T 1.5

       There are many different types of business systems that aide the Business word today. Almost all of the business systems used today are designed to help aide the business. Numerous business use electronic and mobile devices. These types of systems include electronic and mobile commerce. E-commerce is defined as, “any business transaction executed electronically between companies (business to business, or B2B) companies to consumers (business to consumers of B2C),  or consumers and other consumers (consumers to consumer or C2C), business and the public sector, and consumers and the public sector.” (Stair & Reynolds 17). E-commerce is really important to study because it is so widely used today.

            In order to develop a better understanding of e-commerce I researched some articles related to e-commerce and smart phones. One article I came across broke down all the applications that can be download that can help business owners run their e-commerce sites via their smart phone. Author Matt Ferner explains how, “Ecommerce business owners can use mobile apps to help run a website. Whether you are interested in blogging, social networking, marketing, customer support or even design and development, there is a mobile app tool for just about anything an ecommerce website may need,” (Ferner 1). There are applications such as ego, analytics, BAM Analytics Pro., Sense Earn, PPC Editor, Tweet Deck, and many more that help business owners manage their website, track orders, and communicate through social network with customers. Its amazing to see how many different types of mobile systems have developed so rapidly to help businesses.

            Also in order to better understand enterprise resource planning system (also known as ERP) I did more research on them. Wikipedia defines enterprise resource planning as, “systems integrate internal and external management information across an entire organization, embracing finance/accounting, manufacturing, sales and service, customer relationship management, etc. ERP systems automate this activity with an integrated software application. The purpose of ERP is to facilitate the flow of information between all business functions inside the boundaries of the organization and manage the connections to outside stakeholders,” (Wikipedia). This research really proved to be beneficial because it went more into depth about the systems then the textbook originally did.

            According to Wikipedia there are numerous advantages and benefits that really seem to out weigh the list of disadvantages. For starters, companies that use ERP systems usually are able to use them to do sales forecasting, find the history of any transaction, track orders, track revenues, eliminate the use of multiple systems, along with advantages. A list of benefits were included that explain how ERP can really improve the quality of a business. ERP give managers the information they need to make important company situation. My research also lead me to some of the disadvantages of ERPs. This included the difficulty of customization, re-engineering business processes, ERP can be costly, information between departments is shared, and using it takes extensive training. What I learned from this is that enterprise resource planning systems can be really useful once a company is able to get the money and training they need to develop this system.

Works Cited:

"Enterprise Resource Planning." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 16 July 2012. Web. 16 July 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_resource_planning>.

Ferner, Matt. "21 Ecommerce Apps for IPhone, Android and BlackBerry." 21 Ecommerce Apps for IPhone, Android and BlackBerry | Practical ECommerce. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 July 2012. <http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/2554-21-Ecommerce-Apps-for-iPhone-Android-and-BlackBerry>.

Reynolds, George Walter, and Ralph M. Stair. Fundamentals of Information Systems.Mason, OH: South-Western, 2011. Print.