Overview and description of the website

1. Determine whether it is in the exposure stage, interaction stage, e-commerce stage or e-business stage. Provide reasons for your answer.

2. Provide an estimation of the hardware and software requirements of the current website.

3. Analyse the current website and formulate an E-Commerce implementation strategy to present to the owner of the website. E-Commerce implementation strategy should take into account all the services of the website. 

4. Provide an estimation of the hardware and software requirements of the proposed E-Commerce website you proposed in      Question 3. 

Grey Teak Technologies is a software company which is situated in Melbourne, Australia. It offers various kinds of IT supports and is known for business solutions for companies of different sectors. The company has a website which offers a plenty of services to its customer. The present website is being monitored and reviewed through assessment. The positive and the negative aspects of the website of the company are shown. It is also seen that certain requirements of the website are met or not. A better option for a website for website is also listed in the assessment after proper analysis of the website.

The main aim of this report is to analyze the website of Grey Teak Technologies, which is a software development company situated in Melbourne, Australia. The company is known for providing custom technology solutions for several businesses, entrepreneurs and individuals too. The services provided by the company include website backend development and Systems development to Enterprise software systems design and development. There is a series of services provided by the company and they are as follows:-

(i) Enterprise Software Development

(ii) Applications & Systems Management

(iii) Advanced Website Development

(iii) System Designs & Development

(iv) Business Process Improvement

(v) Website Maintenance Services

The report also aims to determine and discuss main features of company’s website. The study presents the positive and negative aspects of website and provide recommendation E-commerce implementation.

The significant features of the site includes the terms and conditions of the website which are exclusively under the governance of the laws of the State of Victoria. The material content of this site including organization, audio, video, compilation, translation, digital conversion etc. is protected by the copyright laws of Australia. The copying of the content, its redistribution, publication, or any such kind of work is strictly prohibited. The liability of the site is restricted to the errors occurrence during shipment and delivery (Greyteak.com, 2016). The website provides maintenance services to the businesses, entrepreneurs as well as licensee individuals. The site is known for its services as well as maintenance services to the clients. It includes optimization of search engines, updating of the existing pages of the sites, removal of the dead links, continuous monitoring of the sites, NET server expertise etc (Fergerson, 2012). 

Main feature or features of the website

In my opinion, the website is in the e-commerce stage of the development. The reason is that the internet has become the economic lineage of the site in the current situation. Not only it facilities communication with the clients, but also the sale and purchase of the goods and services is done through the website infrastructure. Internet helps in the procedure of product deliverance and in the process of distribution as well. Therefore, it is in its e-commerce stage of development however it will soon enter in the e-business stage (Aw-bc.com, 2002). 

Estimation of hardware and software requirements of the current website:

Hardware requirements;

• Dual processors faster than 2.5 GHz.
• RAM should be 2-4 GB
• The disc should have a minimum of 3 GB of free space in NTFS file format. It should enough free space for data storage.
• Needs a DVD drive or requires a source which is stored in a local drive or drive connected to the network.
• Monitor having resolution of 1024 X 768 or more than that.
• The connection of the network should be faster than 56 Kbps between servers and clients. The connection between the computers at server level should be 1 Gbps. 

Requirements for software;

• Operating system: Windows Server 2003, Web Edition. The software requires Internet Explorer 6 browser with updated service packs such as Internet Explorer 8, or 9.
• After the installation of the operating system and applying of all the updates, the computer device which has a web server configured and it would need IIS 6.0 which includes files such as WWW, and SMTP.

Other than these specifications, a domain name is a must for an e-commerce website following a dedicated or a virtual private server according to the foot fall of the website. 

Companies are making it compulsory that the purchase orders are received by the suppliers of the company and they reply invoices through electronic means to lessen costs and maintain itself in the competitive market. There are several challenges which impact a lot on several organizations and businesses.(Yasin et al., 2006) The Grey Teak is a software development company; hence, it requires certain e-commerce implementation strategies for developing their business in the e-commerce sector.

Implementation Strategies in context with the services provided by the website;

(i) Strategic customers and suppliers should be contacted and the strategies should be discussed with them. Questionnaire should be prepared regarding the type of transactions and should be asked what type of transactions they prefer the most. The discussion should be done on the quarterly reviews with the customers and the suppliers (Fruhling & Digman, 2000).

(ii) Find ways to join and participate in the organizations involved in e-commerce and related businesses.

(iii) Proper evaluation of the sale and purchase tools of the website should be done and a clear Service Level Agreement (SLA) should also be prepared for the outsourcing solutions (Chen et al., 2013).

(iv) The implementation should be simple and proper sequencing and priority should be provided to the transactions to be implemented. To capture the information required for the in-contract transactions, the order should be followed carefully. The minimum customization should be done to the site. The reduction of errors is also beneficial to the e-commerce.

(v) There should be a project team and staffing analysis should be performed and communications plans should be created by discussing with the project team. The team should consist of;

• Director of Order Management who must ensure the proper documentation of the business requirements, handle error procedures and audit processes after the implementation of the project.
• Order Management Analyst who is capable of understanding and describing the process flow. He also has the responsibility to explain new processes as well.
• E-commerce consultant who can advise the best business practices and provides assistance in configuration and integration of ERP system.
• Has an ERP programmer who takes care of making changes in the ERP system according to the requirement.

(vi) Intellectual and well-developed specifications for the trading partners or instructions can dramatically reduce the time in testing and it prevents misinterpretations also. If e-commerce tools cannot be afforded, a document should be prepared for the customers or suppliers.

(vii) To avoid the consequences of the new implementation, a consultant should also be hired having a specialization in the area. To ensure a resource in case of new development or technical concerns, the maintenance agreement should be signed with the consulting company.

The services provided by the website should follow these e-commerce implementation strategies for the better services. The website development services of the site and the system design and development and such other services can use these implementations for their development (Botha et al., 2008). Therefore, e-commerce is a fundamental planned tool for approaching to the customers, suppliers, distribution centers etc. The proper combination of technology and excellent business practices guarantees proper growth of the business through stream-lining operations and automating procedures.

Estimation of hardware and software requirements for proposed e-commerce website:

Hardware requirements

• 2-4 GHz dual-core CPU
• 4 GB RAM or more.
• The disc should have a minimum of 3 GB of free space in NTFS file format. It should enough free space for data storage.
• Requires a DVD drive or the source should have its location in network accessible drive
• Monitor with resolution of 1024 X 768 or more
• The connection between client and server should be at least 56 kbps, 1 Gbps between servers.
• Software requirement

The proposed website must be compatible to and work on;

• Java Runtime Environments- Oracle JRE 1.8, Oracle JRE 1.7.0, IBM JVM version 1.7
• Operating Systems- Windows 8.1, Ubuntu Server 14.04
• Application Servers- IBM Websphere 8, Eclipse Jetty 9
• Database Servers- Oracle Database 11g, Microsoft SQL Server 2014   (Galorath & Evans, 2006)

Other than these specifications, a domain name is a must for an e-commerce website following a dedicated or a virtual private server according to the foot fall and the content of the website. 

References

Aw-bc.com, 2002. What Is Electronic Commerce? 

Botha, J., Bothma, C.H. & Geldenhuys, P., 2008. Managing E-commerce in Business. In Electronic commerce. Juta and Company Ltd. pp.1-8.

Chen, Y., Ruikar, K.D. & Carrillo, P.M., 2013. Strategic E-Business Framework: A Holistic Approach For Organisations In The Construction Industry. Journal of Information Technology in Construction , 18, pp.1874-4753.

Fergerson, B., 2012. Key Stages of StrategicInformation SystemPlanning (SISP) Methodsand Alignment to Strategic Management Planning Concepts. Capstone Report.

Fruhling, A.L. & Digman, L.A., 2000. The Impact Of Electronic Commerce On Business-Level Strategies. Journal of Electronic Commerce Research, I(1), pp.1-10.

Galorath, D.D. & Evans, M.W., 2006. Software Sizing, Estimation, and Risk Management. In Computers. CRC Press. pp.1-3.

Greyteak.com, 2016. Terms and Conditions.

Yasin, M.M., J.Czuchry, A., Gonzales, M. & Bayes, P.E., 2006. E-commerce implementation challenges: Small to medium-sized versus large organisations.