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Instructor's Manual, Chapter 4
Management Information Systems, Second Canadian Edition
4-1
Chapter 4
The Digital Firm: Electronic Business
and Electronic Commerce
Teaching Objectives
Students should be able to answer the following questions:
1. How has Internet technology changed value propositions and business models?
2. What is electronic commerce? How has electronic commerce changed consumer retailing
and business-to-business transactions?
3. What are the principal payment systems for electronic commerce?
4. How can Internet technology facilitate management and coordination of internal business
processes and supply chain management?
5. What are the major managerial and organizational challenges posed by electronic business
and electronic commerce?
Key Terms
The following alphabetical list identifies the key terms discussed in this chapter. The page
number for each key term is provided.
Accumulated balance digital payment system, 125
Banner ad, 114
Business model, 112
Business-to-business (B2B) electronic commerce, 116
Business-to-consumer (B2C) electronic commerce, 116
Call centre, 121
Channel conflict, 135
Clicks-and-mortar, 116
Consumer-to-consumer (C2C) electronic commerce, 116
Digital cash, 127
Digital chequing, 126
Digital credit card payment system, 125
Digital wallet, 125
Disintermediation, 117
Dynamic pricing, 114
Electronic billing presentment and payment systems, 126
Electronic payment system, 124
Exchange, 123
Information asymmetry, 113
Micropayment, 125
Mobile commerce (m-commerce), 117
Net marketplace, 122
Peer-to-peer payment system, 125
Pop-up ads, 144
Portal, 115
Private exchange, 122
Pure-play, 116
Reach, 113
Reintermediation, 118
Richness, 113
Search costs, 113
Smart card, 125
Stored value payment systems, 125
Syndicator, 115
Web personalization, 118
Copyright © 2005 Pearson Education Canada Inc.
Instructor's Manual, Chapter 4
Management Information Systems, Second Canadian Edition
4-2
Teaching Suggestions
The opening vignette, “Telefonica S.A. Goes Digital,” demonstrates how one company is using
Internet technology to perform electronic business and electronic commerce. This opening
vignette shows how Telefonica has modified its strategy and business model to take advantage
of Internet technology. To facilitate class discussion, ask your students the following questions:
1. What is Telefonica's objective? How does the company plan to achieve this objective?
2. What changes were required to make Telefonica's electronic commerce and electronic
business initiatives effective? What was management's role in this process?
3. What business processes did Telefonica Internet-enable?
4. What benefits has Telefonica received from its information portal?
5. What organizational changes are required?
6. Briefly discuss the competitive forces (identified in Chapter 3) as they relate to Telefonica.
Although electronic business and electronic commerce are “hot” business terms today, many
companies have difficulty earning a profit. Discuss with your students why some companies, like
Telefonica, are successful and why some companies are not successful with using the Internet
for electronic commerce and electronic business applications. Stress to your students that
electronic commerce and electronic business require a complete change of mindset and new
business paradigm. You can use the opening vignette to help illustrate this point.
You may have a student in your class who works for a company that participates in electronic
business and electronic commerce. Ask this student to explain his or her company's electronic
business and electronic commerce activities.
Along with online selling, electronic commerce leads to significant changes in the way products
are customized, distributed, and exchanged and the way consumers search and bargain for
products and services, and consume them. In short, the electronic commerce revolution is
transforming how we do business. Processes (e.g. manufacturing, inventorying, corporate
financial management, and operation), and business-to-business processes (e.g. supply-chain
management and bidding) are affected by the same technology and networks, as are businessto-consumer processes. Even government functions like education, social, and political
processes undergo changes.
Stress to students that e-commerce is a virtual market. Electronic commerce is not limited to
buying and selling products online. For example, a neighborhood store can open a Web store
and find the world on its doorstep. Along with customers, it will also find its suppliers,
accountants, payment services, government agencies, and competitors online. These online
digital partners demand changes in the way we do business from production to consumption,
and they affect companies who might think they are not part of electronic commerce. You can
use Wal-Mart, the largest retail company in the world, as an example.
Section One, “Electronic Business, Electronic Commerce, and the Emerging Digital Firm,”
discusses the benefits of using Internet technology to enable the digital firm. You should spend
a few minutes with your students discussing these benefits, including lower transaction and
agency costs, bypassing intermediaries, the ability of trading partners to directly communicate
with each other, the ability to connect disparate systems, reduced delivery time for goods and
services, 24-hour availability, and replacing the existing distribution channels.
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Instructor's Manual, Chapter 4
Management Information Systems, Second Canadian Edition
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Discuss with your students how the Internet has unbundled the information about products and
services from the actual products and services. Ask your students how many have shopped for
a car recently. Ask the students to compare how they would shop for a car today, as opposed to
how they might have shopped for a car 10 years ago. Use this discussion to illustrate how the
unbundling of information is disrupting traditional business models. If you have the time, ask
your students to visit the Autobytel.com Web site. How do sites, such as Autobytel, reduce
information asymmetry?
To demonstrate the different Internet business models, ask your students to visit the Web sites
for the businesses mentioned in Table 4-2. After the students have visited the Web sites, ask
them to report back to you about their findings. Alternatively, you can place your students into
groups and then assign a business model category to each group. Ask the groups to visit the
Web sites for their assigned business model category. Ask the groups to prepare both a written
report and a presentation about their findings.
Section Two introduces students to electronic commerce categories, related terminology, and
types of electronic payment systems. The discussion of mobile commerce is of particular
interest in this section. Ask your students to identify the advantages and disadvantages that
might be associated with using handheld wireless devices.
Students will also enjoy learning more about electronic payment systems. Ask your students to
visit TRUSTe at http://www.truste.org to see how they are creating certified security and privacy
ratings of electronic transactions to improve online business practices and build public
confidence in Internet commerce.
There are literally millions of Web pages on the Internet that provide a forum for discussing
issues and a way to make information available in a global setting. The biggest distinction in the
new business paradigm is the concept of electronic money. Implementation of electronic
payment systems is in its infancy and still evolving. Have students share their online shopping
experiences and use the discussion as a springboard for evaluating the principal electronic
payment systems.
For questions such as, “Will electronic money be the money of the future?” have students read
about the theories, the experiments, and the arguments of electronic money, or e-money, and
digital cash at http://www.ex.ac.uk/~RDavies/arian/emoney.html.
Section Three, “Electronic Business and the Digital Firm,” shows how businesses are using
Internet technology to lower agency and coordination costs. In particular, this section shows
how intranets are used to support electronic business, shows how intranets can be used for
group collaboration, and presents intranet applications for business. To help reinforce this
section, ask your students to select and then investigate one of the companies listed in Tables
4-5 – 4-9.
Section Four, “Management Challenges and Opportunities,” highlights several of the problems
associated with using unproven business models. This is a good place to discuss why some
dot-com companies have succeeded and a lot have failed. Ask your students to research
current legislation governing electronic commerce and then present their findings to the class.
When discussing the managerial and organizational challenges posed by electronic commerce
and electronic business, you can compare and contrast an online greeting card business with
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Instructor's Manual, Chapter 4
Management Information Systems, Second Canadian Edition
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the traditional bricks-and-mortar greeting card business. Ask your students how many of them
have sent online greeting cards to a friend or family member? What is the new business model?
How is electronic commerce changing greeting card retailing? What are some of the business
challenges posed by this new business model?
Section Five discusses the state of e-commerce in Canada. Most of what has been written
about e-commerce is US-centric, yet there have been several studies on Canadian initiatives.
Statistics Canada and Strategis are two Web sites that have material on Canadian use of ecommerce, and the Canadian E-Business Roundtable has not only studied the current state of
e-commerce in Canada but has come up with a series of recommendations, dealing primarily
with what government can do to promote e-commerce in Canada.
“Window On” Boxes
Window on Management: Mohawks Take Lead on Internet Service
How did Mohawk Internet Technologies become such big business for the Mohawk
Council of Kahnawake?
Mohawk Internet Technologies serves as one of the predominant electronic business centres on
the Internet. MIT wanted to create a technology park that would include other value-added
services required by e-businesses, such as common office spaces for call centres, phone
services, and support for electronic security. Kahnawake was uniquely positioned to develop a
world-class Internet Service Provider. An underground fibre-optic cable network and facilities
were available near Montreal, with its full fleet of transportation and telecommunications
services. MIT is able to provide a high level of advanced technology and a unique combination
of services.
Do you think they can fulfill their vision of being a modern day trading post on the
Internet? Why or why not?
MIT seems to understand what their business customers need from an Internet service provider.
They have set a vision to be a modern-day trading post on the Internet – a central location
where business partners and e-customers join together in an environment specifically geared
toward cross-business alliances and development. Provided that MIT stays true to this vision,
they should be able to fulfill their vision.
Window on Organizations: Covisint: The Vision and the Reality
What are the strengths and weaknesses of Covisint's business model?
The strengths of the Covisint business model include bringing automobile suppliers and
manufacturers together in a net marketplace, so that competitive bidding and lower costs for
purchase order transactions can reduce the cost for each car by $1800 to $45000. The ultimate
goal for Covisint was to link the automakers to the entire supply chain, allowing the
manufacturers to "view their supply chains as components moved through the system." Covisint
provided a bid analysis tool for manufacturers, reduced purchase ordering transaction costs,
allowed rival companies to have a common industry net marketplace, created low-cost entry
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points for suppliers, facilitated online global communication, and reduced the time for new
automobile development.
Covisint was not well received by suppliers since the suppliers already had their own existing
private networks, were afraid that Covisint would turn their products into commodities, and
worried that they might lose control over their supply chains.
How could it provide value to its users?
Covisint will help its users reduce costs, such as purchase order costs. Covisint also provides
an analysis tool that helps manufacturers evaluate supplier bids. Covisint can link automakers to
the entire supply chain and can help reduce the time it takes to produce an automobile.
Why has it been so difficult for Covisint to realize its original vision?
Covisint seemed to primarily benefit the manufacturers and also seemed to place the suppliers
at more of a disadvantage. Also, since the suppliers already had their own private networks,
there was less incentive for the suppliers to use Covisint.
For Discussion Questions
1. How does the Internet change consumer and supplier relationships?
One clear change is that consumers can research products and services online and then
make their purchases on the Internet. Since the Internet increases the richness and range of
information that is available, it shrinks information asymmetry.
Since the Internet is at the centre of digital integration, it is changing the way consumers and
suppliers interact. The Internet is responsible for creating new business models and
promotes customer-centred retailing, direct sales over the Web, interactive marketing and
personalization, m-commerce, and customer self-service.
In today’s competitive environment, suppliers must increasingly offer their consumers
product variety and mass customization without increased delivery times. In order to meet
these requirements, suppliers must deliver goods and services in a timely manner. However,
delivery performance depends on many different factors, such as finished parts inventory
levels and work-in-progress. Suppliers can track these factors inexpensively through the use
of information systems.
2. The Internet may not make corporations obsolete, but they will have to change their
business models. Do you agree? Why or why not?
Most students will probably agree, but whichever way they go, they must support their case.
If you have students on both sides of the issue, lead a discussion that challenges the
position of both sides.
The Internet will paint a completely different picture of business in the new millennium. As
companies transform to remain competitive in the Digital Age, they will adopt a new
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business model, putting aside the one that has been in place since the Industrial Age began
two hundred years ago.
The Internet is certainly driving tremendous changes, and it is important to note that these
changes are self-perpetuating and happening much faster than ever before. There are
seven megatrends where the Internet's impact is changing how business — in every
industry and every country around the world — is being done.
The megatrends include:
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New channels are revolutionizing sales and brand management;
The balance of power may be shifting to the customer;
Competition is intensifying across all dimensions;
The pace of business is fundamentally accelerating;
Companies are transforming into extended enterprises;
Companies are reevaluating how they, their partners, and their competitors add value;
and
Knowledge is becoming more of a key strategic asset.
Instead of inwardly-focused companies “sticking to their knitting,” we will see extended
enterprises; instead of companies with circumscribed relationships with their suppliers and
customers, we will see a myriad of electronic relationships and shared processes; instead of
a hierarchical chain of command, we will see virtual teams, empowered to make decisions
on behalf of the company. Without the Internet, none of this would be possible.
Review Questions
1. What are the advantages of using the Internet as the infrastructure for electronic
commerce and electronic business?
The Internet is an international network of networks connecting many millions of people
from well over 100 countries. It is the largest information superhighway in the world. The
Internet provides a universal and easy-to-use set of technologies and standards that can
be adopted by all organizations, no matter what computer system or information
technology platform they are using; provides a much lower cost and easier-to-use
alternative for coordination activities than proprietary networks; reduces organizational
transaction and agency costs; increases communication, including electronic mail, online
forums, and chatting; provides access to increased information and information retrieval
from many thousands of online databases around the world; and increases market
potential with online offerings of information and products through the easy-to-use World
Wide Web.
2. How is the Internet changing the economics of information and business models?
The Internet radically reduces the cost of creating, sending, and storing information while
making that information more widely available. The Internet reduces search costs, allowing
customers to locate products, suppliers, prices, and delivery terms. The Internet enables
companies to collect and analyze more detailed and accurate information about their
customers, allowing these companies to better target market their products and services.
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The Internet shrinks information asymmetry and has transformed the richness and reach
of information. It can help companies create and capture profits in new ways by adding
extra value to existing products and services. It also provides the foundation for new
products and services.
3. Name and describe six Internet business models for electronic commerce.
Distinguish between a pure-play Internet business model and a clicks-and-mortar
business model.
Table 4-2 identifies eight Internet business models. These models are virtual storefront,
information broker, transaction broker, online marketplace, content provider, online service
provider, virtual community, and portal. Virtual storefronts sell physical products directly to
consumers or individual businesses. Information brokers provide product, pricing, and
availability information to individuals and businesses; they generate revenue from
advertising or from directing buyers to sellers. The transaction broker saves users money
and time by processing online sale transactions and generates a fee each time. The online
marketplace provides a digital environment where buyers and sellers meet, search for and
display products, and establish prices for those products; it can provide online auctions
and reverse auctions. A content provider creates revenue by providing digital content,
such as digital news, music, photos, or video over the Web. The online service provider
provides online services for individuals and businesses and generates revenue from
subscription or transaction fees and from advertising. The virtual community provides an
online meeting place where people with similar interests can communicate and find useful
information. The portal provides an initial point of entry to the Web along with specialized
content and other services.
A pure-play business model is based purely on the Internet. A clicks-and-mortar business
model has a Web site that is an extension of a traditional bricks-and-mortar business.
4. Name and describe the various categories of electronic commerce.
The three major types of electronic commerce are business-to-consumer (B2C), businessto-business (B2B), and consumer-to-consumer (C2C). Business-to-consumer involves
retailing products and services to individual shoppers. BarnesandNoble.com is an example
of business-to-consumer electronic commerce.
Business-to-business involves the sale of goods and services among businesses.
Millpro.com provides business-to-business electronic commerce. Consumer-to-consumer
involves consumers selling directly to consumers. An example of consumer-to-consumer
electronic commerce is eBay.com.
Electronic commerce transactions can also be classified based on the participants’
physical connections to the Web. Participants can use wired networks or mobile
commerce.
5. How can the Internet facilitate sales and marketing to individual customers?
Describe the role played by Web personalization.
The Internet enables a company to create closer, cost-effective relationships with its
customers. The company can use the Internet to provide information, service, support, and
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in many instances, the product over the Web. The Internet facilitates direct sales over the
Web, interactive marketing and personalization, and customer self-service.
The Internet digitally enables the firm. The firm can link to customers and suppliers so that
electronic commerce, automating business-to-business transactions such as invoices,
purchase orders, and sometimes payments (digital cash and electronic funds transfer), is
economically and technically feasible.
In many instances, the customer can purchase a product or service from a company's
Web site. A Web site also allows potential customers to obtain information about the
products, distributors, and service centres. The information about distributors allows a
company to use the Web site to market, while avoiding channel conflict. A FAQ (frequently
asked questions) list can allow support for the product without tying up phone lines with
common, easily answered questions. FAQs can raise customer comfort with the product
and the company.
Web personalization directly tailors the Web content to the specific user and at a low cost.
Personalization helps firms form a lasting relationship with an individual customer.
6. How can the Internet help provide customer service?
Customer service starts with the ease customers have in researching products themselves
and then the ease of purchasing. Then, when the product has arrived (whether it is a
digital product delivered over the Internet or a physical product delivered by mail or
express delivery), the customer can obtain help on its usage over the Internet, often very
easily. As was noted in question 5, FAQs provide support for easy questions, such as
instructions for assembly or use of products or services. Answers to questions can be emailed from the Web site without making customers wait for telephone support. Many
customers are happy with an answer even if it takes eight hours to receive as long as they
know they are going to get it. Further, with chat or Internet telephony linked to the site,
customers can talk to representatives. Many vendors, such as Dell, have people assigned
to answer the questions or complaints of users. The Internet is also an easy, fast way to
place orders because it reduces conversation, misunderstanding, errors, and time.
7. How can Internet technology support business-to-business electronic commerce?
Business-to-business transactions can occur via a company's Web site, net marketplace,
or private exchange. Web sites make it easy to sell and buy over the Internet, compare
suppliers, products, and prices, and even find out how others feel about the product.
Further, supply chain linkages through intranets and extranets can support JIT, reduce
cycle times, and support other practices of continuous improvement. Because of the ease
and efficiencies brought by the Internet, business-to-business participants can save a
significant amount of money and time.
8. What are Net marketplaces? Why do they represent an important business model
for B2B e-commerce? How do they differ from private industrial networks?
A net marketplace is a single digital marketplace based on Internet technology linking
many buyers to many sellers. The net marketplace is an important business model for B2B
e-commerce because some net marketplaces serve vertical markets for specific industries
and other net marketplaces serve horizontal markets, selling goods that are available in
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Management Information Systems, Second Canadian Edition
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many different industries. Also, net marketplaces can sell either direct goods or indirect
goods. Net marketplaces are more transaction-oriented and less relationship-oriented than
private industrial networks.
9. Name and describe the principal electronic payment systems used on the Internet.
Table 4-3 summarizes the electronic payment systems. The electronic payment systems
discussed in the chapter include digital credit card payment, digital wallet, accumulated
balance payment, stored value payment systems, digital cash, peer-to-peer payment
systems, digital checking, and electronic billing presentment and payment.
Digital credit card payment systems provide secure services for credit card payments on
the Internet and protect information transmitted among users, merchant sites, and
processing banks. Digital wallets store credit card and owner identification information and
provide these data automatically during electronic commerce purchase transactions.
Accumulated balance payment systems accumulate micropayment purchases as a debit
balance that must be paid periodically on credit card or telephone bills. Stored value
payment systems enable customers to make instant online payments from a value stored
in a digital account. A smart card is a credit-card-size plastic card that stores digital
information and can be used for electronic payments. Digital cash is an electronic form of
currency, moves outside the normal network of money, and is used for micropayments or
larger purchases. A peer-to-peer payment system is an electronic payment system for
people who want to send money to vendors or individuals who are not set up to accept
credit card payments. A digital check is an electronic check with a secure digital signature.
An electronic billing presentment and payment system is used to pay routine monthly bills;
it allows users to view their bills electronically and pay them through electronic funds
transfers from bank or credit card accounts.
10. Why are intranets so useful for electronic business?
Table 4-4 summarizes the organizational benefits of intranets. Intranet benefits include
connectivity from most computing platforms, and they can be tied to internal corporate
systems and core transaction databases. Intranets can create interactive applications with
text, audio, and video, are scalable to larger or smaller computing platforms as
requirements change, are easy-to-use, provide a universal Web interface, have low startup costs, are richer and provide a more responsive information environment, and reduce
information distribution costs.
11. How can intranets support organizational collaboration?
Organizations are using intranets to create enterprise collaboration environments.
Regardless of location, intranets allow organizational members to exchange ideas, share
information, and work together on common projects and assignments.
12. Describe the uses of intranets for e-business in sales and marketing, human
resources, finance and accounting, and manufacturing.
Tables 4-5 to 4-8 provide examples of how intranets are used in the functional areas. In
sales and marketing, intranets help oversee and coordinate the activities of the sales
force. The sales force can obtain updates on pricing, promotions, rebates, customers, and
competitors. The sales force can also access presentation and sales documents, which
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they can customize for specific customers. In the human resources area, intranets keep
employees informed of company issues and policies, allow employees to access and
update their personnel records, and take online competency tests. Further, job postings
and internal job information can be made available to employees. Employees can enroll in
health care, benefit plans, or company training seminars. In finance and accounting,
intranets provide an online, integrated view of financial and accounting information in an
easy-to-use format. In the manufacturing area, intranets integrate complex information
across plant floors or many plants, particularly in managing work flow and process control.
13. How can companies use Internet technology for supply chain management?
Companies can use Internet technology for supply chain management to simplify,
integrate, and electronically coordinate business processes that span more than one
functional area or span the business processes of other companies; integrate
procurement, production and logistics processes to supply goods and services from their
source through to delivery to the customer; improve the coordination among their internal
supply chain processes, as well as coordinate the shared supply chain processes of
business partners; support the instant communication between all members of the supply
chain; provide online collaboration; provide a quicker, more accurate response to
customer demand; tap into suppliers’ systems to see inventory and production capabilities;
monitor customers’ order status; share production, scheduling, inventory, forecasting and
logistics information; communicate up-to-date manufacturing information to suppliers; and
obtain customer feedback.
14. Describe the management challenges posed by electronic commerce and electronic
business on the Internet.
Electronic commerce and electronic business pose several management challenges,
including inadequate security, given the sensitive and proprietary nature of information that
people might want to communicate through the Net; e-commerce and e-business require
careful orchestration of the firm’s divisions, production sites, and sales offices, as well as
closer relationships with customers, suppliers, and other business partners in its network
of value creation; technology problems, including the lack of standards, the growing need
of bandwidth, inadequate telecommunications facilities in many less developed countries,
and the abundance of data without the technical ability yet to search for and locate it
quickly and easily; lack of clarity on many critical legal questions that affect the
transmission of data nationally and internationally; unproven business models; and control
and coordination problems, particularly in extranets and business-to-business sites.
15. What is channel conflict? Why is it becoming a growing problem in electronic
commerce?
Channel conflict is competition between two or more different distribution chains used to
sell the products or services of the same company. For example, channel conflict occurs
when a company with an established sales force begins to sell over the Internet. Needless
to say, the sales staff will be loath to sell or support the products of a company that directly
competes with them. More and more organizations are feeling pressure to offer direct
sales over the Internet by the purchasers of their products and by competitive pressure.
Students may see that this will not be limited to for-profit firms alone but may be a problem
for not-for-profit organizations also. The local Habitat for Humanity or Red Cross chapter
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may not be happy or even able to function if local donors are giving to the national Habitat
for Humanity or Red Cross instead of the local charities.
Application Software Exercise
Students’ solutions will vary, depending on the company they select and the time period
over which it is analyzed. The files provided here are merely for purposes of illustration,
and the income statement and balance sheet have been simplified. If students lack prior
knowledge of financial statements, the instructor may have to devote extra time to
explaining income statements, balance sheets and financial ratios. Alternatively, students
can find material on understanding financial statements on financial Web sites such as
E*Trade or the Small Business Knowledge Base (www.bizmove.com/finance/m3b2.htm).
Group Project
Form a group with three or four of your classmates. Select two businesses that are
competitors in the same industry and that use their Web sites for e- commerce. Visit
their Web sites. You might compare, for example, the Web sites for virtual banking
created by Bank of Montreal and RBC (Royal Bank), or the Internet trading Web
sites of E*TRADE or Baystreet.ca. Prepare an evaluation of each business’s Web
site in terms of its functions, user friendliness, and how well it supports the
company’s business strategy. Which Web site does a better job? Why? Can you
make some recommendations to improve these Web sites?
There are many criteria for evaluating Web sites. Your students can use the following
criteria to evaluate the Web sites:
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Accuracy: Is the material free of error (typos, spelling, grammar, etc.)? Are the
sources for factual information in the material clearly identified? Can you verify them?
Objectivity: Is any bias present? To what extent is the material meant to persuade? Is
this clearly stated? Is the page an advertisement or some other kind of promotional
material? Would any surrounding advertisements influence the material's contents or
results? Are the advertisements clearly separate from the resource contents?
Coverage: Who is the intended audience?
Currency: When was the site last updated? Does it rely on the most current available
information? If not, is the reason clearly stated and justified?
Authority: Who is the author? Are his or her credentials stated? How knowledgeable
is he or she? Who is the site's sponsor? Is there an organization affiliated with the site
or its author? Can you find out more about its purposes and intent? (Hints: examine
the URL - is it .org? .com? .edu?; go up a few levels to learn more about the host
organization.)
When evaluating a business and its Web site, most any business will do as long as it has
competition. Students may even want to examine the Internet strategy for your university
or college. If students use the local college or university, they can examine the appropriate
uses of the Internet for the university. Students may need to examine uses beyond what
the university is doing. The university may keep students or alumni informed of campus
events, allow prospective students virtual tours, and accept appointments for visits. Many
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universities allow prospective students to apply over the Internet. What else can be done?
Could registration take place over the Internet? Can students pay tuition over the Internet
or query their balances or even their GPAs? Does the university deliver courses over the
Internet?
Certainly when they visit Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble, your students will see many
similarities. Ask your students to consider why more people use one rather than another.
Compare Powell’s Bookstore to the other two. It is a retail bookstore, but so is Barnes and
Noble. Ask your students to examine the ability to look up account balances, get
recommendations, and receive reviews. Does this matter? They matter to me, and make
the sites more useful. A site that is too rich in graphics, movies, or sounds may take so
long to load that it is not too useful.
Case Study – Government Online: Canada’s E-Government Initiative
1. Who is in charge of the Government On-Line initiative? Should there be just one
person? Should that information be easy to find? To whom or to which department
do all of these GOL initiatives report?
The official in charge of the Government On-Line initiative is Jaime Pitfield, Director
General for government online at Industry Canada in Ottawa. With one person in charge,
there is a central point of accountability and responsibility for this project. This
Government Online initiative reports to Industry Canada. The information for this answer
was easy to find through a search engine and was found at http://www.golged.gc.ca/index_e.asp.
2. Of the three “portals” to Canadians, non-Canadians, and businesses, which one do
you think should be the top priority? Can all three be a top priority?
There are many arguments regarding which government services should be given a higher
priority than others. Some might say that Canadian citizens should be given the highest
priority because they are the government’s first responsibility. Others could argue that
business should be ranked the highest because of their large tax and social contribution to
the country. In the end, the government should ensure that all users of the On-Line
initiative can access the same quality of service, regardless of social placement.
3. How do the issues of privacy and security enter into putting government online?
How do you think governments can “work around” these problems?
Canada’s privacy laws make it hard for different departments, provinces, and
municipalities to talk to each other openly. Governments can communicate more openly
about business, but an individual’s information is protected. Canada is losing ground and
users because of privacy and data integration issues, which is creating major barriers to
the successful implementation of government online services. According to Graeme
Gordon, the only way governments can deal with these problems is to break down some
of the walls, but do it in a way that it maintains citizens’ comfort levels with the privacy of
their data.
Copyright © 2005 Pearson Education Canada Inc.
Instructor's Manual, Chapter 4
Management Information Systems, Second Canadian Edition
4-13
4. How do you think government should communicate to its citizens what content they
have put online and where it is located?
Government should ensure that all documents posted to governmental Web sites have
keywords that are appropriate and can be found by major search engines so that citizens
looking for answers can find the right links to governmental pages. (Note: this is only one
potential answer. Students may describe several other relevant methods of
communicating with citizens.)
5. Go online and look at www.businessgateway.ca. What do you think of this Web
site? Does it give first-time users a user-friendly way to navigate to information they
need? How could it be improved?
Answers will definitely vary regarding this question. Many students may find this Web site
difficult to navigate while others will like the layout. In general, the site is laid out in a very
similar fashion to all other government sites. Students may have several suggestions as to
how the site can be improved. In general, the Web site could have a more straight-forward
menu system and provide simpler links for first-time users.
Copyright © 2005 Pearson Education Canada Inc.