ERP and E-Commerce

Over the last few years, e-commerce has become a common activity for many companies. Some of them dived into this challenge without taking into account the cultural changes that the situation involved, as well as the infrastructure necessary to continue with the initial project.

In order to begin to develop a Business in the electronic jungle, there are some points that need to be covered. It is necessary to establish a marketing strategy , to create a catalogue of products, define the costs and the sale prices, the target market, and shipping and handling.

Nowadays, most enterprises are willing to incorporate the development of e-Business. This new technology, which is based on the net, has arrived and will stay for a long time. But to set it up properly, it is necessary to rely on the good organization of the information and the processes. It is a challenge due to the fact that most companies do not have their own systems department to give support to solve their particular needs.

All the main departments of the companies are affected also, since there is a specific need of strategies and solutions that should be updated. Besides, it is relevant to have in mind the mission and vision of the enterprise and have an effective communication system for the strategic points. In order to visualize a proper development of this project, the same has to be accompanied by trained staff.

Starting the Development

The first step to follow is to select an Internet service provider. While it could be possible to use a solution or your own development, it would need to cover the basic needs of a catalogue of products, shopping carts, methods of payment with secure transactions, as well as order processing. There are two factors that will directly influence your work, therefore, it is very important that you should have a reliable hosting provider and reliable means of distribution.

Once these issues are decided, the location of the virtual shop would be the next step to bear in mind, and one of the options would be to go to a specific offer for the hosting of virtual shops.

Safety Issues

It is essential to take into consideration the security part inside the shop and the transactions. There are two security standards designed especially for e-commerce: Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and Secure Electronic Transaction (SET).

The first one does not allow a third party to decode the document, through which it uses random keys, with a certification and a digital signature that has the specific function to guarantee that only the concerned user will be able to decode the message.

At the same time, SET is a security payment standard based on advanced encryption techniques in order to develop Internet transactions. It works with public and private keys protected by SSL, and it is designed to encrypt the transactions to a avoid indiscreet interference.

Timing Subjects

In regards to the necessary time to set up these applications, there is a huge offer in market. However, all the equipment like servers, routers, switches,... could be acquired directly with the manufacturer, or through an ISP or ASP.

The ASP has lately become indispensable for integrating the e-commerce, since they cover all the Business software including the sale and renting of equipment, links and web hosting among others.

The size of the developing Business is not important, for it would always need the guidance of an expert in the area, and depending on the place where it is based, this could mean selecting a more convenient service to hire in that location.

The IT executives of general industry with experience and implementation of ERP are now discovering the new rules of Business, and they are increasing demand for their clients due to this factor.

The users of Enterprise Resource Planning have improved their operations through the unification of the production systems and administration with other information technologies, and are now expanding this tools to their chain of supply for their clients.