Thursday, April 10, 2008

JAVA Technologies for Implémentation of E-commerce System

Ritesh Kr. Srivastava (B.Tech IT) FACULTY IT ICFAI National College, Gorakhpur Everyone’s talking about the speed of business today, but what do you really need to compete in today’s business world? The more successful your E-business, the greater the requirements for scalability, availability, manageability, and data integrity in your business environment. That’s where technology steps in: It lets you grow your business with the help of various Softwares & Applications —which makes continuous availability, unmatched scalability and system manageability, and ensured data integrity of the business system. WHY COMPANIES ADOPTING E-COMMERCE? · It reduces production cost. Replacing paper-based business operations · It creates a better information system. Faster data retrieval rate. · Central database for different departments of the company. · Better Management System across different organizations. Data exchanges and transactions between different organizations from suppliers to customers. · Better Business Strategy. Extending the business to cover more customers. · E-Commerce is the essential pathway to implement globalization. WHY CUSTOMER PREFERS E-COMMERCE? Product information Buyers take their decision whether to buy a product from a site or not depending on the information that it provides. That's why the product should have a clear and high-quality picture, short and detailed specifications. If necessary add attachments of diagrams, sketches, video etc. along with the product specification. The goal is to have all the information related to the product available on the website, so that the customer can take a positive buying decision instantly. Different Ordering Methods The ultimate goal of an e-commerce site is to make sales. Many people still don't feel comfortable to make payments through online transactions. It would be better off if it includes ordering processes by fax, telephone and ordinary mail. In fact, to have a telephone number for customer support and order is a must for any e-commerce site as it gives buyers some extra feelings of security. Different Payment Methods Although credit cards are by far the most acceptable means of payments on the Internet, it should definitely consider other methods as well. For small payments, Paypal is becoming increasingly a popular mode. All e-commerce sites should integrate this to their payment methods. More options include: Electronic checks, e-bullion, Offline bank transfer etc. Shopping Cart with Tax Calculation In the search for shopping carts look for the ones, which have different tax calculation mechanisms inbuilt. If a person is located in a province or state where regional tax gets calculated on top of the federal or vice versa, the shopping cart should have the ability to calculate them correctly. Privacy Policy A website must have a privacy policy. Customers are very concerned about the information that they are relaying to it. Website must clearly explain them what it plans to do with the various information collected from the customers. Security If the website collects sensitive information from the customers, it should use security systems like SSL (Secure Socket Layer). This guarantees that the data provided by the customer will not fall into the hand of a malicious hacker while transferring from his computer to the web server. Fig : Architecture of 4-tier E-Commerce COMPONENTS OF E-COMMERCE SYSTEM: 1. Website - The online connection to prospects and customers. The design of website is critical to the success of the business! If it does not look like a professional, legitimate business - NO ONE WILL ORDER ANYTHING - no matter how great the products you have. 2. Merchant account - Bank authorized account which allows you to accept major credit cards, electronic checks, etc. Many banks provides a merchant account if you do business on the Internet 3. Payment Transaction Software - Software which actually processes customer order information, address, credit card number, etc. The data is sent to a credit card authorization network which verifies that the credit card is valid and verifies that the shipping address matches the billing address. 4. Secure Server Connection - https:// - Link to a special computer which encrypts confidential ordering data for customer protection. You know you are on a secure server when the URL in your browser says "https://". The "s" stands for "secure." Let us take a moment to look at the components, considerations and options that are part of a secured, interactive E-Commerce website development - Website and web application objectives. The business case and business logic required of the design. The administrative process and interfaces to maintain and review the site transactions. The hardware environment. The operating systems involved: Microsoft NT, UNIX, etc. The web servers required of the project. The application servers required to create the application. Choice of database to backend the data storage - is it scalable? Security requirements. Security procedures. Security policies. Use of a firewall. Use of a secured site certificate (SSL). Configuration of the security system (firewall, operating system, etc.) Security audit procedures. Relationship with Bank for credit card approvals and Merchant Services. Accounting, fulfillment, customer service and other administrative interfaces to e-Commerce application. Traffic analysis software and analysis functional requirements. Graphics requirements for the site (merchandise photos, line drawings, ornaments, navigational objects, etc. Server-side application programming. Client-side application programming. Database design. Database creation. Database data population. Testing. User, Maintenance, and administrative procedures documentation. Search engine registration. Website advertising. WHY JAVA IN IMPLEMENTING E-COMMERCE SYSTEM? Companies of all kinds are adopting Java™ technology as the fastest, easiest, and most cost-effective platform for deploying business-critical applications on the internet. Polling 120 IT executives in early December, Giga Information Group, based in Cambridge, Mass., found that 78 percent of the group viewed J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition) server software as the most effective platform for building and deploying Web services. Microsoft's .Net, which enables users to build Web services for Windows server operating systems, accounted for 22 percent of the votes. Why? Because Java technology enables companies to step up to e-speed—quickly and easily.At the time when .NET was launched in market people started to believe that .NET will enjoy monopoly in market of enterprise application development technologies. But Java made its comeback with J2EE as prominent technology for enterprise and web applications. The advantages like free of cost and platform independence more and more people started to select J2EE as their development technology to develop enterprise and web applications. It has been observed in one survey that the ratio of applications being developed using .NET and J2EE is 28-72. This shows importance of J2EE throughout the industry. First we have to analyze the main features of Java Technologies for distributed applications and the characteristics of E-commerce systems. Java technologies are based upon the supporting infrastructure provided by the internet and use the n- tier structure of clients and servers. These technologies are useful for development paradigms that can be used for developing distributed systems like message passing, distributed objects, event-based bus technologies and space-based technologies ranging from online retailing to chat rooms, conference systems, online auctions, web administration tools, underlying internet protocols and services as well as several technologies compatibility such as mark-up languages (XML), web servers, distributed object systems (CORBA), security technologies and tuple-based distribution. Adoption of Servers based upon the two most popular services provided by the server in distributed application systems: web servers and database servers. Adoption of Technologies that are used for distributed system development. They include the distributed object technologies RMI and CORBA, the extensible mark-up language XML, and servlets (snippets of Java code that can be used to program web servers). “We wanted to be in control of the application and have low support costs, so we opted for browser and a thin client... We chose Java because it enabled us to provide a high level of functionality at the front end and a high level of security.” Charlie Herbert, NatWest Retail Banking Services Source: A survey by www.computerworld.com/ “Because Java applets are downloaded on the fly, new products, or enhancements to old ones can be made available much more quickly than we are used to. Java is rapidly becoming an important technology for us.” Dave Weller, Development Manager, Reuters “Java changes the speed and cost of what we can develop. Java makes it a richer experience and we can easily respond to increases in the complexity of services.” Ken Blakeslee, Director of Business Development for Wireless Terminals Ltd, Nortel. IDEs that support J2EE technologies (beta 3.0) The following is a very preliminary list of some IDEs that support J2EE technologies. Version 1.3 added Rational XDE. SERVERS, TECHNOLOGY & SOFTWARES Server technologies: Technologies of interest to server developers that IDEs provide for include: JavaServer Pages (JSP) Servlets Enterprise JavaBeans 1.1 and 2.0 Enterprise application integration (EAI) and Web services, WSDL and SOAP. Mobile devices (J2ME) and applications Security Data integration, reverse engineering, and data modeling: JDBC, JDO, JCA, JNDI Operating Systems Sun delivers the most powerful, open operating systems on the market, running on the most popular, lowest cost hardware platforms available. Solaris Operating System Trusted Solaris Operating System Linux Windows Fig : A Simple Model of Java based E-Commerce Architecture SUN MICROSYSTEMS: DEVELOPER OF JAVA Over the past few years, Sun has refined the Java specification and announced release of the Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) which is a new era of building Enterprise Architectures. Sun mostly headed to build API’s & technical infrastructures to achieve the goal of consistency. To prove one of the major characteristic of Java as platform independent programming language, which is a typical task for designing distributed system architectures, but now it's seems more attainable with the help of J2EE . The combination of Enterprise JavaBeans, servlets and JavaServer Pages offers a powerful platform on which to build applications ­ but it may not be enough. The IT industry is moving ahead with some powerful tools & architectures to acquire new definitions in E-Commerce industry. The days of large, long-term projects lasting several years and with unlimited budgets ­ such as ERP implementations ­ are now vanishing. Instead of it new software development procedures are adopted to achieve the goal in a very short period. Large, complex applications are being built using a series of smaller projects that can be attacked in more realistic timeframes. J2EE is currently one of the most ubiquitous environments for enterprise/distributed systems. It is a group of specifications, frameworks, technologies, etc. for building distributed enterprise systems. J2EE is comprised of a number of programming and scripting languages including Java, XML, JSP, HTML, SQL, and others. Some of the advantages of J2EE include cross-platform portability, availability of open-source libraries, a huge server-side deployment base, and coverage for most W3C standards. The frameworks and technologies used in Java and J2EE share many of the same concepts (e.g. streams, containers, readers, writers, etc.). Sun Java System Suites Customers can address clear business problems with the Sun Java System Suites--focused subsets of the Java Enterprise System and communications products. Java Application Platform Suite Java Availability Suite Java B2B Suite Java Communications Suite Java Composite Application Platform Suite Java ESB Suit Java Identity Management Suite Java Web Infrastructure Suite Sun Java Enterprise System A fundamental shift in the way software is priced, licensed, delivered, and serviced. Sun Java Enterprise System reduces cost and complexity with a simple, predictable, affordable approach to software Access Manager Application Server Application Server Application Server Cluster Directory Server Enterprise Edition Identity Manager Java DB, Java Studio Creator Java Studio Enterprise Message Queue Portal Server Service Registry Sun Studio Web Proxy Server Web Server SOME FAMOUS JAVA WEB SERVERS ARE : Acme Utilities, JRun Server, Dynamo Application Server, Weblogic Application Server, Weblogic Enterprise Server, GNU Server Pages, Borland Enterprise Server, BES VisiBroker edition, Twister JOnAS (ObjectWeb) (Evidian), Resin, Resin CMP, Nonstop Himalaya, TSJ, Java Web Server and EJB Server, Oware, EasyThings Web Server, Galileo Application Server, Intalion³ Server, Open EJB, Castor, Tyrex,JBOSS, JBossMQ, JBossSOAP, Javlin EJB Data Server, B2B Integrator, BeanTransactions, , iFlow LiteWebServer, GemStone/J, GemStone/S, PaperClips, JApS, HahtSite, Cosminexis, Cosminexis Enterprise, HP-AS, WebSphere Application Server, InterWorld Commerce Exchange, Enterprise Application Server, iPortal Application Server, Orbix, Tomcat 3.x, Tomcat 4.0, Apache Web Server / Jserv, GNU JSP, JRun Server, Nexus Web Server, Next Gen App Server, Nokia WAP Server, NetForge, OpenJSA, Oracle9i Application Server, Cape Connect Two for J2EE, Orion Application Server, WebCore, Enterprise Bean Server, iServer, Silverstream Application Server, Silverstream eXtend, iPlanet, Application Server, Java Web Server, J2EE Reference SDK, JavaServer Web Development Kit(JSWDK), EA Server, Zeus Web Server. SOME FAMOUS COMPANIES USING JAVA TECHNOLOGIES FOR THEIR APPLICATIONS: SUMMARY After examining scope, usage and potential of different areas of Java technology we can summarize that today E-Commerce has attain a new height & shape with the help of Java in today’s scenario. Java has got a lot of potential to develop and grow in many areas. For existing areas like desktop applications and Enterprise applications there are much chances for Java to gain better role. Also it has got to grow in new areas of embedded applications. Some suggest that Java is good for another 20-30 years. While Java has tough competition on the server side from Microsoft, etc., Java on the mobile phone is doing extremely well and will be used as M-Commerce. So will J2ME be the primary Java for the next decade or will J2EE continue to hold good. Sun is continuously introducing new application programming interfaces which are essentials for shaping the future of E-Commerce Systems by using n-tier application modules.

MANAGEMENT CONTROL IN CORPORATE CULTURE

By Ritesh Srivastava Faculty IT ICFAI National College, Gorakhpur 'What does corporate culture mean to your organization? How do you ensure that the key features of the culture you want, e.g. work-life balance, career growth, industrial safety and so on, permeate your organization? Most CEOs want to have strong organization culture and committed and motivated employees. The analysis of control system must be tabulated on gap between desire and reality, based on observation and experience, which often caused by internal & external pressure. ORGANISATIONS more often than not lapse into a 'default' culture. This is often shaped by a few employees who have managed somehow to claim their share of voice within the office and allowed by the vast majority of employees who give in to this situation. Unfortunately, this 'default' culture may not always be what the organization needs to succeed in the near future. Some of the key variables are:: • RESPECT FOR THE INDIVIDUAL: Take for example, if a staff has a family relationship problem or is in monetary difficulties, it affects his morale and performance at work. At the same time, staff with problems at work can also bring stress back home. This can end up in a vicious cycle leading to an unhealthy downward spiral in both work and family life. The approach must be to instill true belief and adoption, among all the employees, of key corporate value - that it is the business to offer comprehensive and efficient data recovery services to all clientele through innovation and creativity. The organizational cultures in most companies often reflect the personal values and work ethics of their founders. They are expressed explicitly through the company's core values, vision and mission statements. The culture supports the organization’s goals and is inseparable from the leadership style of the CEO. Though the organizational values do not change, every CEO has his/her own interpretation, thus, refreshing the corporate behavior “MANY people often wonder why GE is consistently voted the World's Most Respected Company. Some shake their heads in disbelief when they hear we have had less CEO changes, this past century, than the Vatican has had Popes. A key reason for this, I believe, is the GE leadership's ability to create a supportive organizational culture. More importantly, GE is able to consistently and conscientiously evolve this culture to suit the times. One of the first tasks for every new CEO of GE is to study the underlying forces shaping the world at his time, re-shaping 'GE culture' to meet the challenges and opportunities for the next 10-20 years ahead. Currently, GE emphasizes a culture of growth. This has several pillars to it. One is to get all our employees externally focused, re-gearing each and every employee's focus on what the customers need and value. Two is to encourage people to take calculated risks and have the courage to move the company in directions we must go: geographically, technologically and product-wise. Three is to develop personal expertise in a subject or functional area, keeping people in place longer to better serve customers better. - Colin Low GE Aircraft Engines President, Singapore, Philippines & Vietnam
Source: Families and Work Institute published the National Study of the Changing Workforce in USA (2004) – the most comprehensive research ever conducted in this area • CUSTOMER SERVICE : Creating a culture of customer service in organization is a challenged innovation. There are definite techniques to erasing the old ways of relating to fellow managers and employees and instilling a culture where everyone has both internal and external customers. This revolves around treating each other with the same amount of respect that you accord the guest and trusting each other to do the job. Organizational cultures exist either consciously or unconsciously, we can choose the culture that we want to work within and transmit to our employees and customers. A guest can feel a ‘culture’ within a hotel just as a passenger can tell if the airline is serious about customer service. “Successful organizations build strong service cultures to delight their customers, attract and retain their staff, creating strong bonds of loyalty for the future. Achieving these results requires world-class training and proven culture-building techniques.” – Ron Kaufman The only question that remains is what value do you place on your guests’ experience? Solution occurs in these questions itself … o Measuring Parameters of Customer services culture in an organization o What are the technologies improved the customer experience in most companies? o Is It Possible To Measure or Assess Excellent Customer Service? o What Common Mistakes Are Made When Choosing Customer Service Metrics? o What Should Customer Service Training Include? o What Are The Most Essential Customer Service Skills? o What Types of Customer Service Situations Should Employees Be Trained in and Prepared For? o Why is a systems approach so important to improving customer service? o What's the relationship between "internal customer service" and customer service to paying customers? Source: Google AdWords Customer Satisfaction Survey: 12/03-01/04, --U.S./Canadian advertisers • DEDICATION TOWARDS WORK EXCELLENCE : An organization can achieve success excellence if few key points are considered for their employees viz. - • Relationship with co-workers • Security of Employment • Relationship with co-workers • Working time • Interests in job • Relationship with the Top Management. • Welfare provisions • Workload • Competence of Management. • Security of employment • Training & re-training • Promotion opportunities • Pay and fringe benefits • Allowances • DECENTRALIZED BUSINESS Decentralization has three general benefits: (1) It encourages motivation and creativity; (2) it allows many minds to work simultaneously on the same problem; and (3) it accommodates flexibility and individualization. The importance of these benefits varies greatly, but they are often especially important in certain industries and business functions. For example, the success of most professional services organizations (such as consulting, software development, and law) hinges on the motivation and creativity of their professionals. Consequently, these organizations are especially good candidates for decentralized decision making. Creativity and innovation are also often particularly important in functions like engineering, sales, product design, and information technology. Here, too, decentralization will often pay off. Decentralization is the policy of delegating decision-making authority through out an organization, relatively away from a central authority. Some features of a decentralized organization are fewer tiers to the organizational structure, wider span of control, and a bottom-to-top flow of decision-effecting ideas. In a more decentralized organization, the top executives delegate much of their decision-making authority to lower tiers of the organizational structure. As a correlation, the organization is likely to run on less rigid policies and wider spans of control among each officer of the organization. The wider spans of control also reduce the number of tiers within the organization, giving its structure a flat appearance. One advantage of this structure, if the correct controls are in place, will be the bottom-to-top flow of information, allowing all decisions among any official of the organization to be well informed about lower tier operations. For example, an experienced technician at the lowest tier of an organization might know how to increase the efficiency of the production, the bottom-to-top flow of information can allow for this knowledge to pass up to the executive officers. The lower the level where decisions are made, the greater is the decentralization. Decentralization is most effective in organizations where subunits are autonomous and costs and profits can be independently measured. The benefits of decentralization include: (1) decisions are made by those who have the most knowledge about local conditions; (2) greater managerial input in decision-making has a desirable motivational effect; and (3) managers have more control over results. The costs of decentralization include: (1) managers have a tendency to look at their division and lose sight of overall company goals; (2) there can be costly duplication of services; and (3) costs of obtaining sufficient information increase. • TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT The term “Total Quality Management” is actually a bit misleading. It does mean improving quality (reducing defect rates, meeting products spec’s, etc.) and giving quality at least equal, if not higher, priority relative to concerns about volume, cost, and schedule, but it also means much more than that. TQM redefines quality. The new definition might be summed up as: meeting or exceeding the customer’s requirements with respect to cost, delivery, product features, and quality. This broad redefinition is markedly different from the traditional business strategy of most American companies. For generations, American management has been driven almost exclusively by short-term profit goals and standardization, focusing on “getting the products out”. TQM is driven by opposite long-term growth goals and flexibility, focusing on the “bringing the customer in”. A number of general principles, developed by Deming, Juran, Crosby, and the Japanese, have been adapted by U.S. companies to guide the process of focusing on the new “quality”. The main principles are; (1) Customer Satisfaction, (2) Continuous Improvement, (3) Extensive Measurement, and (4) Employee Involvement. . CUSTOMER SATISFACTION: The ultimate goal of TQM is to please customers. Meeting or exceeding customer requirements means shifting emphasis from the short-term to the long-term, from the product to the customers-listening to them, adapting to their needs. TQM teaches that customer satisfaction is not only a measure of quality; it is a whole new approach to doing business. o CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT: American companies have tended to think in very finite, short-term, and programmatic ways. If a problem arises, there must be a program to fix it. End of story. The message of continuous improvement is that, in the global business arena, things are never truly going to be “fixed”. o EXTENSIVE MEASUREMENT: For customer satisfaction and continuous improvement to be possible, proponents of TQM believe it is essential to measure the results of the company and to perform measurements in radically new ways. In the past, most firms did relatively little serious measurement. When they did, they relied mostly on traditional, short-term financial criteria to measure overall results, and a series of isolated, somewhat haphazard, micro-measures of departments or functions to evaluate internal initiatives. o EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT: Widespread employee participation in local decision making is central to the logic of TQM. Employees must be empowered to be flexible and make decisions if customers are to be satisfied. They must be able to take action to prevent and solve problems, and be committed to the organization. TQM Leadership from Top Management TQM is a way of life for a company. It has to be introduced and led by top management. This is a key point. Attempts to implement TQM often fail because top management doesn't lead and get committed - instead it delegates and pays lip service. Commitment and personal involvement is required from top management in creating and deploying clear quality values and goals consistent with the objectives of the company, and in creating and deploying well defined systems, methods and performance measures for achieving those goals. These systems and methods guide all quality activities and encourage participation by all employees. The development and use of performance indicators is linked, directly or indirectly, to customer requirements and satisfaction, and to management and employee remuneration. Actions based on facts The statistical analysis of engineering and manufacturing facts is an important part of TQM. Facts and analysis provide the basis for planning, review and performance tracking, improvement of operations, and comparison of performance with competitors. The TQM approach is based on the use of objective data, and provides a rational rather than an emotional basis for decision making. The statistical approach to process management in both engineering and manufacturing recognizes that most problems are system-related, and are not caused by particular employees. In practice, data is collected and put in the hands of the people who are in the best position to analyze it and then take the appropriate action to reduce costs and prevent non-conformance. Usually these people are not managers but workers in the process. If the right information is not available, then the analysis, whether it be of shop floor data, or engineering test results, can't take place, errors can't be identified, and so errors can't be corrected. A TQM culture It's not easy to introduce TQM. An open, cooperative culture has to be created by management. Employees have to be made to feel that they are responsible for customer satisfaction. They are not going to feel this if they are excluded from the development of visions, strategies, and plans. It's important they participate in these activities. They are unlikely to behave in a responsible way if they see management behaving irresponsibly - saying one thing and doing the opposite. Product development in a TQM environment Product development in a TQM environment is very different to product development in a non-TQM environment. Without a TQM approach, product development is usually carried on in a conflictual atmosphere where each department acts independently. Short-term results drive behavior so scrap, changes, work-arounds, waste, and rework are normal practice. Management focuses on supervising individuals, and fire-fighting is necessary and rewarded. . Awards for Quality achievement The Deming Prize has been awarded annually since 1951 by the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers in recognition of outstanding achievement in quality strategy, management and execution. Since 1988 a similar award (the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award) has been awarded in the US. Early winners of the Baldrige Award include AT&T (1992), IBM (1990), Milliken (1989), Motorola (1988), Texas Instruments (1992) and Xerox (1989). Source: A survey report on 100 Companies formerly at http://www.educe.dabsol.co.uk • EMPOWERMENT OF PEOPLE: o ASSESSMENT OF NEEDS -- the first step. This sounds simple, but we are often in too much of a hurry. We implement a solution, sometimes the correct intervention but not always. But we plan, very carefully and cautiously, before making most other investments in process changes and in capital and operating expenditures. We need to do the same for HRD -- implement the appropriate planning. This needs assessment and planning will lead to several possible ways to improve performance. (Of course, one of these is to do nothing! -- we may decide to focus on other activities with greater impact and greater value.) o PROGRAM DESIGN, DEVELOPMENT & EVALUATION. We need to consider the benefits of any HRD intervention before we just go and do it: What learning will be accomplished? What changes in behavior and performance are expected? Will we get them? And of prime importance -- what is the expected economic cost/benefit of any projected solutions? o TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT -- acquiring knowledge, developing competencies and skills, and adopting behaviors that improve performance in current jobs, include: adult learning theory and applications, instructional systems design, train-the-trainer programs, and instructional strategies and methods. o ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT -- the diagnosis and design of systems to assist an organization with planning change. OD activities include: change management, team building, learning organizations, management development, quality of work life, and management by objectives, strategic planning, and participative management. organizational restructuring, job redesign, job enrichment, centralization vs. decentralization, changes in the organization's reward structure, process consultation, executive development, action research, third party interventions, and more. o CAREER DEVELOPMENT -- activities and processes for mutual career planning and management between employees and organizations. Changes in our organizations (including downsizing, restructuring, and outsourcing) are resulting in more empowerment for employees. The responsibility for our own career development is downloaded to us. o ORGANIZATION RESEARCH & PROGRAM EVALUATION -- an exploration of methods to evaluate, justify, and improve on HRD offerings. o PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL --Once a talented individual is brought into an organization, another function of HRM comes into play—creating an environment that will motivate and reward exemplary performance. One way to assess performance is through a formal review on a periodic basis, generally annually, known as a performance appraisal or performance evaluation. Because line managers are in daily contact with the employees and can best measure performance, they are usually the ones who conduct the appraisals. Other evaluators of the employee's performance can include subordinates, peers, group, and self, or a combination of one or more (Mondy and Noe, 1996). o COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS-- Compensation (payment in the form of hourly wages or annual salaries) and benefits (insurance, pensions, vacation, modified workweek, sick days, stock options, etc.) can be a catch-22 because an employee's performance can be influenced by compensation and benefits, and vice versa. In the ideal situation, employees feel they are paid what they are worth, are rewarded with sufficient benefits, and receive some intrinsic satisfaction (good work environment, interesting work, etc.). Compensation should be legal and ethical, adequate, motivating, fair and equitable, cost-effective, and able to provide employment security (Cherrington, 1995). o EMPLOYEE AND LABOR RELATIONS--Just as human resource developers make sure employees have proper training, there are groups of employees organized as unions to address and resolve employment-related issues. Unions have been around since the time of the American Revolution (Mondy and Noe, 1996). Those who join unions usually do so for one or both of two reasons— to increase wages and/or to eliminate unfair conditions. Some of the outcomes of union involvement include better medical plans, extended vacation time, and increased wages (Cherrington, 1995). o SAFETY AND HEALTH--Not only must an organization see to it that employees' rights are not violated, but it must also provide a safe and healthy working environment. Mondy and Noe (1996) define safety as "protecting employees from injuries caused by work-related accidents" and health as keeping "employees free from physical or emotional illness" . In order to prevent injury or illness, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was created in 1970. Through workplace inspections, citations and penalties, and on-site consultations, OSHA seeks to enhance safety and health and to decrease accidents, which lead to decreased productivity and increased operating costs. • CONCLUSION: Corporate Culture is the moral, social, and behavioral norms of an organization based on the beliefs, attitudes, and priorities of its members First, culture must be clearly define, clarify and understand the company's core values. Review the ideals that are part of mission, vision, and goal statements. This will give a parameter for weighing the controls required for success in your corporate culture. Every organization has its own ideals, which are often based on the values of the founders or top management. People are your company's best, most important investment. This is especially true for executives and others in key positions that have the greatest potential to impact your bottom line. When it works well, corporate culture has tremendous value and a positive impact on the success a company can achieve. Company founders had to decide from Day One that was the manner in which their business would be run. Creating a great corporate culture is easy to say but much harder to do, because the great challenge is to maintain it after the initial enthusiasm of launching a successful new business has wanted.. And if a decade is good, more than 50 years is even better, as evidenced by the success of Disneyland, one of the shining examples of a corporate culture that values friendliness and first-class service. It has been able to maintain it for decades, never allowing the standards of excellence to slip.

mCRM : PROVIDING CRM SERVICES INTO YOUR POCKET

BY RITESH KUMAR SRIVASTAVA Faculty IT ICFAI National College GORAKHPUR ABSTRACT Customer Relationship Management(CRM) is an enterprise-wide corporate strategy for presenting complete information to the customer and let organization to decide their objective towards success. It responds to issues relating to sharing customer data and providing a seamless contact and fulfillment experience for the customer. CRM front-end applications usually integrate with backend systems such as accounting and manufacturing for a true enterprise-wide cost reduction solution. Usually this front end needs to be very effective as it directly targets toward end users. It encompasses the roles and responsibilities of those employees who directly work with customers. This involves a range of mobile employees including sales representatives or account managers, field service personnel, and customer support staff. Mobile CRM is emerging into the mainstream as an excellent method of relaying information between marketing and sales personnel. Busy sales and marketing professionals on the road can now communicate quickly and effectively through mobile CRM. Mobile CRM refers to the use of a mobile device to conduct any CRM related activities, including mobile phones, PDAs, and laptop computers.

Thursday, April 3, 2008

ENTERPRISE INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE DESIGN AND CONCEPTS FOR ORGANIZATIONS

By Ritesh Srivastava Faculty IT, ICFAI National College Gorakhpur ABSTRACT In recent years there has been a great deal of interest in methodologies for developing common infrastructure of information that is reliable, maintainable and extensible. Since infrastructure was the part of the software development process, it is natural that the early efforts to improve the quality of infrastructure were concentrated on the programming aspect of software development. However, it is clear today that no programming methodology can overcome the errors and problems incurred in the functional specification phase of infrastructure development. The complexity of the information infrastructure specification task is well accepted but very few ideas for dealing with that complexity exist. A new approach is needed that enables the analyst to develop correct specifications that can be validated in terms of the information needs. The approach presented in this paper focuses on the problem definition for information systems that is based upon organization structure and functions. Social organizations are open systems as defined in general systems theory, and as such the functions of an organization may be analyzed in terms of a general model of open, living systems. With the amazing transformation of Internet-based technologies in recent years, for many organizations the main focus of attention and the main return on investment has shifted from the application specific focus to architecture specific. This is the main driver behind the migration from a framework and method for Technology Architecture to one for overall Enterprise Architecture. This paper describes the reference model that focuses on How Architecture of Information System & Flow can be implemented in today’s organizations, and one that is a "Common Systems Architecture" in Enterprise Continuum terms. This paper is contribution towards the framework of business applications architecture and its infrastructure applications parts - in order to provide help in addressing one of the key challenges facing the enterprise architect today: the need to design an integrated information infrastructure to enable ‘Boundaryless Information Flow'. These concepts are explained in detail in this paper.