E-Business (MIS207)

Section: 3

Summer 2019
Term Project
E-Business in Organization
“PIKABOO”
Submitted To
Adeyl Khan(Ayn)
Core Faculty Member
Department of Management, North South University.

Submitted by:
Name #ID
MD. AHNAF AHMED 1713093630
JANNATUN NAHER 1721319030
KAZI MORIOM TONIMA 1721302630
FATEMA TUJ JOHRA 1831728030

Date of Submission: 21ST AUGUST,2019

Contents
Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 2
Requirement 1 ......................................................................................................................................... 3
E-business in organization .................................................................................................................. 3
Pickaboo’s Customer segments .......................................................................................................... 4
E business model table ........................................................................................................................ 5
Critical e business process .................................................................................................................. 6
Drivers of e-business adoption in Pickaboo ........................................................................................ 7
Management of e-business/e-commerce in organization .................................................................... 8
Requirement 2 ......................................................................................................................................... 9
E-business Revenue Model ................................................................................................................. 9
Value proposition of the e-business model ......................................................................................... 9
Revenue model of the organization .................................................................................................. 10
Online Marketplace Structure ........................................................................................................... 10
Market Structure ............................................................................................................................... 10
Characteristics of Products across the Marketplace .......................................................................... 11
Market Segment of the Marketplace ................................................................................................. 11
Revenue Generating Strategy ........................................................................................................... 11
Requirement 3 ....................................................................................................................................... 12
E-business platform/ Infrastructure ................................................................................................... 12
E-business Application Available ..................................................................................................... 12
Network Technologies Used ............................................................................................................. 12
Web Technologies Used ................................................................................................................... 13
Requirement 4 ....................................................................................................................................... 17
E Business revenue model ................................................................................................................ 17
SWOT ANALYSIS .......................................................................................................................... 18
Competitive Threats .......................................................................................................................... 20
Requirement 5 ....................................................................................................................................... 22
E-business security............................................................................................................................ 22
Prevention ......................................................................................................................................... 23
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 24

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 Introduction
E Business is a type of business that includes sharing information, conducting
transactions and managing activities through online platforms like the internet. E-business
sector is a growing sector in Bangladesh. Throughout the year, the revenue of e business is
rising in Bangladesh. Companies like Daraz, Pathao, Chaldal, Pickaboo etc. are the
significant online platform in Bangladesh. Moreover existing and new physical retail firms
like Meena bazar, Shwapno etc. are expanding their businesses by opening and running
online stores. The barriers to entry to enter the online market is very low and it is the most
effective platform to enhance the market share and able to create a large network. However
there are problems that these firms face while conducting E-business in Bangladesh. First of
all, the online consumer market base is very low compare to physical market. This is because
lack of trust, people in Bangladesh are not confident enough to buy from online shops. There
are so many evidences that says that many small online shops goods that were not ordered by
customers. Thus consumers have low trust in online market. Limited access of
telecommunication ,infrastructure and high cost of the internet is another major problem that
e business in Bangladesh are facing. Companies like Daraz, Pickaboo etc. are not being
capable enough to expand their markets outside Dhaka due to poor telecommunication and
infrastructure. Lack of electronic payment facilities is a problem that E businesses are facing
in Bangladesh. For small volume of purchase Bkash is preferable however for people do not
have access to electronic master/visa cards thus they prefer to purchase by cash. The
entrepreneurs go through a lot of difficulties while implementing the e business system.
Data/Internet security is an essential issue that e business organization needs to work heavily.
Hackers can get access to all the organization’s information moreover they can get access to
consumer’s credit card details etc. Fraudsters can attack the servers and may delay the
operational activities. Lack of technical human resource is another major problem that E
business in Bangladesh is facing. Inefficiency is very high in an E business organization in
Bangladesh due to the lacking of technical workers which consequently increasing the cost
thus higher price are charged which is reducing the firm’s competitiveness in the market.
Other problems that an e business are facing is the initial cost, lack of intellectual property
right.

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 Requirement 1
E-business in organization

Pickaboo is one of the well-known e business organizations in Bangladesh. Pickaboo

is in the e commerce consumer market since 2016 and they do not have any physical
existence in the market. Pickaboo’s parent company is Edison group. Pickaboo’s focus is to
sell products and services by means of digital channels like the internet. Their value
propositions are, they are customer focused thus provides authentic and high quality products.
They offer mostly branded products to their customers. Pickaboo focuses on continuous
improvements on time delivery, quality of the services and innovations inside the
organization.
The mission statement of Pickaboo is “To work in the E-commerce echo system of
Bangladesh & make online shopping a comfortable, trustworthy & necessary shopping
experience for consumers”. Bangladesh consist of opportunities in the online market. It is a
new trend in Bangladesh thus it only has few e commerce organizations. Pickaboo wants to
enhance their market share and also desires to expand the market by gaining trusts of new and
existing customers.
Their vision statement is “Whenever we have promised something to our customer we
will never fail to deliver it to them”, they focuses on continuous improvements. To gain
competitive advantage in the market they adhere the principal of not failing to deliver goods
to customers and works vigorously towards improving their services. Product line of
Pickaboo, they focus on mostly on electronic gadgets and have all sorts of electronic
products. They procure the products from different suppliers and then sell it to customers.
Their revenue stream is only retail sales. Moreover they also acts like an intermediary
between sellers and buyers of electronic products. They make an agreement with different
types of sellers and upload the content of that product on Pickaboo’s website. A customer
who is willing to buy a particular product, place orders, and then Pickaboo.com collect the
products from designated sellers. The ranges of electronic products that Pickaboo sells are
Mobiles and tablets, Pickaboo has agreement with different brands of smartphones or they
buy from suppliers and then sells it to customers with official warranty policies. 4 Computer,
different brands of laptops and desktops are available in Pickaboo’s product line. From
iMac to HP they sell wide varieties of branded computers.
Electronic appliances like coffee machines, refrigerator etc. are available in
Pickaboo’s website. Wide varieties of brands are available in Pickaboo’s website thus it gives
consumers a wide varieties of choice. Lifestyle and daily needs products are also sold by
Pickaboo.

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 Pickaboo’s Customer segments

Pickaboo segments their market through geographic, demographic, psychographic and

behavioral segmentation. In Geographic segmentation, they target mainlypeople inside
Dhaka; especially areas like Gulshan, Dhanmondi and Banani. Outside Dhaka they focus less
and delivers goods through intermediaries. In demographic segmentation, they target people
who ages from 18 to 40. They target both female and male gender. And they target people
with middle and high income in the society. in psychographic segmentation, they put more
resources to attract tech savvy and tech enthusiast customers. They use different marketing
strategies to attract these customers and to retain them for long run as loyal customers.
Pickaboo mainly uses behavioral segmentation to segment the market. They target potential
customers who seek benefits from online shopping. Their main target is people who earns as
full time basis and do not have time to shop in a regular basis. Pickaboo uses different
strategies to increase customers shopping from Pickaboo’s website. People who compares
different brands are the main target of Pickaboo. Pickaboo provided review section on their
website which aids customers to get reviews from different users and it also aids them to
compare different brands

.
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 E business model table

Partners Main Activities Value Customer Customer

1 edison group 1. They have a Proposition Relationships Segments: 1.
2Transcom wide range of 1. They Customer Demographic 18
3 No magic brands especially provide 100% Relationships: 1. to 40
technology electronics related original Immediate 2. Geographic :
brands and have products. Ø response though mainly cities
Key Suppliers potential customer. 2. They have online chat 2. and towns
Samsung 2. Communicating fast delivery Feedback 3.
Symphony with customers process. Ø 3. queries Psychographic :
Walton 3. Delivering Responsive to tech savvy,
HUAWEI products as early the customers teach enthusiasts
as possible 4. Behavioral :
The products people who
that pikaboo seeks for
gets from the benefits
suppliers
Mobile phones
Electronic
Gadgets
Computer/
Laptops
Electronic
Appliances

Key Reaches the Cost Revenue

Resources of customers : Structure Streams Retail
Value Pikaboo s website Procurement sales
Propositions: Final customers cost of
Website purchasing
E commerce merchandise
software goods
Hardware IT
officers

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 Critical e business process

• Agreement - Pikaboo makes an agreement with the sellers their products through
online platform
• The products are displayed with the detailed information shown at the catalogues in
the website
• market management –pikaboo uses Different marketing strategies to attract the
customers through facebook, instagram
• The customers go through their catalogues in the websites
• The transaction begins when the customers order the desired product (explained
below).
• The ordered products are delivered to the customers through home delivery within
the period of time.
• then after sales service is provided to customers like warranty cards are maintained
according to the policies of the company.

Pickaboo procures
The ordered product
from or makes an
will be delivered to the be provided to the
customers home customers

A series of work will be

All products are
displayed on
product

surf throught their

capture the market

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From placing an order to return any product or claiming a warranty, how things work at
Pickaboo.com is described below

Customer will surf the catalogue of Pickaboo's

website

Cutomers can search their desired product through the search

bar

Customers analyzes and compares their desired

product
Then they use the "Buy now" option to buy the product or uses "Add to cart option"

Once the customer puchase their desired product then they proceed to checkout option to go
the last step

Customers will see an order received

page

Customer will get email verification of the

order

Products will be delivered to the customer through

intermediaries

Drivers of e-business adoption in Pickaboo

Business drivers are the key inputs and activities that drive the operational and financial
results of a business. The drivers of e business adoption for Pickaboo are
I. At first, the knowledge of E-business and solutions to the e business problems need to
be learn. Online market is a competitive environment, lack of knowledge will lead to
business failure.
II. Website traffic, the website will be Pickaboo’s key operation platform. A simple user
interface required for Pickaboo for their customers, making the interface complex will
discourage consumers to surf the websites. The website traffic will increase when the
webpage will be user friendly.
III. Price of the product needs to be justified otherwise Pickaboo will lose customers and
will not be able to attract customers in future.
IV. Wide varieties of products need to be offered to gain competitive advantage in the
online market.
V. The expenses should be spend efficiently to lower the cost of the business.
VI. Pickaboo sells electronic gadgets thus they need trusted suppliers who can provide
genuine products for their customers.
VII. Hardware and software of Pickaboo needs to be up to date and needs to be advanced
otherwise they will face technical glitches while operating.
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 Management of e-business/e-commerce in organization

1. Human Resources; In Pickaboo.com, human resources department recruit the employees.

They set the right number of people at the right place at right time. According to employee’s
performance, HR department increases salary and gives promotion. They also allocate the
leaves to the employees. They set the training program if it is needed for the employees. Most
of Pickaboo’s employees are data specialists as their whole operation are run in online.
2. Marketing department; the marketing department of Pickaboo will do the market research
of what customer wants. Moreover they will communicate with their customers frequently to
remind them about Pickaboo. They will implement different marketing strategies to attract
new and potential customers. Branding, advertising, loyalty program and product
development operations all are the part of the Marketing department.
3. Finance and accounts department; they analyze all the purchasing and selling transactions
which derives from their accounting software. They create the budget and costs for the
Pickaboo. Moreover they calculate the tax and audits their financial statements.
4. Operation department; they are responsible for the procurement of goods to delivery of the
goods to final customers. They contact 3rd party logistics (Intermediaries) for the delivery of
the goods on time.
5. IT department; they are responsible for monitoring their software and websites. As
Pickaboo is a pure online business therefore they need specialists to maintain the IT system
of their business. Moreover cyber security is monitored by the IT department of Pickaboo.

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 Requirement 2
E-business Revenue Model
Value proposition of the e-business model

The Business Model Canvas value proposition helps to provide value to the customer by
resulting in the solution of a problem the customer is facing or providing value to the
customer by giving an absolute combination of products and services.
• Fastest Delivery: Pickaboo tend to give the fastest delivery service. Their delivery
time limitation is 1-5 days but they always tend to deliver the product within 24 hours
which is very fast.
• Store rating: Following to facebook it is rated 4.2 star.
• Responsive Live chatting service: A business that interacts with people to conduct
business will admire that customer can be strange creatures with tough to predict
buying habits and infusion. This is why customer service plays such an instant role of
encouraging sales and fostering brand loyalty and sticking valuable feedback.
• Lower prices compared to other places (online and offline): The prices are
comparatively less than other electronic online stores. Example: samsumg offline
store.
• Reviews available: Reviews with each product and reviews in social media is also
available if any customer wants to know the usage and product detail before buying.
• Detailed specifications, product description and return policy: In the face of all this
efforts of ecommerce stores to increase their revenue and customer satisfaction, an
increase in sales is often followed by a disappointing phenomenon, an increased
number of returns. They use detailed product descriptions ,mark up the quality of
your product images, Use size guides for clothing and other items that require an
exact fit, show specifications and compatibility for technology products and other
items that are used as components or with other products.
• Frequent sale on electronics: They provide sales on their website very frequently.
Their recent offer was upto 65% off on selected products. They provide special
offeron extensive occasions like Eid, mother’s day, father’s day etc.
• Easy Return Policy: Pickaboo’s one of the best policy is their 3 days easy and free
return policy. If the customer is not satisfied or the product has manufacturing fault,
they can easily return the product without any fee within 3 days.

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 Revenue model of the organization
• Sales: The first and foremost way of generating revenue is sales. Pickaboo purchase
their products from a national distributor at a certain price and then sell them to
customers at maximum retail price.
• Commission: This is one of the best revenue generation methods followed by most of
the e-commerce portals. The model is really simple – the seller sells and the buyer
buys, and you make money out this transaction. The website owner predetermines a
percentage (commission) that is charged on each product which is sold by the national
distributors. This percentage (commission) can be set keeping in the view the market
scenario and business goals.
• EMI: They are connected with 13 commercial banks which is coparatively high
because daraz and bagdoom is only connected with 3-4 banks. pickaboo’s 99% card
transactions are covered by the banks. usually, it is seen that people prefer cash on
delivery or bkash more than paying via debit or credit cards, but pickaboo’s 45%
transactions are performed through cards as they provide the highest EMI on
electronic products which is 24 months and also gives discounts/offers on card
payments oftentimes.
• Delivery: They also generate revenue through home deliveries. The supply chain
management maintains the delivery procedures can earn from the delivery charges.
• Advertisements: They have blogs and banners where they give advertisements and
daily issues are recorded there. Another way of selling their products as well at times.
Pickaboo permits its clients to post audits on their items to expand their credibility..
This stage is for the most concentrating on hardware brands of Bangladesh.
• Digital Content Subscription: Online text chat and call-back feature, push Web pages
to customer’s browser, learns preferences and suggestions. blog, banner, Pickaboo
club. Daraz is focused on all types of products and all different prices and different
qualities of products whereas Pickaboo is more focused on brands, they try to connect
with more brands and attract customers.

Online Marketplace Structure

Market Structure
• Customers: Their customers are also indifferent. Those who love to purchase from
internet, want to save time, take internet as a believable place for purchasing, stylish
and trendy, variety seeking, creative innovation, advanced in technological ways are
the main customers of this marketplace.
• Intermediaries: Pickaboo is an intermediary by itself. They sell products of their
business partners, suppliers, distributors and other sellers. Pickaboo works as an
Intermediary as they act as a mediator or a link between buyer and seller, bargains and
deals with the customer. They are paid on a percentage of the total benefit. And if we
consider Pickaboo’sit intermediaries then payment receiving banks and companies,
delivery service providers can be examples. As people pay with the bank’s card, or
via bkash or rocket. They are working as intermediaries. Third party delivery
companies sometimes do delivery service in very harsh orders. In this case, delivery

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 service companies can also be an intermediary of Pickaboo. SA Paribahan is also an
intermediary if the product is sent via courier.
• Location of Trade: Pickaboo has only one office in Gulshan, they have no trade
location outside Dhaka. Dhaka. So their trade location is Dhaka. They receive all
products from their fellows in Dhaka and also delivers within Dhaka. They deliver
products to all over Bangladesh by charging 100 takas as courier charge using SA
PARIBAHAN.

Characteristics of Products across the Marketplace

Pickaboo’s online marketplace is very competitive place as they mostly sell electronic
products. Other online shops like Daraz, Trendy Tracker, Gadget Monkey Bd are also present
in that marketplace with Pickaboo. They sell similar types of products though there are few
products which are not similar. Their main selling product is different electronic products like
Mobile phones, TV, AC, accessories etc. Competing with other competitors and gaining more
customers is a very difficult task for Pickaboo.

Market Segment of the Marketplace

All the online shops that are under this marketplace also targets the same customer
segments. They segment the market based on psychology, behavior, geography and
demography. Main segments of this marketplace are place, gender, age, lifestyle, personality,
social class, income and usage rate.

Revenue Generating Strategy

Pickaboo is using the same strategy as Daraz, Bagdom, Trendy Tracker, Gadget
Monkey Bd to generate revenue . They are generating revenue by selling their products
online, getting commissions from their fellows, charging delivery fee and letting others to put
advertisement in their website.

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 Requirement 3
E-business platform/ Infrastructure
E-business Application Available
ERP and SCM
Pickaboo has their customized homegrown e-commerce bespoke software. Their
custom software is based on Asp.net. Custom made ERP software allows Pickaboo to do
order processing, procurement, scheduling, customer management, accounting and many
more.
CRM
Pickaboo integrates Zendesk with CRM. To build out marketing and sales efforts and
manage customer service.
• Simplicity
• Workflow
• Customer login access
• Community forum
• Media integration
Data Mining
Produces ready to use KPI dashboards for sales, customers, products and inventory
analysis.
• All customer, market and sales related data can be produced and analyzed.
• Example: Product wise, brand wise and size wise data can be obtained Sales
by hour, week, month, location.

Network Technologies Used

Intranet
• LAN configuration is used for the office premises
Functions:
• Knowledge/information sharing between employees
• Make users contribute their insights
• Inventory management is done using intranet
EDI
• LogicBroker is used to integrate the Magento store with EDI

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Functions:
• Send and receive real-time catalog, inventory, order & shipping information
• Eliminate data entry and process more orders in less time
• Pickaboo uses EDI to contact mainly the retailers and banks

Web Technologies Used

Web 2.0
• Uses Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript + XML) presenting dynamic, rich and user
experience to users.
• The customer review section of the Pickaboo, Facebook page comment section in the
website etc.
Blog
• WordPress is used as the main system for Pickaboo’s blog website.
• WordPress is a free and open-source content management system based on PHP &
MySQL.
• It is most associated with blogging but supports other types of web content including
more traditional mailing lists and forums, media galleries, and online stores.

Fig: Pickaboo Blog

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Feed
• A web feed (or news feed) is a data format used for providing users with frequently
updated content.
• Web feed of Pickaboo shows the product being sold, the order made etc.

Fig: Pickaboo Feed

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Widget
• Occupies a portion of a webpage and does something useful with information fetched
from other websites and displayed in place.
• Pickaboo uses OWL Carousel for as a widget technology to display
ongoingpromotions on their homepage.

Fig: OWL Carousel Displaying Promotions

Other Web Technologies Used

• Ecommerce: Magento Analytics: Google Analytics
• JavaScript Framework: Prototype 1.7
• Font Script: Font Awesome, Google Font API
• Web Framework: Bootstrap 3.3.5
• Mobile Framework: JQuery Mobile
• Programming Language: PHP
• Database: MySQL
• Tag Manager: Google Tag Manager
• JavaScript Libraries: Lightbox, JQuery 1.11.3, script.aculo.us

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Web Content Management Strategy
• Products are divided into Categories, e.g. Mobiles, Computers, Lifestyle etc.

• Categories have multiple Sub-Categories.

The content management system (CMS) is done by using integrating Magento

with other platforms like Wordpress. Magento’s CMS also fulfills most of the
requirements of updating data and content.

CMS Pages, Blocks and Widgets are used to enhance the experience. Pickaboo
mainly depends on customizing modules to meet their needs of functionality.

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 Requirement 4
E Business revenue model

The e-business strategy and how it supports its corporate strategy: Any organization that is
managing business online in the Internet, e-business strategy is very important for them. It
involves careful and skilled planning and defines organization's long-term and short-term
goals. E-business strategy includes organization's current performance in the market, how an
organization is fulfilling their objectives and what kinds of resources they are using in order
to do so. Pickaboo.com manages supply chain management in such way which ensures better
coordination between the retailers and the wholesalers of different products. Pickaboo.com
Ltd is very efficient in their delivery process from the manufacturer to the buyer end, which
they are doing by eliminating the intermediaries. Elimination of various intermediaries in the
product delivery process also reduces hassle for the customers. Even pickaboo has some
social media strategy. Social media is quickly becoming an important focus for e-business
owners. It is best used as a passive source for generating sales, the primary focus should be
on relationship building and providing useful information, not on hard selling. Pickaboo has a
facebook page where keep updating the new upcoming products to let the buyers know about
their product even they boost their page for getting maximum people attention. Pickaboo took
several initiatives in order to build strong customer relationship. They have 24X7 helpline
service over the internet for the customers, and also building an effective relationship,
through the email or telephone. So that customers may order their desired products knowing
each details carefully. Good customer relationship and customer service management ensures
the best level of consumer satisfaction. Businesses that don't grow run the risk of remaining
stagnant and the same is true in the virtual marketplace. An e-business growth strategy might
include taking advantage of new marketing opportunities to target a larger audience for their
product, or creating an affiliate marketing program for your product or service. Pickaboo also
do the same thing. They have affiliate program where they placed on this different by
banners, sales copy and other helpful materials. The affiliate gets 75 percent of the sale and
the company gets 25 percent.
The following e-business strategies support corporate strategies: business unit, regional and
functional strategies.

a) E- Risk Management and contingency planning: There are some concrete which when
incorporated into the e-commerce risk management systems correctly and consistently
will help the organization in processing transactions securely and will substantially
reduce customer disputes and fraud-related chargebacks.
b) Website Content: Pickaboo has a very efficient website where they update the web
page as per the customer need, ii. Add pictures for upcoming products and iii.
Recently added a feature that displays their most popular products on their home
page. The website is used for promotion of products, sales, and for the purpose of
transaction. By the help of the frontend of the website, the organization provides the
details of the products, for instance price, pictures, information regarding customer
care, shopping kart etc. Backend of the website is used by the organization to search
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 customer database, which consists of: information of the customer, location where the
product is to be delivered, and the type of products ordered.
c) Use of ERP: ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) is used by the organization for
managing the inventory. The amount and value of inventory is calculated after each
stock-in and stock-out process by the help of ERP. Pickaboo buys products from
different suppliers situated in different parts of the country as a result they need to
deal with various types of suppliers. ERP becomes very helpful in maintaining the
records of the suppliers of the Pickaboo. The details consist of order details, credit
facilities, payments, order receipts etc. Besides Pickaboo consists of numerous
employees and in this case also ERP is further helpful. Pickaboo uses it to maintain
records of their employees and trace employees’ presence. Invoice generation, profit
and loss display are few operational activities which are also done with ERP’s help
d) Effective Communication with the Customers: Pickaboo maintains constant
connection with its customer using Website and Facebook page
(https://www.facebook.com/Pickaboocom). To ensure effective communication with
the customers, Pickaboo offer live chat facility to the customers. Through the
software, the customers can easily chat with the corresponding staffs. Again, they
offer call center facility to their customers as well.
E-channel Structure: For better sales, Pickaboo needs to integrate their promotional
channels. That is why, Pickaboo uses multichannel e-business strategy. Pickaboo has a goal
to achieve and maintain the position of the top e-business organization in Bangladesh. In
order to reach their goal, they have to keep the sales up to the mark. That is why; they have
come up with an effective marketing strategy, which is constantly supporting the sales.
According to this strategy, Pickaboo use multiple channels to conduct their promotional
activities, such as, television commercials (YouTube, 2017), print commercials, digital
marketing etc.

SWOT ANALYSIS

a) Strength: b) Weaknesses:
1. Low inventory cost 1. Infant industry
2. Genuine and high quality Products 2. High transportation cost
3. Good relationship with suppliers and 3. Lack of skilled human recourse
customers 4. Poor infrastructure

c) Opportunities: d) Threats:
1. Liaison with the brands or the authorized 1. Possibility of new large competitor's entry
distributors 2. Negative reviews on social media
2. Increasing number of internet 3. Cyber crime
users 3.. Demand throughout the 4. Government's control over social media
country

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 A. Strengths: The strengths of Pickaboo are
I. Genuine and High Quality Products: To ensure the genuine products,
Pickaboo only collects those from the authorized distributors. As a result, the
products purchased from Pickaboo always provide the actual after sales
facilities, such as, replacement, warranty, etc.
II. Good Relationship with Suppliers and Customers: Pickaboo maintains
constant connection with its customer using Website and Facebook page
where it promotes its product by giving offers, ask customer feedback and
response to customer query. They also engage with the customer support
through the Live Chat feature which is built into the website. ERP and website
database both are used for processing customer information.
III. Low inventory Cost: Pickaboo maintains its inventory through ERP. The
amount and value of inventory is calculated after each stock-in and stock-out
process by the help of ERP. As a result inventory management is efficient with
the least cost.
B. Weaknesses: The factors that Pickaboo consider as their weakness are
I. Infant Industry: E-business is still a new industry in Bangladesh. So, this is not
yet that matured. So, the customers are still in a dilemma regarding trusting
these online shops. As a result, the necessary customers are not yet available.
That is a major weakness of Bangladeshi e- business organizations as well as
Pickaboo.
II. Lack of Skilled Human Resource: Because of being an infant industry the
online business organizations cannot avail the experienced and skilled human
resource. This sometimes hampers the business. This is another weakness of
Pickaboo.
III. Poor Infrastructure: Bangladesh's infrastructure is still below the mark. In this
country the technological environment is not business friendly yet. Again, the
transportation system is also under developed. So, the customers face troubles
to shop online. Similarly, Pickaboo also finds it difficult to deliver the
products to their customers.
C. Opportunities: The opportunities of Pickaboo are discussed below
I. Liaison with the Brands or the Authorized Distributors: As mentioned before,
Pickaboo has contact with all the authorized distributors of the products. This
creates the opportunity to get to know about the upcoming products.
II. Demand throughout the Country: Pickaboo sells products only in the Dhaka
city. Even though their business only covers the urban areas of Dhaka, due to
flourishing online shopping its demand is increasing which is always a great
opportunity for the organization.
III. Increasing number of internet users: The positive for any e-business
organization is the number of increasing internet users and their buying
behavior. The rapid growth of internet has great impact on the minds and
behavior of young population as it has less hassle.

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 D. Threats: The threats of Pickaboo's business are described in the following
I. Possibility of New Large Competitor's Entry: Pickaboo worries about the
entry of large competitors. If any large competitor arrives, it would be quite
challenging to Pickaboo to conduct the business. As an example, in
Bangladesh, people have a different impression towards the foreign brands.
Again, Amazon is planning to arrive in Bangladesh soon. So, the competition
is getting tough every day.
II. Cybercrime: As the cybercrime is increasing day by day, Pickaboo finds it
difficult to run like the other e-business organizations. They types of crimes
they worry about most are hacking, forgery etc.
III. Government's Control over Social Media: Pickaboo conducts promotional
campaign over the social media. However, the government sometimes restricts
some of those media. As there is history of this blockage, Pickaboo worries
about the repetition of the incident. For instance, the government of
Bangladesh has blocked the social media Facebook several times. If it happens
again in future, it would be a challenge to Pickaboo's business.
IV. Negative Reviews on Social Media: Some the customers accidentally have
negative experiences from Pickaboo. Again, some of them spread their
experiences through various ways. Even, some of them are not valid. These
negatively affect Pickaboo's sales. For instance, it is common that the delivery
people of Pickaboo often face trouble delivering the products due to water
logging. However, in some cases the customers do not understand the situation
and give negative reviews to the social media. These incidents strongly affect
the image of Pickaboo.

Competitive Threats

Running business anywhere in the world must face some competitive threats it can be other
firms in the same market, their business strategy, their promotional activities, resources they
use and business development strategies etc. Identification of Pickaboo’s competitive threats
are discussed below
• Identifying firm’s competitive threats: So far, Damkom.com, DARAZ.COM and
many other are the e- commerce site fully follows the same model as Pickaboo. So,
they are the biggest threat of Pickaboo.com. Competitors with a strong market
offering can result in customer reduction. So, far activities like marketing, website
design, and policy of these competitors are comparatively threatening for
Pickaboo.com. Daraz is going heavy hand with its publicity work like sponsoring,
CSR activities and many more. Pickaboo.com simply can gain competitive
advantages over Damkom.COM and DARAZ.COM by adopting some methods, such
as showing classified ads, creating a safer place to trade, making a buyer and seller
friendly listings of products on their website and participating in more social causes
and sponsoring.

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 • Price Comparison and availability of products in the offline stores: Besides the online
competitors, Pickaboo has offline competitors as well. Both of these competitors can
gain competitive advantage if they offer lower product cost than Pickaboo. On the
other hand sometimes the offline stores take the advantage of Pickaboo's promotional
activities. Pickaboo only sells goods online. On the other hand, there are numbers of
stores sell the same products offline. Sometimes the customers get know about some
products from Pickaboo's promotional campaigns but they purchase those from the
ofline stores where they can have a real life experience with the product and its
features. Thus, the offline competitors take advantage from Pickaboo's promotional
campaigns.

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 Requirement 5
E-business security

Five IT security risks:

1. Network Failure-
• Slow Network
• Company might lose customers
• Communication gap
2. DDoS Attack
• Slows down or disable the website and servers by flooding them with false traffic.
• Potential and existing customer could be lost when people are unable to access a site
to browse or make a purchase.
3. Privacy Issues
• Customers information may be leaked
• Personal information may be used for spamming.
• Competitors may use customer information.

4. Ransomware
• Temporary or permanent loss of sensitive or proprietary information.
• Disruption to regular operations.
• Financial losses incurred to restore systems and files,
• Potential harm to an Pickaboo’s reputation.
5. Internal Employee
• Internal information might be at risk.
• Fraud exposure.
• Employee’s negligence can result a bad reputation of Pickaboo.

From these identified risks Ransomware and DDoS attack are most likely to cause severe
damages to Pickaboo.

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 Prevention

Ransomware Attack-
1. Installation of Antivirus along with up to date software:
Ensuring up to date antivirus installation across all endpoints within the business.
Antivirus is based on signatures so new variants may and will slip through the cracks, but this
could easily be a first line of defense. Additionally, it’s best to have a multi-faceted security
solution that employs additional protective technologies such as heuristics, firewalls,
behavioral-based threat prevention, etc.
2. Security awareness campaigns:
Establishing security awareness campaigns can stress the avoidance of clicking on
links and attachments in email. Because phishing is a common entrance vector for
ransomware and because most end users never think twice, it’s extremely successful.
3. Backup of data:
There are a ton of options available from backing up to cloud providers to local
storage devices or even network attached drives, but each comes with a certain
level of risk. It’s imperative to remove the external storage device once a backup has been
taken so that if ransomware does infect, it won’t be able to touch the backup.
4. GPO restrictions:
GPO restrictions are an easy and affordable method for restricting not only
ransomware, but malware in general from installing. GPO has the ability to provide granular
control over the execution of files on an endpoint, so adding rules that block activity such as
files executing from the ‘Appdata’ directory or even disabling the ability for executables to
run from attachments.
5. Patching:
Patching commonly exploited third party software such as Java, Flash, and Adobe
will undoubtedly prevent many of these types of attacks from even being successful in the
first place.
DDoS Attack-
1. Recognizing the Signs of a DDoS Attack:
Precaution is always the best defense against a DDoS attack. Recognizing a DDoS
attack in its early stages is incredibly helpful though not all DDoS attacks are easy to defend
and identify. They’re usually not much different from normal spikes in network or web
traffic. Investing in the right technology, training, and expertise can help in analyzing the
difference. Using an Anti-DDoS service is always recommended, and planning a great
incident response program is usually helpful.

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2. DDoS Protected VPN:
Anti-DDoS VPN service hides the real IP from the attackers and filters the incoming
traffic to website or server through its anti-DDoS mitigation servers. After connected to the
VPN, all the unwanted traffic will route to VPN provider’s server. It’s only possible through
the “DDoS Protected Dedicated IP”.
3. Contacting ISP provider:
Not only a company suffers from a DDoS attack, but also ISP feels the effects. A
company can call their ISP in the event of the DDoS attack and request them to trace the
source of the attack and re-route their traffic as per their recommendations.
Furthermore, while choosing an ISP, a company can make sure if they have any DDoS
protective services available.
4. Specialized On-Premises Equipment:
This is similar to “Do It Yourself” in that an enterprise is doing all the work to stop
the attack, along with purchasing and deploying dedicated DDoS mitigation appliances.
These are specialized hardware that sits in an enterprise’s data center in front of the normal
servers and routers and are specifically built to detect and filter the malicious traffic.

Conclusion

Pickaboo is doing well as an online retail shop. They have variety of products and a
good, organized website. However, they need to add more and different products to survive
in the business competition. They also need to develop their website and make it more stable
and faster. Their mission and vision is precise and they are trying to do their best to fulfill
their objectives. Their value proposition is strong and bringing more customers. They are
planning of expanding their business outside Dhaka. Besides, they are going ahead according
to their business plan and strategy. They are earning a very healthy revenue by selling
products. They use customized e-commerce software and use Zendesk for CRM. They are
regularly updating their web catalogue and recently they have introduced an app. They only
sell via their website. Pickaboo works as an intermediary. Their SWOT analysis gives us the
idea about their strong position in market. There are few IT security risks, which they haven’t
encountered yet but they can’t ignore those. They should follow the mentioned ways to
prevent themselves from those IT threats.

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