Security of Private data and of credit card numbers is of paramount concern to B2C consumers. So as we are aware the Internet and technology and in turn E commerce are still growing rapidly but what of the future. The predicted growth of worldwide e-commerce revenues made by different research groups can be seen this graph here. (eMarket , 2000)

The predictions of most of the research groups have shown a similar pattern of rapid growth. Surveys have also shown that B2B e- commerce will continue to outpace B2C e commerce in all countries and emerging technologies such as wireless devices are changing Internet markets. Effective operations management, which gives a company the potential to improve revenues and service, would apply all the previous operations aspects to the management of their e commerce section. So that ultimately only a very high standard of service is provided leading the company to have a competitive advantage.

E commerce is definitely one if the most important aspects for businesses looking into the future. We believe that the best approach is to use e commerce as a channel of doing business. Certain businesses will survive and flourish but the majority are likely to fall by the wayside. The need to be responsive to the changing environment is yet another characteristic which e commerce demands.

Businesses should not have an over-reliance on technology to overcome the weakness of a bad business model, but use it as a support to carry their initial ideas and business model. Thanks for listening and I will now hand you over to Colin who is going to talk about M commerce. A few decades ago, businesses would tend to have one mainframe computer to process data for payroll, stock etc. Nowadays, businesses have company-wide intranets that are available to everyone, not just IT professionals. Even customers can use the system through cashpoints, touch screens or the Internet.

Information is different from other resources. It is not depleted when used. It is not normally possible to claim exclusive “ownership” of information (it is usually a shared resource). Management may want to formulate an “information management policy” that will help them manage computing resources to maximise the benefits of information. Consistency with Business Priorities A company’s information system strategy should be linked to its business plan. A method called CSF (Critical Success Factors) encourages senior executives to identify the company’s primary goals. They will then identify performance indicators for each of the CSFs and they should make sure that the systems are in place to collect and use this information.