For the first lecture i was absent from the university, i had already inform my course director Nicola Ayre that i would be absent and i complete a NA1 form on the course notice board. I understood that so i would not fall behind i had to do more independent studying to understand the course.

Lecture Overview

As i was absent from the lecture i logged into web ct were i printed week 1 lectures out. I read over them in great detail, firstly we were given an overview of the module. This was information on what i would learnt from the module by the end of the semester, i should have gained a understanding of ICT in healthcare. Have looked at the different area that ICT had been applied and also had gain an understanding of how technologies such as the internet and mobile computing are improving patient care and patient.

Section 1- What is Health Informatics?
 
“Health informatics, Health care informatics or medical informatics is the intersection of information science, computer science, and health care. It deals with the resources, devices, and methods required optimizing the acquisition, storage, “NHS Website
The term ‘health informatics’ can also be referred to as many other terms e.g Medical Informatics, Medical Computer Science or Computers in Medicine. From the notes i have learnt that Health informatics helps bridge the gap between I.T and the various disciplines of medicine and healthcare. We will be looking at different system and seeing how they interpreted data to help to understand patient conditions. We will also look at how the computer system will store the information. Section 1-Why we need Health Informatics

we need Health Informatics for a number of reason:

- Helps reduce cost

- improves patient care 
-be more efficient with clinician times 
- able to move away from paper based systems
- reduce medication errors
- be able to gain instant access to pateinet records 

Above is a graph that shows that medical errors does cause deaths and this is an area were healthcare technologies can close the gap. We then looked at the assessments structure briefly and also the reading list that the lecture recommended. We then moved on to section two.

Section 2- History of Technology in healthcare.

The second part of the lecture dealt with the history of technology in healthcare and where/how/who can healthcare technologies help?. Also we looked into the categories of healthcare technologies. 

 We briefly looked at the history of Healthcare technologies, X ray was discovered in 1895 and most recently palm pilot appeared on the market which was the first handheld computer. 
Learnt that healthcare technologies can help in a number of sections;
-Pharmacy
-Medical Records
-Disease Management
-Patient Safety
-Evidence based care

These are a number of examples of how healthcare technologies can help. We know that healthcare technologies can help the public health, Medical Education and the Government. 
 
Tutorial

For the tutorial class we were introduced to a software package Matlab. We briefly looked at what the product was and how we could use it. Mark went over some basic formulas on how we could use it this was helpful as we would be doing this in are first practical.  

 Practical 1

For the first Practical we had to learn how MatLab can be opened, how it can be run and how you can save the work you have done. Firstly we had to link the MatLab to the directory; once this was done you could start putting in a few basic functions to see how it works. I have shown below example of some of the functions that were used:

Creating a row

a = [1 2 3 4 5]

Creating a Column

[1; 2; 3; 4; 5]

Creating a Matrix

d = [

1 2 3

4 5 6

7 8 9]

Basic Arthimatic using matlab

a = [1 2 3 4];

4. b = [5 6 7 8];

5. c = a+b

The five forces are:

• The threat of substitute products (The existence of close substitute products increases the propensity of customers to switch to alternatives in response to price increases)
• The threat of the entry of new competitors (Profitable markets that yield high returns will draw firms. This results in many new entrants, which will effectively decrease profitability. Unless the entry of new firms can be blocked by incumbents, then the profit rate will fall towards a competitive level)
• The intensity of competitive rivalry (For most industries, this is the major determinant of the competitiveness of the industry. Sometimes rivals compete aggressively and sometimes rivals compete in non-price dimensions such as innovation, marketing, etc.)
• The bargaining power of customers (The ability of customers to put the firm under pressure and it also affects the customer’s sensitivity to price changes)
• The bargaining power of suppliers (Suppliers of raw materials, components, and services (such as expertise) to the firm can be a source of power over the firm. Suppliers may refuse to work with the firm, or e.g. charge excessively high prices for unique resources.)

The threat of substitute products and services:

There are many different ways in which a product can be substituted, with the most popular being actual or possible substitution of one product for another, a new process may render a product unnecessary and also ‘doing without’ can also be thought of as a substitute. cornering my website other stores or websites provide the same product this means that they could be offered a better deal by substituting the product. This is why there is a serious threat from substitution as it means that my company would have to reduce price of product and lowering the profit that it would make. Also decreasing prices reduces the quality of goods.Another threat from substituting is that there might not be a need for the product any more.

The threat of the entry of new competitors (barrier to entry):

For new competitors trying to enter the retail sector I feel that it would not be easy. I feel that customers are loyal to brand names and will look more at the high street name online businesses than to a new one. For a company to break into retail section they would have to have good brand names behind them followed with a good advertisement campaign. If a new competitor entering the market was to set up premises would be important that the competitor would geta good location, a new competitor would be safer to set up an online business as would not cost as much if it was to fail.

 The intensity of competitive rivalry: 

There is a lot of competition throughout the retail market, two main high street rivals would be TopShop and River Island.  These companies also have their own websites and make great use of advertising their products. For my chosen company to compete with these rivals is important that my website gets good views so that in Alexa ranking will be better than competitors. Online rival companies would be ASOS and Littlewoods as they focus mainly on internet shopping. This means they may have an added advantage over high street shops.  It is easier for companies to hold more stock in warehouses than what they could hold in a shop.  Therefore they will be able to offer customers a bigger variety of clothes to keep up with rivals.

The bargaining power of customers and buyers:

Since online shopping has become increasingly popular customers have a wider choice this means it is easier to find the cheapest clothes website to purchase clothes from. This means that Oasis should try to show sales on their site to ensure that customers will not look anywhere else.

 The bargaining power of suppliers: 

For Oasis to get the best for their customers they must offer the best products at a cheap price. A possible way of doing this is to look at different suppliers and see if their products are still good quality. This would take a lot of research from the company but it would be worth it for the retail market. After finding out what products are the cheapest with the best quality this is where the company could bargain with current suppliers to try to reduce their price as the company is looking into new ones. If they would not agree to this you could enter the new supply into the company as long as the company would feel happy with it.

Personalisation

Personalisation is used by e-commerce site to predict an out of what the users might want to buy or use. This is done by 3 stages

1. Input

 2. Algorithm

 3. Output

Above is a diagram that shows how the method of personalisation works. For this weeks task I was asked to give my opinion of Personalisation. I had to either be for or against it. I am against personalisation I will outline my reasons in the next paragraph.

I feel that Personalisation  is used to try stereotype me and when a site uses this method, it annoys me as I would just like to use the product that I want to pick. Also what I have bought or used the last time that I was on the site is recorded. This means that the next time I visit the site the system shows me similar items. My next purchase could be different product so the system does not work for me. I feel that this is a cheap way for company to try to get you buy more products. Below shows amazon using Personalisation.

Web Personalisation in my view is also bad designing by the web designer instead of creating a navigation tool on the site that allows the user to be more independent and have a more refined search. Customers that are interested in Personalisation don’t wanna use it as they have to give personal information and they don’t want that information to be lost by the company. I don’t feel that I should share with people what I like or what I dislike. I don’t like wasting time with filling in forms and questionnaires that give me the results of what I might need. For personilsation to work correctly the company needs to know personal information about me I find that questions are not of a detailed nature the resulting output can be considerably wrong.

To begin I used the Google Search-based Keyword Tool  to produce what Google thinks are the best key phrases for my chosen e-commerce business. I entered the Website “www.oasis-stores.com” and entered many different keywords and phrases. For each of the keyword/s that I entered into the field, the results page displayed a vast list of key phrases that were mostly all in some way relevant to oasis-stores.com.

The top entry for the keywords was jumpsuit and shoe sale was second. Jumpsuit received an average of, 8,200 searches each month and shoe sale receiving 5,400 per month.Below shows results of the screen dump

My task was to cut down the deluge of keywords down to twelve key phrases that described the website. For to do this I used Google Insight Tool. This tool suggests top searches related to words or phrases.  I entered five searches for the website jumpsuit, shoe sale. Swimwear, khaki pants and long sleeves.

Below is a screen dump of the results.

I found out that swimwear was the biggest interest compared to the other 4 keywords. But I only restricted the search to the U.K as this were the main stores are kept.

The last step of my task was to use Google keyword tool.  I found that Google keyword help me the most with my task. Firstly to use this tool I had to enter the URL address of my site which is www.oasis-stores.com/

The tool then produced  keyword groupings for each of the terms. Below shows a screen dump of what the results looked like. Also shows the keyword that the google keyword tool produced.

Showing keywords grouped by these terms:
plus size (13), ladies clothing (5), designer clothes (6), dress shirts (5), t shirts (5), clothing (35), shoes (39), clothes (27), ladies (5), men’s (9), dress (7), fashion (9), dresses (11), oasis (6), Miscellaneous keywords (18)

Keywords

Below are the 12 phrases that I have decided best describe my site

1. Plus size
2. Ladies Clothing
3. Designer Clothing
4. Dresses
5. Skirts
6. T Shirts
7. Shoes
8. Clothes
9. Men Clothing
10. Shoe Sale
11. Jumpsuit
12. Swimwear

Q.13 For your selected e-commerce site, assess the ease (or not) with which you can find the site using a search engine. Type some of the company’s branded products or key themes into a search engine. Discuss what is returned. Pay particular attention to ‘paid for’ results. Check where competitors appear. Interpret the results. Provide recommendations.

E-Marketing

The Internet has brought media to a global audience. The interactive nature of Internet marketing in terms of providing instant response and eliciting responses, is a unique quality of the medium. Internet marketing ties together creative and technical aspects of the Internet, including: design, development, advertising, and sales.

Internet marketing also refers to the placement of media along different stages of the customer engagement cycle through search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO), banner ads on specific websites, e-mail marketing,

Citied from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_marketing

The first task this week was to find out how easy it is to find http://www.oasis-stores.com/ with the use to a search engine. The search engine that I used was google when I typed in the word Oasis the first website to appear in the list was indeed http://www.oasis-stores.com/ this proves that the website is easy found through the used of search engines and is shown below.

To give a better understanding of how easy the website can be found I typed in clothing stores as it is not as specific search compared to Oasis. I firstly did this on google search engine and then Bing to compare the difference. On the google search engine it appeared third on the list. But on the Bing search oasis-store appears on page 13. This is not very good as it shows that there is in consistency from different search engines. This is to a disadvantage is competitors that are on the top five pages of both site are gaining an advantage. My advice to the Oasis clothing team would be to promote the website more so that their name is among the top 10 of every major search engine.  Advertisements on major search engines could be a good move for the company.  This would guarantee that their name is always at the top of a search page when a product related to their company is searched for.

This is would mean that competitors would not be gaining an advantage and would also help the website to be further up the Alexa ranking. Compared to its competitors the ranking is not good. Thou the accessibility of the site was good on google was not so good on bing the company will need to improve this for more online shopping success

Q.12 Carry out web research to find out what is meant by the term ‘Cloud Computing’. Describe in your own words what is meant by this term. Explain in your own words the impact that cloud computing might have in e-commerce. Ensure that you describe potential benefits and problems.

Cloud computing is a general term for anything that involves delivering hosted services over the Internet.Companies or individuals usually make an annual payment for being able to use this resource. The data is stored in massive data centers owned by companies. Companies like IBM, Apple and Microsoft are some of the companies that have the large data centers. It is becoming a big industry for these companies and they are putting a lot of resources into it to ensure that it becomes a financial success.

Cloud computing will allow people to store data and software on an online resource. It could be possible that the modern P.C could be replaced. As any device with access to a web browser and the internet will be able to access not only data which has been stored but software that is used to perform many tasks that a P.C would. This will be exciting times for developers and you can see why all the big computer companies are putting so many resources into this. Any person that has access to a cloud can access any data form it this could be:

• Business information
• Stock Market Information
• Financial Information

This would be a great benefit to anyone that would need to access this information all the time as all they need is an internet connection.

The impact of cloud computing on the e-commerce world is that it will be easier for small businesses to get set up and prosper in the online environment. All their resources will be available online and accessed anywhere without the need to access the physical location. Also save the company money on setting up networks and spending money on P.C equipment.

A disadvantage of cloud computing is actually how reliable it is. There have been a number of outages reported in the past. But there are arguments that this also happens within a computer network. But the major companies ensure that cloud computing can only get better and that with more research the product can improve.

The downside of cloud computing in the E-commerce sense is mainly its reliability. There have been numerous well documented episodes of outages and significant downtimes (summer 2008) with the major suppliers of cloud computing. Another potential problem with the cloud service is that the data centers is susceptible to events such as flooding, fire, terrorism etc which will result in a possible loss of data.

With people starting to use cloud computing and with data increasing within the centers another potential problem is the time it will take data to download. For this to work big companies involved must ensure that the applications of the service are of good order to ensure customer satisfaction. It is still believe that with the correct resources that cloud computing will be the future.

Q.11 Using your chosen e-commerce company, analyse their strategy for management of the upstream and downstream supply chain.
Concepts that should be included, where appropriate, are as follows:

• Push vs pull supply models
• Vertical integration vs disintegration vs virtual integration
• Evidence of value networks
• Evidence of efficiencies in supply chain

Oasis-Clothing supply chain would be a mix of both upstream and downstream as they receive goods from their suppliers and pass them on to the customer. They would also have a pull supply model as one of their aims is to offer their customers good value for money whilst taking the customers needs into account. 

Oasis clothing uses virtual integration in its everyday running of the company. Most supply chain management activities are controlled outside of oasis.stores.com, who in turn keep a close relationship with its suppliers. The business is not totally reliant on linked third parties as oasis-clothing has numerous stores to back up its supplies. Oasis has a supplier base of approximately 50 core suppliers. They maintain strong relationships with their suppliers, which they expect to grow even further with assistance from the new system. The new system is that oasis can track vendor performance from merchandise concept all the way through to the products being sold at their stores. Means Oasis can gain a better understanding of what’s happening within the supplier base. It enables oasis to be more proactive in speaking to their suppliers and working with them to improve their partnership.

An example of a value network is the partnership with Debenhams, within this partnership

Debenhams is responsible for oasis/coast 107 stores. Debenhams helps provide pull strategy

for the company.

Oasis-stores.com  procurement is maintained simply by long-term partnerships and continuously purchasing from them.The products and services that oasis-clothing provide can only be obtained from the one supplier and oasis have the copyright on the products. Using the same supplier for a shows loyalty but gains respect from the suppliers itself and will give the company competitive prices

E- Environment

Q.7 Look in detail at the terms and conditions for purchasing from your site. Are they reasonable? Comment on anything unusual or unreasonable that you find. What about returning goods? Describe the kinds of support provided by your site, for example, does it provide customer call back or does it give terms for returning goods. Do you think that it is better or worse than the competition? Explain your answer

There are a numbers of terms and conditions provided by the website. The terms and conditions can be read by clicking the T& C link at the bottom of the home page. Also when purchasing a product before the product can be bought you have to agree to terms and conditions of the company and there is a link to read them. There are 4 parts to the terms and conditions:

1. Information about the Website and the Goods
2. Buying Goods
3. Returning Goods
4. General terms relating to our relationship with you

The terms and conditions of the Company in my opinion seem to be reasonable. In Part 1 of the T & C the company talks about how they have the right to change policies within there website and that viewers should always read the terms and conditions before purchasing a product. The T&C are obviously set up so that the company can cover its self. In Part 1 it states that all sizes and delivery times are all approximate estimates. The website also provides a email that customers can email if they have any queries on terms and condition (help@oasis-stores.co.uk)

Part 2 of the T&C states that the product will not be dispatch till the transaction between the customer’s bank or credit card have been successful.

Part 3 is probably the most important T&C, as with most retail companies, customers leave products back. This can be for a number of reasons the size is wrong, problem with the fabric or if the customers finds the product unsuitable.

The website provides a clear understanding how the products must be returned. It has to be returned within 24 days of the customer receiving it. A return form that is provided with the product must be filled out, providing details of why the product was not suitable. The customer can also return the product to a local store (UK and Ireland only). The product has to be sent back in the same condition it was received by the customer. The website also provides help to customers in a section called frequently asked question? In this section it answers question how to return a product successfully.

Q.8 Examine the registration process for your site, from the perspective of security. Is your data encrypted? What does this mean?

The security of the website is to a high standard. The registration process involves giving a name email address and a unique password of the user choice. The email address can only be used by 1 customer to provide security. The website provides good security but it is down to how good the customer unique password is. The longer the password is and with number included it is harder for users to hack in. McAfee Secure and VeriSign Secured provide the security service. This software prevents intruders from listening in on private communications. Even if they are able to capture the message, encryption allows them to only view scrambled text or what many call unreadable gibberish. Upon arrival, the data is decrypted, allowing the intended recipient to view the message in its original form.

Below shows the form that has to be filled in to register on to site.

Data encryption refers to mathematical calculations and algorithmic schemes that transform plaintext into cyphertext, a form that is non-readable to unauthorized parties. The recipient of an encrypted message uses a key, which triggers the algorithm mechanism to decrypt the data, transforming it to the original plaintext version

When buying product the same service is provided so that people trying to listen in cannot get card details etc.

Q9

Does the site use cookies? Find out what cookies are, and explain how cookies are used in, for example, your site.

A cookie is very small text file placed on your hard drive by a Web Page server. It is essentially your identification card, and cannot be executed as code or deliver viruses. It is uniquely yours and can only be read by the server that gave it to you. A cookie purpose it to let companies know when you are on there website or have returned, what time you spent on the website and what sections you looked at the most. This allows the company to create a profile of what products you are interested in and emails can be spent promoting products that the company might think you will buy.

An example of cookie that is used on this website is if a buy a product it will suggest other products that I might want to buy.

Conor Mc Kavanagh 09 October 9, 2009

Q.4 Explore the Internet for information on your site the site, especially for data that helps to place your site in context; for example, competitors, industry averages, growth rates for some sites.

Comparing my chosen website (www.oasis-clothing.com) to other competitors I have found that some of the company competitors are competing far better. Below shows the ranking of my website and what each rating means.

Out of all the website competitors you can see that oasis clothing Alexa traffic Rank is the lowest by far. It also has the lowest traffic rank in the UK as well. This is not good for the website as it shows that consumers are looking at other website instead which could lead to the potential lost in sales as consumers are buying from other companies. My website has a good number of sites that are linked in. This means that people can access the site through other websites this shows that the company is trying to advertise the site in other ways. The companies website had been set up from 1996- 1998 so there is not much difference since they have been online oasis clothing would need to loom at why other competitors site have excelled and oasis clothing has not.  Below show a graph of all the competitors’ showing the number of visits per day. Top shop is the clear winner with oasis clothing and River Island with the lowest visit per day. This graph has only been taken from the last six months.

Q.5 Explore the processes involved in purchasing on your chosen site. Describe the different steps in these processes, in terms of the technology that is being used, from typing the web address into the browser to a product being delivered to your door

The first process the user must do is to sign up to an account. This can be done by registering name address and email. Then be asked to make up a password. This means an account has been created. Companies make user have an account as they can send them emails promoting products they have to offer. It allows the user to track the progress of the product they have purchased.

You then add the product that you want to the shopping basket. Then you proceed to checkout it asked you for your login detail which is your email and the password you have created. You then fill in your address details were you want the product delivered. The last stage is to pay for the product. This is done by filling in the card details that the user wishes to use. This is done in a secure location on the web that is provided by the oasis clothing website.

The Stages are bullet pointed below:

• Adding product to your shopping basket
• Checkout step 1 – Login details
• Checkout step 2 – address details
• Checkout step 3 – payment details
• Confirmation of order

Q6. New channels to market for e-business are increasingly being used. Such channels include mobile device access as well as digital television access. Consider and describe the potential future impact of ONE of these channels for your e-business from the perspective of the e-business. What strategic choices (if any) need to be made.

Mobile Commerce could be a way forward for the oasis clothing company. People use mobile phones for every day use. If the oasis company could spend money on advertising the new mobile commerce it could increase the number of people viewing and buying the product. It could introduce new users to the company. Create a database of new customers so that promotion on products could be emailed to them.

The Rise of Mobile Commerce

Currently, there are three times as many mobile-phone subscribers (3.3 billion) as Internet users (1.3 billion) worldwide. Early retail adopters are already finding ways to factor the mobile phone into multichannel service delivery. For the more basic mobile offering, retailers are using SMS to communicate promotions. Some facts on Mobile Commerce

• 42 percent of retailers provide the ability to view product information on a mobile device through reformatted web pages or specific mobile pages
• 15 percent offer the ability to conduct transactions (make purchases, complete inventory queries, etc.)
• 10 percent are using SMS to provide information or answers to customers’ questions
• 6 percent have webpages and a URL specifically designed for mobile use

I feel that the use of Mobile Commerce could be a successful fourth revenue income for the company

Q1. Examine the web site that you have chosen. Please provide a short description of the web site in everyday language. Please insert a screen shot of the web site into your answer.

The website that I have chosen to research is oasis store (www.oasis-stores.com/). Oasis Stores PLC. Originates and produces ladies clothing and fashion accessories under the Oasis and Coast names selling through its own retail outlets in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Germany and to licensees for sale through outlets in Europe, Taiwan, Japan and the Middle East. The website allows consumers to look at all the different types of clothing that they have to offer. Basically the website is sub categorized into different types of clothing the site allows the consumer to look at the clothing, also to see what sizes are available and if they want to purchase the item. I would describe the website that I am researching as a B2C (Business to Consumer).   

Q.2 Use some search engines or industry sources (e.g., trade magazines online, Financial Times, etc) to carry out desk research to find out specific quantitative information about the size of the business behind the web site. Try to determine figures for turnover, number of employees, and profit for specific (recent) years. Please do so without directly contacting the company.

Oasis Companies head office is based in London; they currently have 300 stores throughout the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, Europe and continued expansion in the Middle East. Founded in 1991 by Michael and Maurice Bennett, the aim of the project was to produce clothing that 18-30 would be interested in buying.  As the company expanded it was seen that a way forward was to produce an e-commerce site in 1996. Oasis is a well-established brand trading on the UK high street. It operates at the upper end of the middle market and differentiates itself from the mainstream high street brands with innovative design-led clothing and accessories, the quality and uniqueness of which allow it to trade at a premium price to the middle market. The company currently employs 3,076 in all sectors. Between FY2002 and FY2005 Oasis’ revenues increased at a CAGR of 7.1%. The growth has mainly been driven by new store and concession openings.

The most significant growth was experienced in FY2004, when sales increased by 12.7%. Increased sales over the year were partly due to the opening of new stores and concessions as well as due to a product mix of more expensive products, such as tailoring that was in fashion. In FY2005, tailoring was not in fashion and as a consequence prices were slightly lower. Over the year sales increased by 4.7%. Oasis generated 49% of the Company’s revenues in FY2005.

Below is a table that shows the approximate number of visit the website has per day links to other sites and were it is ranked in Alexa traffic rank.

Q.3 Take some time to research the business behind your site. Is the web the only channel to market for this business? If so, please describe your understanding of how this business came about. If the web is not the only channel, please describe the other channels in detail. Use Channel Chain Maps (see Week 2 slides here) if possible. Try to find out how much business is won by each channel.

Oasis store does not just use the web to channel its business; it also uses stores that are widespread throughout U.K, Europe and parts of the Middle East. As I have already suggested I believe that the website is B2C (business to consumer). The trading mechanism in the site run at a fixed prices sale but from time to time there are sales and student discount is offered. The website is a seller controlled site and this is done on a one to many ratios. The oasis store also channels its business by having links to sister companies.