The Impact Of M-Commerce On Business: Hardware, Software, And Business Models

Findings and Analysis

Understand the central role of information systems and of the world- wide- web in organisations.

Identify the elements of hardware and software used for the transmission, storage and retrieval of information.

Demonstrate how the quality of management decision making is enhanced by information systems.  

The report firmly focuses on the impact of M-commerce in business. In today’s business M-commerce or Mobile commerce plays a vital role. Most of the business activities are completely dependent on electronic devices (Mohapatra, 2013). The business organizations are developing their own mobile applications in order to provide better opportunities and friendly services to the existing consumers.  

The report -describes the usage of advanced technologies that incorporated by the business associations to implement fast, safe and secure services for the consumers. While an enterprise is considering an electronic platform for their commercial profit they must make sure that the platform is safe enough. Different usage of hardware and software components related to M-commerce is also going to be mentioned along with the use of several social components.

Evaluation of hardware/software components that associated with M-Commerce

Software	Apps: development app, distribution app, management app, cloud computing:  Commerce: banking, advertising, marketing.
Hardware / Devices	Smart phones: iphone, android devices, windows mobile. Form factors: phablets, flip, smart watches etc.

Basic needs of hardware and software in m-commerce are electronic device, and supporting internet services. The mobile commerce development is driven out by analyzing different factors such as- emerging technologies, fast data transmission technology, improved computing capacity, huge data storage with the support of GUI (graphical user interface) (Sila, 2013). The commercial environment brought a revolutionary change by adopting electronic commerce and secures end to end encryption in their services. Incorporation of software, hardware different packages is not the ultimate solution of m-commerce application rather appropriate application is required (Mohapatra, 2013).

Figure 1: M-commerce process flow diagram for Business

(Source: Zhou, Zhang and Zimmermann 2013, pp-65)

(For software hardware components: Refer to Appendix)

During evaluation of the software associated characteristics are as followed:

Features	Application
Information exchange technology	Hasan, Morris and Probets (2013), stated that, the basic information exchange majorly includes the extensible markup language (XML), wireless markup language (WML) and short message service (SMS).
Wireless application protocol	WAP protocol is used to develop the level of security and in the end to end transaction.
Wireless middleware	Wireless middleware is the subset of middleware. Due to its complex nature many challenges are present for the m-commerce.

Business application	Value	concerns	Technology requirement
Communication Voice SMS Email Data transfer	High High High High	Cost, security Cost, security Cost, security Cost, security	1G/2G 2G/2.5G 2G/2.5G 2.5G/3G
Information Web browser Traffic	High High	Cost, security Cost, security	1G/2G 1G/2G
Entertainment Game Music Horoscope	High High Low	Cost Cost Cost	2G/3G 2G/3G 2.5G/3G
Commerce Tickets booking Banking Retailing Advertising Payment	Highest Highest Moderate High High	Cost Cost, security Cost, security Cost Cost, security	2.5G/3G 2G/3G 2G/3G 2.5G/3G 2.5G/3G

The consumers and business operators both have an impact of using wireless mobile ecommerce for commercial purposes (Hasan, Morris and Probets, 2013). Three entities are found in m-commerce such as- mobile business, personal network and mobile consumers. Different business model are discussed below: 

Models	Activities
Wireless Business to customer Model	An interactive relationship between the organization and its consumers are adopted by this model. The model firmly focuses on the mobile advertisement, online shopping, online ticket booking and net banking via wireless network. According to (Sun, Xu and Su, 2014) It reduces the delivery cost; the selling buying process can take place anytime and anywhere.
Wireless Business-to-Business Model	This model is used to demonstrate the business transaction between the organizations such as manufacturer and the wholesaler (White, Afolayan and Plant, 2014).  It also maintains the supply chain management system. It also optimizes the overall cost.
Wireless customer to customer Model	This model is activated with the interruption of certain third party. For example Electronic mail, games, activities based on location a web access. This model cost little higher than the other models (Poggi et al., 2013).
Wireless Consumer-to-Self Model	This model has the following entities such as- network operations, technology provides, mobile users, content service providers and calculation of potential benefits (Sila, 2013). All efficient infrastructures can be provided by this model.

(For image building of M-commerce: refer to Appendix)

M-commerce technology brings two technologies such as wireless technology and traditional e-commerce technology together in a single platform (Du and Tang, 2014). The biggest concern that most of the cell phone user have about m-commerce are shown below:

Infrastructure: While using this technology the basic concern of the users are related to the infrastructure of the website. This is mainly the network infrastructure. Thus, it can be said that for the technology implementation if the provided LAN, WAN connection is not enough secured then the total system will be in vain.

Evaluation of Hardware/Software Components That Associated with M-Commerce

Information: As in case of m-commerce net banking is available thus, the banking details and the personal details are also stored in the server database (White, Afolayan and Plant, 2014). If the database security is not up to the level, then it will create problems. The consumers of that service always feel insecure while using the m-commerce.

Transaction: During transaction the source and destination must have an appropriate and authenticated security key. The key may be private or it may be public.  It means that the key can be unique or it can be shared also. Therefore, while using the m-commerce technologies users are always worried about the security. The advantages and disadvantages are as followed:

Advantages	Disadvantages
M-commerce is a flexible and convenience process that is used in today’s business. Easy connectivity is possible in case of M-commerce.	The security is not accepted by the users and due to limited band width the cost of the establishing mobile and the wireless broadband infrastructure is supported by the users.
During transaction the server holds the personal as well as financial details of the consumers. The infrastructure of the network ensures the managing capabilities of the service (Du and Tang, 2014).	Less interoperability in the m-commerce devices might create security related issues (Mohapatra, 2013). The high operational cost of the services puts pressure on the retail changes. Limited memory corrupt the unlimited use of the service provide by the m-commerce business services. Malware antivirus introduction is also not that easy for the services.
Enhancing competition creates innovation in the entire application field. It creates innovative ways in order to attract the consumers for doing business. M-commerce provides an amazing platform to the consumers for starting business (Ahsan, 2013). The new technologies are adopting by the consumers. High speed 3G/4G gives the economical services to the consumers. It also possesses an easy and noise free communication. In network technologies it provides the support of GSM, GPRS, EDGE, and 3G/UMTS.	Hackers might hack the personal and financial details of the consumers and as a result it may hamper or corrupt the entire system. As m-commerce does not have any standard or benchmark for their services thus, it does not provide a fast life style to the service users.

Issues	Impact
Security	Personal data, financial data are stored while using the m-commerce services. Thus, if the data are not secured with a particular manner then the data could get hacked by the unauthenticated users of the service.
Location management	The location management is also not enough efficient for the m-commerce service (Mohapatra, 2013). In this usability section the internet support with relevant platform utilization is strictly required but the
Ethics and privacy	If the personal and financial data get hacked by the attackers then it will be an ethical issues and due to the interruption in the privacy system the entire system could get corrupted.
usability	The usability of the service is not enough efficient as it is based on the electronic based platform.
Legal challenges	In order to serve the services throughout the world legal support is required (Row, Truex and Huynh, 2012). The government support is very much essential to provide the overall support to the consumers regardless of the location of the users. F the legal is not available for that particular service provider then, it will be total in vain.
Consumer trust	Sometimes the trust of the consumers gets affected due to lack of security (Huang and Benyoucef, 2013). If the data get hacked by the users then for the next time that particular consumer will never come to use the service.
interoperability	Interoperability issue may also interrupt the overall services provided by the m-commerce servers.
Wireless infrastructure	As in case of mobile commerce the services served by the wireless electronic device (Sila, 2013).  Thus, the medium is required to be noise free. If the channel is not noise free then, the infrastructure will not be supportive to the consumers It will be another major issue to the clients using m-commerce service.
Limitations	Small screen size is another issue in m-commerce implantation. As the size of the product is not clear enough all time thus, the customer does not feel secure while looking for the online products (White, Afolayan and Plant, 2014).

(For M-Commerce security technologies: refer to Appendix)

Figure 3: Payment process of M-commerce

(Source: Poggi et al., 2013, pp-70)

The issues discussed above can be mitigated using some of the advanced technologies and application. The major issue relevant to m-commerce is detected as less security and lack of customer satisfaction. Not mostly but in some cases the consumers of m-commerce services are not feeling satisfied with the provided services. Mitigation techniques are discussed below:

Issues	Mitigation process
Security	As m-commerce is a sub part of e-commerce, the security related issue hampers the service most of the time (Hasan, Morris and Probets, 2013). Therefore, advanced end to end asymmetric encryption processes are adopted by the company apps so that the third party cannot interrupt the service without permission.
Customer satisfaction	During transaction of money

The m-commerce wireless technology recently engaged many consumers and the user of mobile phones have also started increasing in a rapid manner. The wide development of this technology involves new type of e-commerce that conducts the transmission process through mobile terminals (Sila, 2013). Thus, the technology is known as mobile commerce. Software simulation can only make the application possible.

M-commerce is the online buying processes the starts from the service provider and end up to the consumers. The technology evaluation is based on a basic M-commerce architecture.

Figure 4: Evaluation of m-commerce

(Source: Afshar, 2013, pp-560)

From the process flow technique it is found that the primary entities are client and the server and relationship must contain the attributes such as server, client authentication, content request and the content response (Hasan, Morris and Probets, 2013). Crypto function, merchant function and user private key functions are used during the evaluation of the process. In addition to this, a secure communication and the credit card validation techniques are also maintained by the process flow of m-commerce technology. User and the server authentication is the most important part of the online business evaluation process.

(For M-Commerce revenue structure: refer to Appendix)

Novak (2014), stated that the social components of m-commerce are proper network connection, m-commerce technology, content and interfaces. These are the basic social requirements for the process and the overall implementation of the technology helps to formulate m-commerce in terms of commercial management.

Impact of Wireless, Next-generation Evolution of E-Commerce Has on the Consumers

Figure 5: Components of m-commerce

(Source: Huang and Benyoucef, 2013, pp-250)

Conclusion and recommendations

From the overall discussion it can be concluded that the next generation of evolved E-commerce technologies. It also mentioned the impact of m-commerce on the consumers and the business processes relevant to it. Apart from this, the hardware and software associated to m-commerce and its internal analysis also the social components of m-commerce are also demonstrated.

These are following recommendations to the M-commerce system:

Encrypted communication: Encrypted communication protocols are needed to be incorporated by the business organizations and at the same time, they must leverage the security model to reduce the security related issues took place in m-commerce.

User friendly service: In order to gain trust from the consumers the organization should provide better user friendly services to the consumers.

Consumer need calculation: The business organization must consider all the influencing and analyzing factors of m- commerce application to fulfill the consumers need.

Architectural improvement: The organizations are advised to use cloud based architecture in all the sectors to reduce the cost and to provide a trust worthy platform to the consumers of the m-commerce business. M-commerce faces several issues such as low band width, network problem etc. during implementation. Those can be reduced at a high by using cloud based architecture.

References

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