Infrastructure for EC

Introduction

The e-commerce infrastructure is defined here as the supporting capabilities for online trading between multiple companies which include hardware, software, networks, online payment technologies, security and encryption technologies, online trading business models, legal and regulatory framework, and managerial and organisation capabilities. 

Infrastructure is the shared human, informational, and technical resources on which the work system relies in order to operate, even though these resources exist and are managed outside of the work system. 

To evaluate the interdisciplinary aspects of construction e-commerce infrastructure, one proposes using a four pillar approach. Figure 5.1 illustrates the skeleton for the proposed integrated construction e-commerce infrastructure.

The proposed integrated e-business infrastructure can be broken down into the following four groups of components: 

1) Technological Infrastructure: Technology infrastructure is a work system that uses information technology, computer and communication hardware and software.

• i) Hardware: It refers to the devices and other physical objects involved in processing information, such as computers, workstations, physical networks, and data storage and transmission devices. 
• ii) Software: It refers to the computer programs that interpret user inputs and tell the hardware what to do. Software includes operating systems, end-user software such as word processors, and application software related to specialised business tasks such as recording credit card transactions or designing automobiles. 

The key point about technology in a work system is that it has no impact whatsoever ever unless it is used within a business process. A business professional's view of technology is concerned primarily with its capability to support the desired work system and with its long- and short-term costs, risks, and other business implications.

Since work systems exist to produce products and services for customers, their participants' efforts should be directed at doing the necessary work rather than figuring out how to use or work around the available technology. 

Minimising effort consumed by technology is one of the most evident advantages of applications based on internet technology. Permitting a user to click on underlined hypertext links is an incredibly simple method for capturing information about what the user wants to see or do next. Transmitting information to and from the user and a website anywhere in the world is also incredibly simple from a user's viewpoint. Simply enter the website's address to get started and the internet's invisible infrastructure takes care of all subsequent information transmission automatically. 

2) Managerial and Organisational Infrastructure: Business models Business-to-Business (B2B), Business-to-Consumer (B2C), Consumer-to- Consumer (C2C), Internet-enabled business processes, supply chain integration capabilities, organisational cultural issues, users training, and Return on Investment (ROI) justification and calculation. 

3) Legal and Regulatory Infrastructure: Legal requirements for e-business, regulations for electronic trading, and electronic signature act.

4) Information Infrastructure: It includes structures to support information liquidity knowledge management, common across-industry taxonomy, and information availability over the trading network. Information infrastructure is codified information that is shared across a company. Ideally a company's information infrastructure should be stored in databases designed for use in different work systems in different parts of the company. Although "enterprise systems" have provided a path in this direction, a high level of information sharing across the company is still rare. Figure 5.2 illustrates an e-commerce marketplace infrastructure model:

It shows buyers and sellers with different connection configurations (single computer access, multiple computer access, and multiple computers, multiple location networked access). Buyers and sellers can connect to the e-business marketplace through the internet. Internet connections could be established by connecting to the Internet Service Provider (ISP) through dial-up connections, Digital Subscriber Lines (DSLS), T1, T4 or other link types. The e-business configuration (e-business marketplace versus single point buyer B2B e-commerce, single point seller B2B or B2C e-commerce) represents the managerial and organisational aspects. The third aspect is represented through the legal and regulatory frameworks within which online trading activities operate, and the fourth aspect represents the market information that flows between different network nodes. 

It Takes More Than Technology 

Work systems use information technology, computer and communication hardware and software: 

1) Hardware 

2) Software 

The key point about technology in a work system is that it has no impact whatsoever unless it is used within a business process. A business professional's analysis of a work system must include technology but should emphasise the way the technology will be used in the work system rather than the internal details of the technology. 

Infrastructure is the shared human, informational, and technical resources on which the work system relies in order to operate, even though these resources exist and are managed outside of the work system. It is useful to compare the IT infrastructure that supports a work system with the public infrastructure that supports a city's residential, commercial, and civic activities. 

Technology is part of the infrastructure if it is viewed as outside a work system, if it is shared among many work systems, if it is owned and managed by a centralised authority in charge of infrastructure and if its details generally are hidden from users and seem inconsequential to them. Technology is not included in infrastructure if it is dedicated to a particular work system, if it is owned and controlled within the work system, if it is managed by whoever manages the work system, and if its hands-on users need to understand its technical details.