Executive summary

A renowned company named Very is chosen for the following report to understand how the company is managing the digital business in order to implement personalisation. Very is the UK based online retail company that was established in 2009. The headquarters of this company is situated in Liverpool and Speke. The company has been trying to implement personalisation to its products and services to provide a greater customer experience. The report has discussed the several aspects of digital business its implication for personalisation.

Introduction

The report is mainly based on digital business, and a renowned company named Very is selected for this report to understand how they manage the digital business for personalisation. Furthermore, the report will discuss the current trends of digital business along with its advantages and disadvantages. The emerging business models that the companies can use for managing the digital business will be presented in this report. A situation and a SWOT analysis of the chosen company will be presented in this report to compare and difference between them. Moreover, the information cyber security and ethical-related issues that can develop the challenges for the company will be discussed. The significance of strategic alliances and collaborative relationships for implementing personalisation will be discussed. Moreover, the comparison and contrast between the digital business and e-commerce will be presented in the following report.

LO1 Critically discuss the key trends, advantages and disadvantages of managing virtual business in the global environment

A virtual business is a business that operates its most or entire business through the internet. After globalisation, almost every company has been trying to expand their business globally. Therefore, with the help of digital business, the companies can expand their business in different countries and reach the maximum customers.

There are several new trends emerging in the global market; therefore, the companies need to follow these key trends to manage the virtual business, and that are:

1. i) Use of social media platform: One of the key trends that the companies are following in recent times are shifting the contents to different social media channels. Nowadays, the number of social media users is incredibly increasing. Therefore, the companies are trying to use social media platforms to reach the maximum number of people. They have been publishing the important content and advertising on social media to attract more customers.’
2. ii) Personalisation: In recent times, personalisation has become a key trend for managing the digital business effectively. Many companies are offering mobile apps, email content, recommendation engines to offer the best services as per customer choice. For example, Boden has been following this trend and has started to stick to the customer’s name in the email, attract them, and make a good relationship with the customers.

There are several advantages of virtual business, and that are:

1. i) Improve customer satisfaction: Technology brings the customers closer to the brands and helps to establish better relationships. With the help of social media, companies can interact with their potential customers on a regular basis. They can get the chances of sharing their opinions and experience about the brands, and the companies can use those feedback to improve their customer service. Therefore, managing the business virtually can help the company to improve customer service as well as customer base.
2. ii) Develops productivity and efficiency: Manual data entering process, lack of interpersonal and departmental communication can delay the whole business process. The use of technology can help to increase the efficiency. With the help of automated data entering process the companies can increase the working flow. Moreover, using technological tools can help to analyse all the business related data on the time and can eliminate delays. Therefore, the productivity will be increased effectively (multipeers 2017).

However, there are some disadvantages of managing virtual business and that are discussed below.

1. i) Security risk: Managing digital business effective is not that easy as there are always a risk for hacking and leaking the important data and information. In recent times, the numbers of cyber bullies are increasing; therefore, there is a huge chance of hacking. Moreover, the computer virus can affect the important data and software anytime and due to that the whole business system can be affected.
2. ii) Increase distraction: Everyone with the technology like smartphone, computer has the accessibility on internet. Therefore, the employees can become the internet-savvy and they can spend their time on their own social media accounts instead of focusing on their work and due to that the performance of them can get negatively affected (Sarokin 2019).

The importance of using technology and its impact on the business of Very and ASOS:

1. i) Enhance customer experience: The uses of modern technologies help the company to enhance their customer service experience. The company uses the contextual data to promote their products. For example, they utilise the customers’ location, weather update to introduce or promote the relevant products and services and this allows the company to provide greater experience and services to their customers. In the case of ASOS, the company utilise online technologies such as different browsers and their own website to create a series of personalised lifecycle of the customers to attract more customers.
2. ii) Improve the communication process: Very and ASOS use their own websites and different social media channels to interact with their customers regularly. With the help of online technology, the companies collect the customers’ feedbacks and provide better customer service to develop the relationships with their potential customers.

Question 3: LO2

Critically evaluate emerging digital business models and challenges associated with information security threats and ethics in general

The digital business models can be defined as the models that leverage several digital technologies to develop and improve the several aspects of a company. There are different kinds of digital business models that a company can follow to operate their digital business successfully and that are discussed below.

1. i) Free model: The free model is one of the popular emerging business models that many companies are following to manage their digital business effectively. The main perspective of this model is offering free products or services to the people with the hope of that people will buy this product after using them. The main purpose of using this business model is attracting the customers with free products and services to increase the further sales. The renowned companies like Facebook, Google have started to use this model to attract the users. In the case of Very, the company can follow this business model to develop the customer base. They can offer free products or free home delivery services to their customers so that they can be easily attracted to use more products from the company.
2. ii) Freemium model: Freemium business model is a trending business model that many companies are using to develop the business. With the help of this model, the company can offer basic products or services at free of cost; however, the money can be charged for the additional products, features, or services. Basically this business model allows a high growth for the business (innolytics 2020). Companies like Dropbox, Spotify have started to use this model. Therefore, Very can use this specific model to attract more customers. With the help of this model, the company can offer basic services like shipping of products at free of cost; however, the company can take additional charges for making the products and services personalised.

Information security threat is a vital issue that almost every companies face while managing this business digitally. Information security threat is basically a malicious act and aim of this act to steal or corrupt important data or disrupt a company’s systems. There are several information security threats that a company may face while managing their digital business and that are:

1. i) Worms and viruses: Worms and viruses are the malicious software programs that can destroy a company’s systems, network and important data. The computer virus and worms can be activated if the users knowingly or unknowingly activate them. In the case of Very, the virus and worms can be serious security threat for them, as they have to deal with a huge range of data regarding their business and customers.
2. ii) Botnets: Botnets can be a huge security threat for the digital businesses and the companies can lost all their important data and information due to that. Botnets are basically the compilation of internet connected devices. There are many botnets can be created by the hackers or cyber bullies to steal the important information (Rosencrance nd). Very uses several internet connected devices; therefore, botnets can be a serious security threat for the company.

Business ethics mainly refers to the implementing proper business practices and policies to avoid the unnecessary business issues and run the business effectively. A company can face several ethical challenges to manage the digital business and that are:

1. i) Social media: The most current ethical challenges that the companies are facing is the personal behaviour of the employees on social media after their working hours. The employees can use the social media in a wrong way and that can hamper the entire business reputation in a second.
2. ii) Data privacy: The most common ethical issues that the digital businesses face is data privacy related issues. The employees of the company have the access on the company’s important data and information. Therefore, the dishonest employees can displace or steal the important data to harm the company and due to that the entire business process as well as its brand name can be negatively affected (Shabat 2020).