Business without borders, see the Internet advantage pp 6 - 10.

Exercises

Module 4, Topic 11 Electronic Commerce

Aims

At the end of this topic you should gain:

• an understanding of the opportunities and threats presented by the global information marketplace;
• a deeper knowledge of some technical features of the Internet, especially issues significant for the operation of payment services on the Internet;
• an understanding of the relationship of Electronic Commerce and Electronic Data Interchange.

Syllabus

• Electronic Commerce
• Electronic Data Interchange
• Payment systems

Electronic Data Interchange

The Internet has opened the possibility of electronic commerce (EC)to a broad range of small firms. A full understanding of Internet EC needs a study of Electronic Data Interchange. As you study EC/EDI in the locations below, try to prepare yourself to answer these questions.

• What is the role of a VAN in EDI?
• What standard is used in EDI, what do does the standard specify?

Electronic Commerce/EDI is more than possible, in the USA the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act of 1994 requires the broad use of Electronic Commerce and Electronic Data Interchange (EC/EDI) by Federal agencies. The DOD maintains a EC/EDI home page.

Among the teaching materials on EC/EDI on the Internet, you should look at:

• Glossary of terms from Electronic Commerce and Electronic Data Interchange;
• DoD EC/EDI Training Program Materials;
• An Introduction to Electronic Commerce (A Handbook for Business);
• The handbook's proposed EC/EDI Reading List;
• An introduction to EC/EDI.

Electronic Commerce Payment Systems

Begin your study of modern Internet electronic commerce with Roger Clarke's EC Home page and his introduction to Electronic Payment Mechanisms. Of special value is Roger's links to other EC sites, search for "Departments" in this.

You will, from your previous study, realise security is the key to Internet based EC. Microsoft, Netscape and RSADSI are major players. The world wide credit card companies Mastercard and Visa are as important if not more than the technology companies. Then finally the banks are important. Your research project is to search the home pages of the five companies plus two banks and report their plans for Internet financial transactions in about 100 words per company.

It is not at all clear what system will become standard for web payments.

Micro-payments

Micro-payments are payments of less than one cent. These may be used for say paying for web browsing on a pay per view basis. What can you locate on the web about micro-payments? Try to answer the question "how might micro-payments work?". The problem as with micro-payments is their size, there is no room for a third party if the transaction value is less than one cent. Ideally the only equipment involved would be the web client and the web server.

Required reading

Exercises

Module 4, Topic 12 Virtual organisations

Aims

At the end of this topic you should gain:

• a knowledge of the tree key technologies for the operation of a virtual corporation;
• a knowledge of groupware, its services and role;
• an appreciation for the extent of the on-going research in virtual organisations and the effectiveness of groupware.

Syllabus

• Virtual organisations

Virtual Organisation

The term Virtual Organisation (VO) is new, it's meaning is changing and fast moving. Read the recent, March 1997, paper by Sieber on the nature of Virtual Organisations (VO). The abstract from the paper makes it clear that although the prospective benefits have been written about, characterisation is not yet complete.

Some VO hot links

• virtual-organization.net Home Page
• IS WorldNet proposed Virtual Organizations Home Page
• Virtual Organization Case Example
• IS WorldNet Home (slow to start)

Sieber (op. cit.) lists the key technologies for VOs.

"... is supported by three pillars:

1. automation of information flow and the elimination of media breaks (machine-to-machine communication: EDI),
2. the interchange of unstructured data (human-to-human communication: groupware)
3. the linking of several local area networks into wide area networks (man-machine communication both within and outside the corporation's own site)."

Two of these technologies, global networks, the Internet, and EC/EDI are covered in other parts of this course of study. The remaining topic for study Groupware worth study in it's own right as a data communications technology is here put in the context of the VO and Interorganisational systems.

Read about groupware,

• in your reader, articles numbered 11 and 12 by Cristian and Powell respectively,
• in your text book, Orfali et. al. part 6 chapters 20 and 21,
• IS WorldNet Groupware Central (not very helpful as at April 1997).

Required reading

Cristian, Flaviu (1996) Synchronous and asynchronous group communication, in Communications of the ACM, Volume 39, Number 4, April 1996, pp. 88-97. In DC2 Reader, article 11.

Orfali, Robert, Harkey, Dan and Edwards, Jeri (1996) The essential client/server survival guide (2nd. ed.), John Wiley & Sons Inc. pp. 675. Read groupware in part 6 chapters 20 and 21 pp. 317 - 374.

Powell, David (ed.) (1996) Group communication, in Communications of the ACM, Volume 39, Number 4, April 1996, pp. 50-51. In DC2 Reader, article 12.

Exercises