2.1 Business and employment

1. 2.1 Business and employment By: Kate, Tyler and Hannah ITGS 1st Period 4-16-2014

2. Employee Monitoring: • 76% of major U.S companies monitor their employees. • Monitoring is enforced to reduce time wasting • Legal Reasons: • Companies can be held liable for material sent using their computer systems.

3. Monitoring Technology: • Internet Monitoring Software: Makes it easy for administrators to monitor the web sites accessed by individual users, along with the files they have downloaded. • Desktop Monitoring Software: Preforms additional functions to monitor non-internet activities. • Disk Space • Games • Idle Time • Etc.

4. Laws • In the US it is generally legal for an employer to monitor employees without their knowledge. • If sent with company property – it is fair game to monitor.

5. Teleworking • Employees who work away form the office – either working from home or while travelling – and use the information technology to stay in touch with colleagues. • Often use collaborative software which allows people to work together on documents and projects from anywhere with an Internet Connection.

6. Mail Merge and Macros • Mail Merge: Included in word processing and desktop publishing software – allows the user to insert fields (name, address) of data into a document from a source such as a database table. • Macros: Software features that can help achieve consistency – ex. Logo, Company name etc.

7. Intranet Vs. Internet Vs. Extranet • Intranet: a network that shares information privately among the employees of an organization. • Sometimes, parts of the intranet’s information may be shared with a limited number of people outside the organization which is known as extranet. • Internet: a global, public network of information.

8. Spreadsheets: • Simple calculations of costs, budgeting, accounting, and advanced analysis of sales and stock information

9. Banking and Digital Money • Online Banking: Customers can see the status of their accounts as well as perform transactions such as money transfers. • Electronic Funds Transfer: the general name given to any method in which money is moved electronically through computer systems. • ATMs, Paying for purchases with a credit card or debit card, and direct debit systems.

10. IT in Supermarkets • Bar Codes: Allow staff to easily change prices without relabeling items – a labeling system. • Radio Frequency Identification: More detailed information to help enable identity. • Point of Sales: Electronic checkout system – automatically knows prices. • Loyalty Cards or Reward Cards: Awards points when purchases are made.

11. Online Business • E-commerce: Business transactions made online via the internet. Grew 11% in 2009. • Electronic Store Front: Front page of an e-commerce site when customers select an item to purchase, they are placed in an electronic shopping cart. • Email and Tracking number used when ordered • M-Commerce: Mobile Commerce – transactions made via mobile phone.

12. Payment Methods: • Common concern for customers is secure online payment. • Direct Payment: Debit or Credit Card – most common • ‘httpS’ S= Secure • Digital Certificates can be used to ensure authenticity of a website. • Payment Gateways: 3rd party payments = PayPal • “middle man”

13. Types of Commerce: • Business-to-Customers/Consumers: business sells product and services directly to customer. • Business-to-Business: Business orders and pays for materials to make their product. • Customer-to-Customer: Transactions between a seller and a buyer. • Ex. Ebay/Craigslist

14. Cookies: • Small text files stored in a special folder on your hard disk by some of the web sites you visit. • Web sites often store data about their visitors so they can better understand them and offer them better services. • Data stored can include: • The last time you visited. • The time you spend on the site. • The exact pages you visited.

15. E-Marketing • Information Technology techniques used to promote a business. • Used both offline and online. • Mail Merge: • Email: Cheap & Easy : unsolicited bulk advertisement causes problems. • Newsletters to existing customers.

16. Search Engine Optimisation: (SEO) • Process of affecting the visibility of a website or webpage in a search engine’s results. • No one looks past the first page of results – this is why SEO is important. • Keyspamming can cause for search engines to detect and ignore the site for search results. • Metatags are an old technique which contains keywords related to a webpage content. • Keyword density and keyword prominence cause designers to carefully consider title word choice. • Link Forms: where authors submit their pages to improve ranking.

17. How do Search Engines works? • Do not search worldwide web – not practical. They use web spiders or web crawlers, which constantly index the web. • Start at given website and record key information, then move to the next using page ranking.

18. Online Advertising: • Ex. Popup, banner ads(most common), and sponsor links • Search engines allow advertisers to target their key audience. • You can block advertisements with advert blocker.

19. Measuring Market Success • Click through rate (CTR): Percentage of people who click on it when it is displayed. • Conversion rate: Measure how many visitors to a site actually purchase products, while the bounce rate is the amount of visitors who leave immediately.

20. Transportation Business • Life made easier with: • Vehicle Tracking • Package Tracking • Smart Cars • Travel sites