NOTE: SEE WARNINGS ON CW2 EXAMPLE 1.

THIS ASSIGNMENT WAS

AWARDED WITH A MARK OVER 70%. PLEASE
PLEASE NOTE THAT DETAILS SUCH AS WORD
COUNT AND STUDENT NUMBER HAS BEEN
REMOVED

Digital Economy – 6WBS[ ].

Module Leader: [ ]
Table of Contents
Executive Summary. .................................................................................................. 2
Further exploration of German railway´s current digital economy activities,
challenges, social networking and feedback on coursework 1 report. ........................ 3
I. Digital infrastructure:......................................................................................................... 4
II. Customer satisfaction and punctuality level: ............................................................. 5
III. The ecommerce and e- customer relationship management (e - CRM) and
social network activities: .............................................................................................................. 5
Recommendations. .................................................................................................. 12
Conclusion. .............................................................................................................. 14
References ............................................................................................................... 15
Appendices. ............................................................................................................. 18

Figure 1. ..................................................................................................................... 8
Figure 2. ..................................................................................................................... 8
Figure 3 ...................................................................................................................... 9

Table 1. ...................................................................................................................... 6
Table 2. ...................................................................................................................... 7
Table 3. ...................................................................................................................... 7
Table 4. .................................................................................................................... 11
Table 5. .................................................................................................................... 18
Table 6. .................................................................................................................... 18

1|Page
 Executive Summary.
Below are the summaries of the three sections report:

 Section 1 reflected on knowledge acquired from coursework 1, feedback from

module leader, further reading and discussions in the digital economy module
and applied literature reviews and secondary quantitative and qualitative
research methodology as follows:
 The current performance of the German railway´s e – business strategic
goals was explored.
 The current performance of its infrastructure was critically analysed and
internal processes was briefly touched.
 Integrated and redefined e -commerce, e- customer relationship and
social media activities and applied the understanding to explore these
three variables in benchmark with competitors.
 The discovery made concerning the strength and weaknesses in the cause of
the research was utilized to make recommendations in section 2.
 Section 3 concluded with issues concerning performance measurement and
cross – border ecommerce opportunities.
 The last parts included references and appendices.

2|Page
Further exploration of German railway´s current digital economy activities,
challenges, social networking and feedback on coursework 1 report.
The report builds further on issues identified in last report and make future
recommendations.

According to Chaffey (2011), it might be difficult to make future recommendation

concerning digital economy activities and e – business strategy without exploring and
understanding the actual digital state.

Chaffey (2011) suggests “SOSTAC” model as an interesting tool to analyse actual

state of e – business strategy, benchmark and reshape objectives and strategy where
appropriate, plan manoeuvre and proactive implementation strategy, continuously
measure and benchmark processes and output and making adjustment where
necessary.

Chaffey (2011) and Sherriff (2018) (unit 7, session 4), argued further that setting up
strategy, objectives, plan and key performance indicators (KPIs) that is not “SMART”
(simple, measurable, achievable, realisable and time - cautious) might add little or no
value to the efficiency or subsequent cost saving that might be cascaded from the
buyer side, internal processes to the seller side.

The understanding acquired from reflections on the above literatures reviewed, might
be applied to explore and benchmark the German railway´s current performance with
its mission and strategic goals discussed in coursework 1 and stated in the “business
canvas model” (see Appendix) and the constrains identified in the PESTEL analysis
(see Appendix), with aspects of the competitor´s social media and ecommerce
dealings.

This might create a big picture to check on strengths and deficiencies and the
opportunities that might be utilized in the future not only in generating added value in
terms of efficiency and profit maximization for the organisation (Chaffey (2011),
referred to this as “supply chain profitability”) but also, win -win through value creation
on the supplier - side in terms of relationship building and cost savings and on the
customers in terms of perceived product quality, positive experience and cost savings
which might lead to more customer acquisition, brand loyalty, more sales revenue and
so on.

3|Page
The factors that might be considered are:

 Digital infrastructure for instance, railway infrastructure and fleet management

system.
 Customer satisfaction and punctuality level.
 The current e – commerce, e - customer relationship management (e- CRM)
and social network activities (customer segments will be touched to add value).

I. Digital infrastructure:
The German railway may not be considered as what Chaffey (2011) referred to as
“pure” e – business model but rather multichannel e – business model because, it
operates using digital economy to integrate all its business processes which includes
the physical infrastructure such as its digital railway network, electronic trains,
electronic control towers and so on, with other e – business activities such as the e –
procurement, e- transaction solution, e- commerce (mobile apps, electronic ticket
machines) and so on, with the assumption of value generation, cost efficiency and so
on.

Therefore, knowing the actual condition of its digital infrastructure might help in proper
measurement of the supply chain efficiency and maybe aid in making
recommendations for the future.

According to Connolly (2016) and Fockenbrock (2016), the supply and distribution
chains of the German railway seem to be in a critical situation due to poor maintenance
and old age of its infrastructure which tend to affect the efficiency that digital economy
might generate in term of cost reduction and customer satisfaction.

For instance, when customers use their mobile or other digital devices to make ticket
purchases and use electronic means for example credit card or PayPal and so on, to
complete their online transactions, there tend to be cost saving on both sides
concerning transaction cost, customer acquisition cost and time, but, the inefficiency
in the distribution channel in terms of order fulfilment caused by the current poor state
of infrastructure tend to incur cost to the customers in terms of time wasted along the
digital supply chain from train delays or train cancellation, due to maintenance works
and also, for the organisation in terms of customer retention cost and so on which

4|Page
 might add limited value to supply chain profitability (cost savings at one end of the
supply chain is lost or multiple incurred at the other end) or short – life the customer
lifecycle as argued by Chaffey (2015) in Sherriff (2018) (unit 7, session 4 and unit 10,
session 1).

II. Customer satisfaction and punctuality level:

As might be seen in the so called “Business canvas model” of the German railway in
coursework 1 (please check appendix), two of the outputs of its e - business strategy
was customer satisfaction and improvement in train punctuality. These key measures
of performance according to Fockenbrock (2016), seem to be an illusion for the
German railway, which the problem of poor infrastructure investment and people (poor
maintenance planning and implementation strategy and poor train traffic coordination)
was cited as internal constrains.

According to Fockenbrock (2016), the train passenger and fright transportation lost a
total of over 174 million minutes or an average of over 7 hours daily in 2016 due to
train delays. Fockenbrock (2016) and Connolly (2016) further reported that, only 77
percent of German railway´s long distance train was able to meet the punctuality target
which according to Deutsche Welle (2018), the punctuality baseline set at 82% was
missed by 6% in 2018.

Furthermore, The Local (2018), reported that over 16% amounting to about 140,000
trains never reach their final destinations in 2017 due to technical problems and other
factors which some might be traced to people (as seen on the business canvas model
in the appendix section, digitally aware employees are among the key resources
needed to achieve its outputs / outcome).

This might imply that the German railway is still lacking in its ability to meet the
objectives set to achieve its e – business goals which includes punctuality and better
customer satisfaction.

III. The ecommerce and e- customer relationship management (e - CRM) and

social network activities:
Reflecting on the readings from Chaffey (2011) and the discussions in unit 6 (session
1) unit 7 (session 1 – 4) and unit 10 (session 2) by Sherriff (2018) while quoting the
CIM (chartered institute of marketing), Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) and discussing

5|Page
Chaffey (2015), ecommerce, e - CRM and social networking might be integrated and
defined as:

The processes of providing good and services in a virtual or multichannel digital

market ecosystem by applying digital means for instance, search engine optimization
(SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) and so on, to stimulate demand and sales
revenue through recognising, forecasting and fulfilling customer needs without
jeopardizing the bottom – line profit and creating measures through social peer – to –
peer (p2p) interaction or engagement, to continuously generating two – way feedback
and marketing information which might aid in mapping, developing and implementing
strategies to influence, react, transform, retain and multiply customers.

The above definition might be reflected on and applied to the German railway´s
ecommerce, e- CRM and social network activities considering the following factors:

 The first factor to consider is the social network activities of the German railway
on four of most popular social media platforms identified in Sherriff (2018) unit
6, session 2 and highlighted in Table 1 below.
Social media platform handle name Followers / Views Subscribers /following Number of postings Comments
Instagram at deutschebahn 66,500 111 1,002 pictures of some beautiful
trains and some other means of transport
which might imply more to railway lovers
meaning the same group of customer are
being engaged but no marketing effort to
generate new customers or stimulate
demand which will be discussed
in the recommendation section.

Twitter at DB_presse 33,200 240 server was down with little information
at DB_ Bahn 77,800 9 the twitter page of the regional passenger
train transportation unit tend to be more
engaging with information on question
Facebook Deutsche Bahn Konzern 157,592 160,491 likes and answer session with time available. The
Twitts tend to be more customer focused
but fail to target non- German speaking
Youtube Deutsche Bahn Konzern 17,508,223 views 30,711 subscribers customers who might also be potential
customers.
Different social media accounts for different
organisational purposes from
recruiting, to press, to regional passenger
transportation, to information on technical
problems might imply that customers might
need to join more platforms to gather
information needed.
Facebook information tend to replicate
information placed on Intagram.
Youtube tend to be the most engaging
platform for the German railway with
different visual digital contents which tend
to generate millions of views.

Table 1 Information and comments on the German railway´s social media activities on
four popular social media platforms.

Please zoom at least 150% to view content.

6|Page
  The second factor to consider might be what Chaffey (2015) in Sherriff (2018)
(unit 10, session 2) described as the ability of the German railway to utilize e –
commerce marketing to create digital content on its website and other platforms
(see Table 1 above) or intermediate web search engine such as Google and
so on, which might engage customers and improve conversion to lead rate with
the perceived objective of generating efficiency and continuous online or
multichannel (for instance click – to - brick or click – to – pick) revenue.

As suggested by Sherriff (2018) (unit 1, session 2), www.similarweb.com might be

used to scan the German railway online activities in benchmark with its competitors
(see below).

Firm name % Direct traffic % Referrals % search % Social Mail Display

German railway 76.3 3.6 18.5 0.85 0.7 0.1
Flixbus 40.5 13.9 41.9 1.6 1.8 0.4
Austrian Rail - OBB 52.6 3.99 40.1 1.47 1.96 0.28

Table 2 Desktop traffic source for June 2018 adopted from

https://www.similarweb.com , accessed: 4/8/2018.

Name of Organisation Name of website National ranking Global ranking Global transport and logistic sector ranking
German Railway www.deutschebahn.com 1,121 25,510 134
Flixbus www.flixbus.de 412 10,342 58
OBB - Austrian Railway www.oebb.at Not applicable 6,438 Not available

Table 3 web popularity of the German railway and its competitions, adopted from
https://www.similarweb.com, accessed: 4/8/2018.

please zoom at least 140% to view content.

7|Page
Figure 1 the total web visits on mobile and desktop appliances in the past 6 months,
adopted from https://www.similarweb.com , accessed: 4/8/2018 and 5/8/2018.

Figure 2 percentage traffic generated by different social media platforms to the

company website in June 2018, adopted from https://www.similarweb.com , accessed:
4/8/2018.

8|Page
Figure 3 The percentage top visitors of the German railway website by country in June
2018, adopted from https://www.similarweb.com , accessed: 4/8/2018.

 According to similarweb (2018), most of the audience visiting the

company website are interested in rail transportation and logistics
sector, railway operations, carrier opportunities and social media
activities or news.
 It might be seen on similarweb (2018), that advertisement display only
generated 0.1 % traffic to the company website.
 The top three organic keywords generating traffic to the company
website according to similarweb (2018) are deutsche bahn (17%), db
(13%) and db.de (9.6%) which might reduce click through rate for foreign
web surfers using English search keywords.

From the information gathered above, it might be seen that:

 Although the German railway´s website as seen in Table 2 tend to generate

more web traffic than its competitors, the competitors seem to show more
consistence with their online presence and tend to utilize their online activities
in engaging customers and generate more lead compare to the German
railway, as seen in the number of referrals for Austrian railway and Flixbus in
Table 2, the web popularity for Flixbus in Table 3, the bounce rate and the
number and duration of page visited in Figure 1 above.

9|Page
 The German railway´s website might be lacking what Chaffey (2015) in Sherriff
(2018) (unit 7, session 2), referred to in the content marketing model as the
fascination a webpage may generate to visitors which might stimulate them to
buy online as seen in Table 4.
 This might be among the reasons why the social media traffic in Figure 2
directed to the company website might not generate enough bounce rate as
seen in Figure 1.
 As might be seen in Figure 3, 95% of visits to the company website tend to be
from Germany which may imply that the company seem to lack an international
web presence despite business engagements in over 130 countries as
highlighted in coursework 1.
 As seen in Figure 3, among European countries, the UK took the first position
representing only 2% of web visitors to the company´s website.
 Among the partner railway countries such as SBB (Switzerland), OBB (Austria),
SNCF (France) and so on, some of which was highlighted on the business
canvas diagram (please check appendix), Switzerland was the only country that
made the list of top countries with most web visits to the company´s website
with less than 1% of overall website visitors as seen in Figure 3
Finally, reflection and understanding of Chaffey´s “content marketing model”
discussed in Sherriff (2018), (unit 7, session 2), was applied to the German
railway and its competitors’ website in Table 4 below, to check for the four
important rational that may help customers within touchpoints on their online
shopping journey to generate awareness, help solve a problem, stimulate
purchase and give them a customer experience that might generate p2p referral
or future sales.

10 | P a g e
The German railway - www.bahn.de
The German railway website tend to
be filled with information on different
travel options and timetable.
Information on different offers might
be seen at the last segments of the
web page.
limited payment options - accepts only
klarna, paypal and debit card.
The website offers 8 languages which seem
to be european languages which might
imply that the customer segments who
are travelers that might be potential
customers are not being targeted, for
instance, according to Lin (2017), about
1.8 million Chinese are expected to travel
to Germany in 2018. Lin (2017) reported
further that the chinese shopping spree
in Germany made up 39% of retail revenue
contribution to the German economy.
Table 4 comparison of the German railway´s website with competition in terms of
accessibility and web content.
Please zoom 140% to view content.
Austrian Railway - www.oebb.at
The website seem to be more inviting.
direct information about ticket purchase
visible.
information on how to reach customer
service employees visible.
Artificial intelligence applied which made
the website to switch automatically to
preferred languange of visitors IP address.
information about discount available and
visible.
offer available for different customer segments
visible and informative.
The website is easy to navigate.
The website lack information about payment
options.
Flixbus - www.flixbus.com
The target customers who might be students and
young people with low income are well visible on the
website.
the selling argument which is the "Price" seem to be
very visible on the web page.
Artificial intelligence used to set visitors preferred
language automatically.
36 different languages are offered on the website
and are all easy to find.
well designed with links to information instead of
parking information to fill the website which might
not enable customers busy reading to move on to
make a purchase.
very easy to navigate.
offers over 7 electronic payment options which may
gives the customers more payment choices.
Price and offers are well defined and visible.
Information about self - service for instance,
ticket cancellation or change are very easy to find.
Information on how to recover lost and found
personal belongings available and visible.
11 | P a g e
 Recommendations.
 Infrastructural development might need to grow in proportion with technological
development, to be able to generate supply chain efficiency and profitability
which might be cascaded to the customers in terms of time and cost saving
from initial order stage to service delivery.
 The overall business strategy including e-business strategy might need revision
and adjustments or renewal because, the actual performance seems to lack
correlation and consistency with the assumptions and goals in the business
canvas model.
 Digital economy might need an internal cultural change, which might require
not only senior managerial buy – in, but, top – down and bottom - up willingness
and readiness in terms of engagement and follow up.
 Proper setting, implementation and monitoring of challenging “SMART” goals
using balance scorecard might be applicable.
 Social media platforms for instance, Facebook and YouTube which tend to
generate most traffic to the company website might be used to stimulate
profitably, customer awareness and trust in product and service offered.
 For instance, the pictures of trains placed on their social network seem to make
no marketing sense or persuade customers to buy train tickets because, the
German railway is not a train manufacturer but uses the trains to deliver
products and service such as fast and timely transportation at an affordable
price for targeted customer groups.
 Applying appropriate USP for instance, what comfort and service the customers
might gain on the train, at what price, available online only (website or app) or
with code as click – to – pick at the nearest electronic ticket machine (where
they can also make cash payments), within limited timeframe (remember
“scarcity” in Cialdini´s persuasion framework in Sherriff (2018) (unit 10, session
3)) and providing links or SEO with more organic keywords to landing page or
ticket app, equipped with inviting, easy to use and visible digital contents such
as information about the nearest electronic ticket machine, more payment
options, different languages, short video on how to use the website or get to the
tickets and so on and encouraging customers to rate or share their online
experiences directly on the website or on social network portals (maybe for an
online coupon for their next purchase worth specified amount) and making sure
12 | P a g e
 questions are answered within 24hours by digitally aware and qualified
customer service employee and so on, might generate not only sales revenue
but also p2p referrals and invaluable performance and marketing information to
better map customer segments and target customer needs.
 Consistent and continuous innovation in providing quality digital services and
strictly online new discount offers and halting sales of discount tickets on
physical locations might generate “lock – in” reaction and help to gradually
disintermediate physical travel offices and customer adaption to the more cost
efficient digital infrastructure such as the electronic ticket machines and e-
commerce business.

13 | P a g e
 Conclusion.
It might be concluded that:

 The digital supply chain management, social media, digital activities,

ecommerce and digital infrastructure might need to be managed as an
integrated system to be able to achieve consistent and realisable short and long
– term e- business strategic goals.
 Key performance indicators might need to take into consideration supply chain
efficiency at different touchpoints of the supply chain and customer shopping
journey to be able to generate usable key performance qualitative and
quantitative data on supply chain profitability, added – value generated from
customers’ initial order to order fulfilment and customer experience.
 The organisation might require what Chaffey (2011) referred to as “co-opetition”
to efficiently tap national and cross – border digital ecommerce opportunities.

14 | P a g e
References
Chaffey, D. (2011), E- Business & E- Commerce Management: Strategy,
Implementation And Practice. 5th ed. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.

Connolly, K. (2016), The Guardian: Why German trains don´t run on time any more.
[Online]
Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/11/why-german-trains-
dont-run-on-time-any-more
[Accessed 2 August 2018].

DBInstagram (2018), Deutschebahn: Instagram handle. [Online]

Available at: https://www.instagram.com/deutschebahn/?hl=de
[Accessed 3 August 2018].

Deutsche welle (2018), Quarter of German long - distance trains late in month of
March. [Online]
Available at: https://www.dw.com/en/quarter-of-german-long-distance-train-late-in-
month-of-march/a-43581427
[Accessed 2 August 2018].

Flixbus (2018), flixbus.com. [Online]

Available at: https://global.flixbus.com/?_ga=2.154190065.85247324.1533470700-
1262939012.1530453714&wt_eid=2153045371052884138&wt_t=1533490995733
[Accessed 5 August 2018].

Fockenbrock, D. (2016), Global handelsblatt: Why German Trains Don´t Run On

Time. [Online]
Available at: https://global.handelsblatt.com/companies/why-german-trains-dont-run-
on-time-535492
[Accessed 2 August 2018].

Lin, X. (2017), China Daily: Germany looks to lure more Chinese shoppers. [Online]
Available at: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/travel/2017-11/28/content_35101588.htm
[Accessed 5 August 2018].

Sherriff, C. (2018), unit 1.2: variations in online presence between countries and
organisations. [Online]
Available at: https://herts.instructure.com/courses/21660/pages/unit-1-dot-2-

15 | P a g e
variations-in-online-presence-between-countries-and-
organisations?module_item_id=156194
[Accessed 7 August 2018].

Sherriff, C. (2018), Unit 10. 1,2&3: Electronic Customer Relationship Management

(eCRM). [Online]
Available at: https://herts.instructure.com/courses/21660/pages/unit-10-dot-1-crm-
ecrm-and-customer-life-cycle?module_item_id=182919
[Accessed 7 August 2018].

Sherriff, C. (2018), Unit 6. 2&3 - What is social media and Growth of social media.
[Online]
Available at: https://herts.instructure.com/courses/21660/pages/unit-6-dot-1-what-is-
social-media?module_item_id=172134
[Accessed 7 August 2018].

Sherriff, C. (2018), Unit 7. 1 - 4: E- Business and E- Commerce Marketing. [Online]

Available at: https://herts.instructure.com/courses/21660/pages/unit-7-dot-1-what-is-
digital-marketing?module_item_id=176611
[Accessed 7 August 2018].

similarweb (2018), deutcshebahn.com vs flixbus.de. [Online]

Available at:
https://www.similarweb.com/website/deutschebahn.com?competitors=flixbus.de
[Accessed 4 August 2018].

similarweb (2018), deutschebahn.com vs. oebb.at. [Online]

Available at:
https://www.similarweb.com/website/deutschebahn.com?competitors=oebb.at
[Accessed 5 August 2018].

similarweb (2018), similarweb: deutschebahn.com - July 28 overview. [Online]

Available at: https://www.similarweb.com/website/deutschebahn.com
[Accessed 4 August 2018].

The Local (2018), 140,000 Deutsche Bahn trains never arrived at their destination
last year. [Online]
Available at: https://www.thelocal.de/20180507/140000-deutsche-bahn-trains-never-

16 | P a g e
arrived-at-destination-last-year
[Accessed 2 August 2018].

17 | P a g e
 Appendices.

Please zoom at least 140% to view contents in the tables below.

KEY ACTIVITIES
Electronic procurement and
material sourcing.
electronic transaction solution,
multi - channel distribution
system, fleet management,
digitally managed information
communication and feedback
channel, digitally integrated
internal and external
processes and so on.
COST STRUCTURE
Infrastructure and fleet
maintenance.
human resources capital,
Overhead, senior
management salaries and so
on.
KEY PARTNERS
Suppliers such as Siemens,
Bombadier, ABB and so on.
German Government.
International Railway
companies such as SNCF
(France), OBB (Austria),
Futuristic technology
firms such as Hyperloop
one and so on.
KEY RESOURCES
People: Digitally aware
employees.
Infrastructure: Electronic
energy saving locomotives,
digitalized control towers,
up to date railway network
infrastructure such as ECTS
system.
digitalized maintenance
facilities, fleet management
system and so on.
VALUE PROPOSITION
Customer oriented
product and service offer.
digitally enhanced
integrated transportation
and logistic solution for
instance from road to rail
or door to door both in
passenger or freight
transportation.
OUTCOMES/ OUTPUTS
Customer satisfaction
Improved company image
Increase in Earnings
Improved Train Punctuality
Increase in sales volume
Increase in value and
supply chain effectiveness.
CUSTOMER SEGMENTS CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP
Private customers : provide live information on
senior citizens, youths, train journey and alternative
business people and so on. routes through rail navigator app.
Business Customers: social network p2p sites
Automobile industry such as such as facebook and youtube to
AUDI, Daimler and so on. interact or create awarness and
Government : at the same time generate
German government, the UK feedback for marketing research
government, UAE and so on. and product development.
CHANNELS REVENUE STREAMS
Online company website Ticket sales
Brick and mortar travel Regional passenger train tender
offices. contracts.
Electronic ticket machines. Rail and road freight logistic
online travel portals such as contracts.
holiday pirate. Consultancy
Apps such as DB Rail navigator
Intermediary search engines
such as google search,
Extranet VPN pattforms for B2B
customers.

Table 5 German railway´s business canvas model adopted from coursework 1 report.

Political Economic Sociocultural Technological Environmental Legal

The German railway being a
wholly owned company of the
German government tend to
lack flexibility in strategy
implementation and infrastructural
development projects
including e- business strategy
and implementation due to
high political influence in the
company´s business operation. For
instance, seeking buy - in for a
projects might require political
bureaucratic bottleneck and paper
filling approval processes through
government agencies like the federal
railway authority as reported in
Smith (2018) during an interview with
Rolf Hardi (chief technology officer
of the German railway).
Investment in digital
infrastructure in railway
sector tend to be more
capital intensive and time
consuming compared to
other subtitute sectors such
as the road transportation
sector. The return on
investment might take longer
than the product lifecyle
considering the fast changing
technological environment
making cost and benefit and
return on investment analysis
in the implementation of
e- business strategy a great
challenge for the German
railway - Smith (2018).
Demographic problem which
include the German aging
population (over 30% will be more
than 60 by 2040 as reported in
Karnitschnig (2017), who might have
problems dealing with the
digitised appliances or virtual
distribution channels such as the
internet tend to pose problems
for the German railway to fully
disintermediate the brick and
mortal travel offices.
According to Hofstede, the Germans
seem to be high risk averse making
the adaptation to online electronic
payment systems such credit card or
paypal or online registration using
personal data a challenging task for
sceptic German and a business
headache for organisation such as
the German railway striving to
adapting e - business strategy in
overall business operations.
As reported by Karnitschnig (2017),
Germany took the 17th place in a
study conducted on over 30
industrialised nations concerning
digital willingness. (might be a further
testimony to the above arguement).
The problem of cyber
security and hackers
trying to steal personal
data or shut down the
operations of multi -
national companies
as seen in the case of
the "wannacry"
cyber attack on the German
railway operation in 2017 -
Graham (2017).
The next factor to consider
might be the poor mobile
broadband infrastructure in
Germany which according to
Karnitschnig (2017), Germany is
globally ranked 25th
concerning adaptation to
fast mobile broadband
technology such as fibre optic
cable technology behind Latvia and
some other developing EU
nations making it a great
challenge for the German
railway to reap the fruits of
mobile broadband technology
to generate more revenue or
create better customer
experience.
The problem of climate
change which is causing
extreme weather
conditions such as
freezing temperature,
storm and so on, seem to
be affecting the German
railway´s supply chain. As
reported by Sapien (2016), the
German railway infrasture
was affected by freezing
temperature in 2016,
causing 600 passengers to
be stocked in a long
distance train for over 20
hours.
As argued by Vogel (2015), the
German strong employment
laws which celebrates job
security and social partnership
and buy - in of workers'
representatives
in strategic decision
making process might
jeopardize the flexibility
needed by the German
railway in implementing
proactive e - business
strategy.
As argued by Gumsheimer et al
(2015), the German legal constrains
concerning data use and privacy
might jeopardize the window of
opportunities that could be generated
through the use of big data mining to
better understand customer needs,
to better customize products or
services to satisfy these needs.

Table 6 PESTEL analysis of the German railway´s external constrains adopted from
coursework 1 report.

The German railway´s “DB Agenda 2020” as stated in coursework 1 is to

“challenge the status quo in the logistic industry through striving towards social,
economic and environmental harmony in logistics and supply chain” with the
mission of becoming the “leading integrated transportation and logistics
provider by year 2020”.

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The Author suggested further primary and secondary research in the railway
sector taking into consideration the systemic integration of overall digital supply
chain, customer relationship management processes and social networking
activities to create a bigger picture on how organisations in this sector might
take optimal advantage of digital economy to generate efficiency, attain
financial independence, reduce cost transferred to customers, manage digital
economy change and so on.

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