An E-DSS for Strategic Planning ofE-Commerce Website Development

Ranjit Bose

Associate Professor of MISAnderson School of Management

University of New MexicoAlbuquerque, NM 87131

USAE-mail: bose@anderson.unm.edu

ABSTRACT

In this new millennium, entirely newmarkets, products, and services areemerging from digital technologies such asInternet based businesses or e-commerce.Strategic planning of e-commerce websitedevelopment is one of the critical activities ofan organization within the context of its e-commerce investment and success. Theunstructured nature of this problem-solvingactivity makes it an appropriate candidatefor decision support systems (DSS) basedsolution design. In this paper, we proposethe development of such a DSS, which wecall an e-DSS, since it is Internet based. Thepurpose of this research is to analyze therequirements for creating the e-DSS. Theresearch findings are organized andpresented as detailed requirements andcontent assessment of each of the e-DSScomponents, which include the userinterface, model base and database. Inparticular, these findings will immensely

help the information technology managersand professionals who are consideringconstruction of such a DSS for theirorganization.

1. INTRODUCTION

Today’s e-commerce environment isincreasingly becoming complex, the focus istowards using “The Web” and its enablingtechnologies to strategically create a webpresence or website that can provide value-added capabilities and integration in allaspects of a business’s functional andoperational areas. More businesses aremoving toward these electronic processesand procedures that use e-commerce,pushing the rest of the businesses to takeaction or be “e-lagers,” that is, left behind.For example, Lai and Yang (2000) predictthat, “total value of goods and servicestraded over the web in the United States

alone will reach US$327 billion in the year2002, an average annual growth rate of110%.” Interestingly, Ince (2000) notes that,“only about half of small businesses evenhave Internet access. Of those, only a smallpercentage has continuous Internet access.To really open up this market, you have toget people to understand that the Internet issomething that can be useful to theirbusiness.”

E-commerce can be defined as internaland external operations of businesses that areperformed at high speed and response rate tosatisfy the customers, who expect real timecommunication and guaranteed satisfactoryoutcomes in products and services. Thefoundation of e-commerce, in anorganization, relies on developingappropriate websites based on its businessstrategies. It is then critical for decision-makers to strategically plan the e-commercewebsite development, as well as for them toknow what tools and technologies could beused, and how they could be used to analyzeand to act effectively on this new paradigm.

In an unprecedented manner, today’s e-commerce requirements are placingincreasing strain on decision-makers to havethe channels available and the infrastructurevisible and effective. Therefore, a specificInternet-based DSS which would provideinsight into the critical and complex activityof strategic planning of e-commerce websitedevelopment could be quite beneficial to arange of companies from startup to Fortune500. The decisions that would be made basedon the strategic planning of e-commercewebsite development will directly impact theability to satisfy customers, suppliers, andkey stakeholders.

This research contends that in this “e-era,” a specific Internet-based DSS forstrategic planning of e-commerce websitedevelopment, which we call an e-DSS, is

needed. The unstructured nature of the aboveproblem makes it appropriate for a DSSbased solution. The e-DSS would be able toprovide alternative strategies, as well asfacilities to analyze and evaluate thesestrategies for selecting the best strategy foran organization for its e-commerce websitedevelopment. The implications of such asystem are, first, the e-DSS would bringtogether new models, new data as well asinformation, and expert e-commerceknowledge that many individualorganizations and researchers havesuccessfully utilized and are seen as criticalin such development. Second, the e-DSSwould provide the decision-makers such asmarketing managers, IS managers, andexecutives the expectations, investmentresources, threats, risks, costs, andopportunities of e-commerce websitedevelopment.

The purpose of this research is toanalyze the requirements for creating the e-DSS. The research findings are organizedand presented as detailed requirements andcontent assessment of each of the e-DSScomponents, which include the userinterface, model base and database. Inparticular, these findings will immenselyhelp the information technology managersand professionals who are consideringconstruction of such a DSS for theirorganization.

2. CHALLENGES AND ISSUES FORE-DSS

Creating a strategic website for e-commerce has many challenges and impacton an organization’s functional, managerial,and strategic levels. Specifically, the majorgroups impacted are strategic planning, ISdepartments and marketing. Although, othergroups, such as accounting, operations and

procurement could be included. For thepurpose of this research, only the majorgroups have been studied and analyzed.

Strategic planners such as smallbusiness owners, CEO, CFO, and VPmarketing are continuously looking toimprove business but are also inherently riskadverse which in itself creates challenges inweb development and e-commerceintegration. In this technology eraorganizations are more prone to demand risk,innovation risk, and inefficiency risk, thegoal would be to use the web to reduce theserisks and have a clear risk analysis.Therefore, at the same time there has to becontrols and audits in place for websitesdevelopment and e-commerce projectsbefore hand. Creating a web environmentwill impact current customers, suppliers,partners, B2B (business to business)(Papazoglou and Tsalgatidou, 2000), andB2C (business to consumer) relationships.Opportunities for focused, quality, high-speed communications products andcomponents for communications could fulfillthe need or concept of immediacy; wherecustomers, partners, banks, etc. wanteverything right now. Therefore, thechallenge is to know how to strategically goabout integrating websites and e-commerceinto the business functions that currentlyexist to solve business problems. Suchcritical success factors can impact whatdecision-makers must take into considerationand how they should take them intoconsideration when investing in developingnew or redeveloping existing websiteinfrastructure.

The IS department deals with issuessuch as the development and resources ofwebsites that include high performance andhigh availability, web design, security risks,authentication and privacy issues. Thechallenges of maintaining user-friendlywebsites and their applications, and the

testing process of middleware technologiesare also critical. One of the critical tasks ofthe IS departments in organizations isprioritization of the above issues.Furthermore, they are challenged withselecting algorithms, design models, agenttechnologies, and doing analysis of businessand market planning.

From the marketing perspective thechallenge of e-commerce websitedevelopment is to define the Internetcustomer prior to establishing an Internetpresence (Kiang, Raghu and Shang, 2000).“Firstly, how many existing or potentialcustomers are likely to be Internet users? If asignificant proportion of a firm’s customersare Internet users, and the search cost for theproducts and services are reasonably (evenmoderately) high, then clearly anorganization should have a presence;otherwise, it is missing an opportunity toinform and interact with its customers… If afirm does not have a website, there is a riskthat potential customers, who are web savvy,will flow to competitors who have a webpresence. Also, what is the informationintensity of a company’s products andservices?” (Watson, Zinkhan and Pitt, 2000).Marketing then has to answer the question,what web enabling technologies are gearedfor their target market? The website must beable to identify and target customer groupsand individuals, personalize and giveguidance in the buying process, useinnovative ways of packaging informationand services, such as video clips. Although,the “marketing goal will be the same as ever:deliver the right product to the rightcustomer at the right time,” (Kenny andMarshall, 2000). The question then is whatnew marketing models can be followed tocreate an effective website.

The complexity and unstructured natureof the problem-solving process foraddressing the above challenges and issues,

clearly indicate that an e-DSS is needed. Thee-DSS, like any DSS, would consist of thefollowing components: (a) the users, (b) theuser interface, (c) the model base, and (d) thedatabase. A brief review of DSS is providedin the next section, which is followed bysections that identify the detailedrequirements and contents of each of theabove components of the e-DSSrespectively.

3. DSS BACKGROUND

Decision support systems (DSS) allowpeople at many different levels tosystematically analyze problems beforemaking a decision (Turban 2001). In theprocess, these systems extend the range andcapability of the decision-making process,increasing its effectiveness. DSS areespecially useful in supporting semi-structured and unstructured problems. DSSare very different from traditionalinformation systems that are based on fixedlogic patterns and are mainly reportgenerators. In contrast, DSS are customizedmanagement systems that support non-routine decision-making and evaluation byoffering a variety of options to developvarious logic methodologies.

DSS are integrated multi-platformsystem focused on specific decisions thatcombines corporate data, models, andinteractive, user-friendly software into asingle powerful support system under usercontrol. DSS occupy a wide band in thespectrum of data versus model-orientedsystems. DSS are always a combination ofboth data and models, but one system willdiffer in emphasis from another. Theinteractive and user-friendly software in DSSis designed to be as easy to use as possible. Itis geared primarily toward corporate userswho are not very computer-oriented. The

system does exactly as it is titled. Its functionis to provide decision support. It does notmake decisions for the user, nor does itsimply supply reports.

DSS assist managers in assessing thefuture impact of current decisions. Thesystem provides this support by returningresults based on “what if?” questions, orassumptions about future conditions.Through an iterative process, a DSS canprovide the following types of information todecision makers: (a) decision objectives orcriteria, (b) decision alternatives orstrategies, and (c) consequences of decisionalternatives. In deriving these results, theprocess may be either model-oriented ordata-oriented. Model-oriented processesmake comparisons and perform analysesbased on an objective model. The model is acoordinated set of parameters or conditionsand their relationships. Models usually arederived from analysis of historical data andtrends. Data-oriented processes focus onresponses for specific inquiries and dataanalysis. While models deal with sets ofconditions, data inquiries and data analysisare concerned with specific questions.

4. E-DSS USERS

The users of the e-DSS would includebut not limited to the following members:strategic planners, VP of marketingcommunications, project leader of webdevelopment, marketing design team leader,technical IS managers, programming leaders,web server managers, and databaseadministrators. Other decision-makers thatmight be involved would be project auditors,human resource managers, enterprisebusiness application leaders who may needlarge application integration to systems suchas Peoplesoft, Oracle Financials, SAPsystems, and procurement.

5. E-DSS USER INTERFACE

Given that the e-DSS itself is Internetbased, the user interface would have to bevery user friendly. The e-DSS would be atrue example of what a website mightultimately provide (Conway and Koehler,2000). The user interface must be “adaptableto different users’ needs and communicateconsistent commands to the internalcomponents of the DSS,” (Hoffman andNovak, 2000). In order for the user interfaceto be adaptable, at the level mentionedabove, it must incorporate collaborativetechnology capabilities and integrationfacilities and additionally, be able to provideeach of the major user groups, specificabilities and functions for them to carry out.

In order for the market planners togenerate ideas, that could use animation andvideo clips, to facilitate marketing products,the e-DSS must be able to display theseutilities in a general format so as to helpthese market planners in the determination ofwhether such technology might be includedin their own site. Data capturing samplesfrom web server logs, and agents oralgorithms should be provided to assess whattype of critical data must be captured formarketing analysis. Additionally, the userinterface must allow the users to use themodels interactively, for example, use ofcost models must be web form based so thatvariables could be easily inputted bystrategic decision makers; what-if scenarioscould be analyzed and saved for laterdecision ranking by the user group.Integration, for example, with MS FrontPageand Netscape enterprise Web Server couldallow web designers and web programmersto jointly create prototypes, then have thegroup vote or rank website prototypes orintegration functions.

Collaborative utilities such asbrainstorming engine and workflow engine

such as Action Technologies might beintegrated with project task applications andvote and ranking process to facilitate thedecision-maker’s progress. Additionally, anEDM system such as WebFileShare, where“documents in an electronic form areprovided by a single repository (typically aweb server), only the current version needsto be provided. Access can be restricted as isrequired. Essentially, electronic documentmanagement (EDM) system provideinformation to decision-makers in a usableformat, much like an executive informationsystem,” (Turban, 2001). This would be idealfor the formation of website strategicplanning, proposals, audits, rankingevaluations, and executive acceptancedocuments. The user interface must also beable to provide input to web models that arewithin the model base.

6. E-DSS MODEL BASE

It is increasingly becoming difficult fororganizations to adjust their business modelsto accommodate emerging e-commercetechnologies that could potentially providesources for business opportunities. The e-DSS model base would provide arepresentation of models that organizationswould use to understand and analyze thedomain problems and their possiblesolutions. In the model base, the modelswould include traditional strategic,marketing, and IS models that have beentime-tested and proved to be effective suchas SWOT (strength, weakness, opportunityand threat) analysis, CBB (customer buyingbehavior), Systems Life Cycle analysis,Feasibility analysis, decision tree analysis,costing models, NPV analysis, ROI analysis,etc. Additional models, obtained fromresearch literature, that are specific todifferent aspects of the strategic planning ofe-commerce website development process

would also be included in the model base.These models can be categorized, by themajor user groups’ involvement in thedecision process, into three categories:strategic planning, marketing and IS.

6.1 Strategic planning models

Research was conducted to find newstrategic planning models that have a clearfocus towards expected costs, benefits orexpectations, and ability to narrow optionsfor developing e-commerce websites. Threeof the most critical strategic planning modelsfound are described below.

Larsen and Bloniarz (2000) developed amodel called “the cost-performance model,”(see Figure 1), that is very insightful for thepurpose. This model consists of three tools.

“The first tool – the system features andfunctionality worksheet – helps identify thebusiness goals a web service has to serve, aswell as the delivery mechanisms that will beused to support the service (see Table 1).This tool provides a framework for makingdecisions supported by the model. Thesecond tool – called the performanceworksheet – identifies the important factorsdefined through the first tool (see Table 2).These factors are fleshed out as performancevariables, measures, and targets. The factorsgive an organization a method for defining indetail the goals of a service, as well as aframework for measuring whether theservice meets these goals after itsimplementation. The third tool – the costworksheet – helps address comprehensive setof cost areas and calculates a rough estimateof the system’s costs (see Table 3). Thoughany one of the three tools can be used aloneor be customized to fit a specificorganization’s process of systemdevelopment, the three together arecomplementary, providing a comprehensive

perspective of the planned system,” (Larsenand Bloniarz, 2000).

The decision-makers, using this model,could then look at the cost and benefitsanalysis, or use a more formal project cost orresource allocation methods, or acombination of traditional projectevaluations such as multiple attribute utilitymodels. Advantages of this model was that itwas simple and straightforward tounderstand, and it also provided theopportunity to organizations that wereconsidering expanding their websites withadditional services or upgrades or integrationwith B2B functions and e-businessfunctionality. It captured the criticalinformation from the planner and gave adetailed process of evaluation and use.

Fellenstein and Wood (2000) providetwo models for strategic planning. Thegraphical representations of these models asshown in Figures 2 and 3, help understandwhere an organization might be and whatdirection it wants its website development togo. “The new business strategies” modelshows what critical factors such as humanresources, marketing, partnerships, andknowledge acquisitions are required. The“importance of the value chain” modelshows how multiple enterprises haverelationships focused on integratinginformation flows to exploit information andknowledge for strategic business objectives.It focuses on increasing value throughinternal relations among firms. A dynamicmarket configuration involves a market-mediated set of relations focused onincreasing flexibility and opportunity forstrategic business objectives (Gray, 2000). Itis interesting to see that all three strategicmodels above greatly emphasize knowledgeand data management prior to and during theoperation of a website.

6.2 Marketing models

Extensive, new marketing models werefound from literature for websitedevelopment. Marketing on the webemphasizes on seeing where revenue can bedeveloped. These new marketing models arefundamentally designed to derive revenuefrom new sources that have not been thoughtof before. Examples of these models are:New imaginative models that focus onfinding innovative combinations foradvertising – like subscription fees,transaction costs, and referral fees. Affiliatemodels, use other websites to bringcustomers to the organization’s site. Internetrealities models – focus on wide distributionthat can allow companies to keep customers,suppliers, and personnel informed of latestchanges, thereby lowering costs andimproving customer satisfaction. E-brandingmarket models – focus on branding strategiesto immerse customers in an experience thatcan reinforce and amplify the organization’sbrand thereby securing repeat customers totheir website.

Another useful marketing model, calledI2M (see Figure 4), provides a detailedstructured approach of determining whattypes of companies would be effective inusing the Internet for coordination of theirplanned marketing strategy. The modeldefines using a grid, what types of industriesshould be using the Internet as a tool, usingtwo parameters: proportion of customerswith web access, and information content ofproduct. Organizations that fall on the top-right quadrant are prime candidates becausemany of their customers have Internet accessand their products have a high-informationcontent. Whereas, firms falling on the otherquadrants, particularly on the low-smallquadrant, have less need to invest in e-commerce websites (Watson, Zinkhan andPitt, 2000). More importantly, this modelprovides a matrix (I2M Matrix) which

matches appropriate web technologies suchas search engines, audio, video, FTP,NewWire, VR, etc., with important marketattributes such as atmospherics (retailenvironment), personalization experience,advertising, culture and news. This enablesorganizations to promote differentiation,develop new markets, create one-to-onecustomized interaction, facilitate productdevelopment, diversify new products to newmarkets, and be continuously innovative.

6.3 Information systems models

Information systems models for e-commerce website development focus onproject management, web performance,network traffic pricing for high availabilityand security. Technology assessments modelsprovide project management in comparingtechnologies by having host and controlprojects. This is similar to havingproduction, quality, and development regionsfor moving new technologies such asmiddleware, upgrades, and patches toproduction systems. Congestion is a problemfor web performance and therefore, is acritical factor in each of the webdevelopment phases. Capacity planningencompasses many models such asworkload, prediction, and performancemodels. Experts have developed probabilitydensity functions, mathematical structures bythe use of fractal models, and LRU stackmodels to characterize workload. Thetechnology of proxy servers has been derivedfrom many expert studies (see Figure 5),where caching has proven to be very cost-effective because of its ability of adjustingthe rate at which files are pre-fetched, and ofminimizing the network load (Menasce,2000). Predicting web performance can bedone through simulation models where webserver transactions, requests, and load testingare mocked. Also, there are analyticalmodels, which encompass formulas and

algorithms that can relate server and workload parameters.

The QN (queuing network) models areimportant models to understand and use formaking informed decisions on sizing webservers and the underlining infrastructures.

“QN models represent each resource bya queue composed of the resource and awaiting queue for the resource. A requestmay visit a given resource more than onceduring its execution. For example, an HTTPrequest may require several I/O operationson a given disk. The total time spent by arequest obtaining service from a resource iscalled the service demand. Service demandsdo not include any queuing and constituteone of the important types of inputparameters to QN models. In queuingnetwork terminology, the entity that flowsfrom one network terminology, the entitythat flows from one queue to another is acustomer. Customers may represent HTTPrequests, database transactions, and remotefile service request. A customer is the modelrepresentation of the workload unit of work.Since a system may contain many differenttypes of workloads contending for resources,a QN model may contain many differentclasses of customers. For example, differentclasses of customers in a QN may modelrequests for small text documents and largeimage files store at a web server since theyrepresent substantially different usage ofserver and network resources,” (Ince, 2000).

These models provide critical insightsthat become useful in making decisionsregarding network topologyinterconnections, proxy servers (see Figure6), and the needed infrastructure of servers,routers, and LANs for optimal performanceof a website.

Network management and pricingmodels are available in the areas of taxation

policy, resource allocation, and competitiveadvantage, mainly because different parts ofa network are owned by different entities andat any given time a customer’s transaction orrequest travels through multiple networkedinfrastructures. The idea of QOS (quality ofservice) models have come into play in webservices, by providing different customerswith their request rates of network serviceclass or performance level. For example, inthis model a customer who pays for higherclass gets to have a priority in transmissionthan other service classes. Interestingly, thismodel was proved by simulation, and itshowed that significant performanceenhancement and monetary benefits can beachieved by using dynamic prices ascompared to the two other standard pricingapproaches: fixed charges and time basedcharges (Gupta, Stahl and Whinston, 1999).Models like QOS are needed in the modelbase to study and understand possible futuredirections of network management pricingpolicies.

Web design is extremely critical for anywebsite. Web programmer models that arecurrently available are geared more towardwhat not to do and what principles to follow.A model called TAM (technologyacceptance model), which has beenvalidated, shows the perceived usefulness,perceived ease of use, perceived attitudetowards use, and behavioral intention of useof an IS system, could be very useful(Lederer, Maupin, Sena and Zhuang, 2000).The IS group often has to find answer to thequestion, what makes a website useful andeasy to use? Eight critical principles such asspeaking the user’s language, consistency,minimization of the user’s memory load,flexibility and efficiency of use, aestheticsand minimalist design, chunking, progressivelevels of detail, and navigational feedback,used in the TAM model, are needed in awebsite’s ability to make it more useful andeasy to use. Understanding the culture of the

audience is also critical but there were nospecific models found in this area.

Use of new web intelligent agents isimportant for IS to understand and be able toapply. The website must have many differentagents that are able to work anonymouslyand collaboratively to provide both whatmarketing wants as one-to-one andcustomized web serving personalization.“The personalized, continuously-runningautonomous nature of agents make themwell-suited for mediating those consumerbehaviors involving information filtering andretrieval, personalized evaluations, complexcoordination and time-based interactions,”(Guttman, Moukas and Maes, 1998). Themodel, called “system architecture forintelligent browsing on the web,” created byLai and Yang (2000) describes the use ofagents that IS developers can follow. Theirwebsite system architecture (see Figure 7)can provide insight into how agents cancapture and help the customer by enhancingthe experience as they are browsing on thewebsite. Specifically, it includes a DSSwithin the agent itself and defines fiveseparate agents that could be used forpersonalization.

Computer security, at all levels of IS, isimportant and it is also difficult to determinethe legal level of security and the way inwhich that level is to be achieved (Shaw,1998). Most security procedures are variedand can include a combination of algorithmsfor encryptions such as the use of private keyor public key certifications that are used asdigital signatures to ensure privacy, use ofSSL (secure socket layer), integration withEDI (electronic data interchange) and havingthe intelligent agents provide negotiationprocessing. The key to security is that eachorganization must formulate a combinationand an objective plan that it would requirefrom file locking through the use of SSLtransmission. The idea of standardization of

security procedures has been greatly argued.For example, the use of SET versus SSL.SET uses “digital certificates to verify theidentity of both consumer and the merchant,”(Demarais, 2000). Although, it requiressupporting APIs on both sides to work but“with the backing of the two largest credit-card organizations, Visa and MasterCard,SET is poised to become the standard meansfor credit-card transactions via the Internet,”(Stalling, 2000).

Rohm and Pernul (2000) havedeveloped the COPS security model. Theynote, “users want to have integrated toolsguaranteeing privacy, security, and fair trade,that are embedded in a legal system whichprotects from criminal behavior andtechnical failure. On the other hand, users,especially suppliers, want to freely chose andeventually change after sometime the marketstructure in which they are trading theirdigital goods.” This model can explain fivemarket players and the three commonpractice market transactions of informationphase, negotiation phase and the executionphase that would possibly provide securitysolutions. The model focuses on fourcomponents: (a) a framework of the designerof a market transaction, (b) an executionenvironment for specified markettransactions, (c) different basic (trusted andnon-trusted) services in the network, and (d)appropriate security mechanisms providedthrough an API. Ideally the model shouldhave a method such as a workflow engine tocollaborate between the phases.

Each of the models that are mentionedin this section will need specific data thatneed to be collected, stored and used foranalysis by the e-DSS. Therefore, the nextsection will focus on the database componentof the e-DSS. The database component musthave the ability to communicate with themodels, which will reside in the model base,for providing the values of variables and

parameters in them for analysis.

7. E-DSS DATA BASE

The data that will be required forsupporting the strategic planning of e-commerce website development can becategorized into three main categories:strategic planning data requirements,marketing data requirements, and IS datarequirements. Strategic planning data wouldmainly be internal data such as each of thecost elements for the organization’s website.This would consist of proposed and/or actualcost of developing the web page process,networking or Internet service provider,security, business and management such asaccounting functions for the web project,marketing budgets, overall IS middlewarecomponents, IS project development,maintenance, computer systems, andoutsourcing. Additionally, data from vendorswould also be required.

The required marketing data is extensivecompared to the other two categories mainlydue to the need for continuous data capturerelated to the customers or target audience.To be able to have a website that focuses andredefines the marketing strategy, it will needto “continue to acquire and analyze hugevolumes of information on millions ofconsumers to enable delivery across multiplechannels,” (Powell, 2000). Intelligent agentsneed to be used to collect both users’ profileand site contents. The users’ profile wouldcontain background information such as webuser’s name, gender, preferences, location, e-mail address, time of web surfing,information about the process on what andhow a user followed the site path such astransaction processing logs. The sitedatabase would contain the site relationshipdata, metadata about the site, and actualcontents of the site such as product content,

descriptions, prices, and inventory levels.

IS would also require up to date data ondifferent technology uses and methods.Much of these data that will be needed by thee-DSS would come from the web itself suchas from web performance logs, from webservers, IP, router information from networkutilities to determine throughput, disk andCPU usage.

Additionally, the e-DSS metadata anddata objects would also need to be stored.The e-DSS would in itself need to be able tostore user profile information of its userssuch as managerial preferences.Furthermore, metadata about the decisionmaking processes, ranking results, time lapsfor each of the decision processes, versioncontrol for integration to other packages ormiddleware also need to be stored. Lastly,the e-DSS should be able to store metadataon what data was most used by theorganization in the decision-making sessionsby its different decision-makers.

In order to store and organize these vastamounts of data, a data warehouse will benecessary. A data warehouse is a“centralized repository that must supportcomplex decision support queries at highperformance. A data warehouse typicallyutilizes relational database technology due tothe maturity of this technology,”(Rundensteiner, Koeller and Zhang, 2000). Adata warehouse such as an Oracle 8i RDMSwould have to be one of the core members ofthe database component of the e-DSS.

“In data warehousing, data fromoperational systems and other externalsystems are periodically extracted andtransformed by data warehouse generationtools and loaded into a data warehouse. Afterextraction, the transformation processincludes the following activities: (1) filteringthe data to eliminate unnecessary details or

fields; (2) cleaning the data to removeduplicate records, correct typographicalerrors in strings, and add missing fieldvalues; (3) converting and translating theextracted operational data to the OLAPdatabase format; (4) consolidating andaggregating the data from multiple sources;and (5) loading the data into the datawarehouse,” (Bose and Sugumaran, 1999).

Two of the most important abilities inthe warehouse should be OLAP (on-lineanalytical processing) and data mining, bothof which allow decision-makers the ability tostructure the data for greater analysis andfindings that would not be possibleotherwise. OLAP is a utility that is tightlyintegrated with a modern RDMS such asOracle 8i (Karpain and Myers, 2000). Datamining would use intelligent agents, AItechnologies and possibly an expert systemmodule that will contain algorithms toextract unknown relationships from withinthe data warehouse, to help the decision-maker. “The data mining tasks can involvethe discovery of association rules, sequentialpatterns, pagesview clusters, user clusters orany other pattern discovery method in awebsite,” (Mobasher, Cooley and Srivastava,2000). Both OLAP and data mining abilitiesrequire mass preprocessing tasks; however,they are increasingly becoming veryimportant in web environment for providingproblem-solving capabilities such as the onesidentified for the e-DSS.

8. CONCLUSION

Why do some e-commerce websitesdeliver real benefits to both buyers andsuppliers while others struggle to establishtheir “offerings?” Because an organizationneeds to have a strategic plan for e-commerce website development that is inline with its business strategy before it makes

the investments. Clearly, a cohesive decisionsupport system, such as the e-DSS, can helporganizations start out with an effectivewebsite and continuously use the system toimprove and integrate the website with newtechnologies, partners, suppliers andultimately satisfy their stakeholders andcustomers. This research analyzed therequirements for creating the e-DSS.

To construct a successful e-DSS forplanning e-commerce website developmentfor an organization, there are severalimplementation steps which need to beaddressed. These steps include: (a)evaluating the needs, (b) examining thetechnology and process capabilities, (c)assessing the website security requirements,and (d) determining the related hardware andsoftware. The research findings provided thespecifications for these steps for each of thee-DSS components, which included the userinterface, model base and database. Thesefindings should be of immense help to theinformation technology managers andprofessionals who are consideringconstruction of such a DSS for theirorganization.

More research must be done toincorporate all areas of business that shouldparticipate in creating an effective strategicplan for e-commerce website development,that is integrated with the organization’sbusiness strategy. For example,incorporating HR (human resource) forallocating the core competencies skills,supply chain model dynamics and the newCRM (customer relationship management)models. Another important area of researchwill be analyzing the dynamics of B2B andhow partnership models can impact websitedevelopment. Research should also be doneon how manufacturing relationships and webmining technologies and EDI technologiesbe integrated for capturing critical data.

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***

Figure 1: The cost-performance model

Source: Larsen, K.A and Bloniarz, P. ./ Cost Performance Model

IdentificationSystem featuresand functionality

IdentificationBenefits andPerformance

Identification Costs

Benefit/Cost

Analysis

Multiple Attribute

Utility Model

ResourceAllocation

Method

Modest

Moderate

Elaborate

DecisionWhat activities will beoutsourced?

What security andconfidentiality measuresmust be implemented?

What information sources(internal and external)must be coordinated?

What system features willbe included?

What will customers beable to do?

How will customers getaccess to these services?

What information-basedservices will you provide?

Who are your customers?

Modest Moderate Elaborate

COST-PERFORMANCE MODEL

Table 1: Worksheet for system features and functionality.

Cost-Performance Worksheet

Table 2: Cost WorksheetMODEST MODERATE ELABORATE

First YearCost

Subseq.Annual

First YearCost

Subseq.Annual

First YearCost

Subseq.Annual

Organizational Readiness1Training for Technology Awareness

Planning for Internet Presence 2

Access for Staff and Other Users345

Hardware for End UsersSoftware for End UsersNetwork and Internet Access for End UsersOther Vendor Services 6 Human Resources

7Start-up Process for Equipment ProcurementEstablish and Manage Vendor and ISP Contracts 8

Content Development and Maintenance141516

Hardware for Content DevelopersSoftware for Content DevelopersNetwork and Internet Access for Content DevelopersOther Vendor Services 17 Human Resources

18192021222324252627

Start-up Process for Equipment ProcurementEstablish and Manage Vendor ContractsDevelopment and Delivery of Staff TrainingStaff Time in TrainingWebmasterEditorial ReviewContent Creation and CoordinationWeb Site Design and DevelopmentStaff Support for ServiceProgramming SupportDatabase Administration 28

Table 3:Cost-Performance Form

Host of Site Infrastructure313233

HardwareSoftwareNetwork and Internet AccessOther Vendor Services 34 Human ResourcesFront-end Research and Technical EvaluationStart-up Process for Equipment ProcurementEstablish and Manage Vendor and ISP ContractsDevelopment and Delivery of Staff TrainingStaff Time in TrainingNetwork and Systems AdministrationWeb Server ManagementOperations SupportClerical Support

353637383940414243

INFRASTRUCTURE AND OTHER SUBTOTAL

HUMAN RESOURCES SUBTOTAL

TOTAL COSTS

N e w B u s i n e s s S t r a t e g i e s

Interacting with Consumers

BTB CommerceAcrossEnterprises

Within theEnterprise

Build &Manage CoreCompetencies

Develop StrongBrands

Sense & RespondsBehavior

Manage Multi-firm ValueNets

Micro MarketMass Custom

IntranetEnterprise

ExtranetEnterprise

K n o w l e d g e M a n a g e m e n t

Figure 2:

Materials Data

ProcessSupplier

TradingPartners

MarketingDistribution

Finance

Information

Customer

Figure 3:

Figure 4: Internet Presence Grid With Illustrative Examples

Information content of products

Low HighLarge

ProportionofCustomers

OfficeSupplies

IndustrialProducts

with WebAccess

Small

Food andBeverages

ConsumerElectronics

Figure 5: An Intranet with a Proxy Server: Menasce

Proxy External Server Web

Servers

router

LAN (10 MBps Ethernet)

Internet

Figure 6: QN Model Corresponding to the Intranet: Menasce

Clients LAN router outgoing link

ISP Internet web server

incoming link

proxy cache server

cpu cpu

disk