E-Commerce Architect Exam (212-32)

Credit Towards Certification:

• Certified e-Business Associate
• Certified e-Business Professional

Exam Objectives and Sub-Objectives:

The test covers the fundamental business concepts as they relate to E-Commerce, such as customer relationship management; e-procurement; security and staffing issues; planning; metric identification techniques for measuring the success of E-Commerce initiatives; marketing strategies on the World Wide Web; and information on E-Commerce software, hardware, and service providers. 

1. Overview of Electronic Commerce

• Distinguish between electronic markets and interorganizational systems.
• Describe and discuss the content and framework of EC.
• Understand the forces that drive the widespread use of EC.
• Describe the benefits of EC to organizations, consumers, and society.
• Describe the limitations of EC.
• Discuss some major managerial issues regarding EC.

2. The Digital Economy

• Compare marketplaces with marketspaces.
• Describe the nature of competition in marketspaces.
• Describe some economic rules of the digital economy.
• Describe the impacts of the digital economy on trading and intermediaries.
• Describe the impacts of the digital economy on business processes and functional areas in organizations.
• Understand the role of m-commerce in the digital economy.

3. Retailing in Electronic Commerce (e-Tailing)

• Discuss various e-tail consumer aids, including comparison-shopping aids.
• Discuss various e-tail markets, such as groceries, music, cars, and others.
• Identify the critical success factors of direct marketing and e-tailing, along with mistakes to avoid.
• Identify the principles of “click-and-mortar” strategies for traditional retailers.
• Describe the issue of disintermediation, reintermediation, and channel conflicts in e-tailing.
• Identify various managerial issues of concern to e-tailers.

4. Internet Consumers, e-Service, and Market Research

• Describe the characteristics of Internet surfers and EC purchasers.
• Understand the decision-making process of consumer purchasing.
• Describe the way companies are building relationships with customers.
• Explain the implementation of customer service and its relationship with CRM.
• Describe consumer market research in EC.
• Understand the role of intelligent agents in consumer applications.
• Describe the organizational buyer behavior model.

5. Advertisement in E-Commerce

• Describe the major advertisement methods used on the Web.
• Describe various Web advertisement strategies.
• Describe various types of promotions on the Web.
• Discuss the benefits of push technology and intelligent agents.
• Understand the major economic issues related to Web advertisement.
• Describe the issues involved in measuring the success of Web advertisement as it relates to different pricing methods.
• Compare paper and electronic catalogs and describe customized catalogs.
• Describe Web advertisement implementation issues.

6. Company-centric B2B

•  Describe the major types of B2B models.
•  Describe the characteristics of the sell-side marketplace.
•  Describe the sell-side intermediaries models.
• Describe the characteristics of the buy-side marketplace and e-procurement.
• Explain how forward and backward auctions work in B2B.
• Describe B2B aggregation and group purchasing models.
• Describe collaborative e-commerce.
• Understand issues concerning the implementation of company-centric B2B.
• Distinguish Internet-based EDI from traditional EDI.

7. E-Marketplaces and B2B

• List all types of e-marketplaces.
• Describe B2B portals.
• Describe third-party exchanges.
• Explain dynamic pricing and describe its trading mechanisms.
• Distinguish between e-procurement and e-selling consortia.
• Describe the various ownership and revenue models.
• Describe networks of exchanges and exchange management.
• Describe the critical success factors of exchanges.
• Discuss implementation and development issues of e–marketplaces and exchanges.
• Describe the extranet and its role in supporting marketplaces and exchanges.

8. B2B Support Services

•  Understand why EC services are frequently outsourced.
•  Describe the role and types of e-strategy consultants.
•  Understand the e-infrastructure process and the role of Web hosting and integration.
•  Describe various financial services in B2B.
•  Explain the various B2B logistics services and order fulfillment services.
•  Differentiate B2C from B2B with respect to marketing, advertisement, and sales, and describe some B2B initiatives.
•  Describe content creation, syndication, delivery, and management.
•  Describe the role of directory services in B2B.
•  Describe how CRM is done in B2B and its relationships with e-communities.

9. Dynamic Pricing: Auctions and More

• Describe the processes of conducting forward and reverse auctions.
• Describe the benefits and limitations of auctions.
• Describe the various services that support auctions.
• Describe the hazards of e-auction fraud and countermeasures.
• Describe bartering and negotiating.
• Analyze future directions and the role of m-commerce.

10. Service Industries, Online Publishing, and Knowledge Dissemination

• Describe online travel tourism services and their benefits.
• Discuss the impact of EC on the travel industry.
• Describe the online job market, its drivers, and benefits.
• Describe the electronic real estate and online insurance markets.
• Understand how stock trading and global exchanges work online and their benefits.
• Discuss cyberbanking, its drivers, and capabilities.
• Discuss implementation and other important issues of online financial services and its future.
• Describe online publishing.
• Describe online knowledge dissemination and distance learning.
• Discuss disintermediation and reintermediation.

11. Intrabusiness, e-Government, and More

• Describe the intranet and its use in organizations.
• Understand the relationship between corporate portals and the intranets.
• Describe e-government to citizens (G2C) and to business (G2B).
• Describe other e-government initiatives.
• Understand how peer-to-peer technology works in intrabusiness, in B2B, and in C2C e-commerce.

12. Building E-Commerce Applications and Infrastructure  

• Describe the major EC applications and list their major functionalities.
• Describe the EC architecture development process.
• List the major EC application development options and the approaches for option selection.
• Describe the major activities in system analysis and design.
• Describe the role of ASPs.
• escribe catalogs, Web servers, carts, chatting, and telephony for EC.
• Understand the issue of connecting EC applications to databases, other applications, and networks, and to business partners.
• Describe site usability and management.
• Describe the process of storefront development.
• Build a simple storefront using templates.

13. E-Commerce Security

• Understand the factors contributing to the rise in EC security breaches.
• Explain the basic types of network security attacks.
• Discuss the major steps in developing a security risk management system.
• Describe the major types of attacks against EC systems.
• Discuss some of the major technologies for securing EC.

14. Electronic Payment Systems

• Describe the key elements in securing an e-payment.
• Discuss the players and processes involved in using credit cards online.
• Describe the uses and benefits of purchase cards.
• Discuss different categories, methods of programming, and potential uses of smart cards.
• Discuss various online alternatives to credit card payments and identify under what circumstances they are best used.
• Describe the processes and parties involved in e-checks.
• Discuss the operation and benefits of e-billing.

15. Order Fulfillment, Logistics, and Supply Chain Management

• Describe the order fulfillment process.
• Understand the concept of the supply chain, its importance, and management.
• Describe the problems of managing the supply chain and the use of innovative solutions to do so.
• Describe the need for integrating the information systems of the front and back offices.
• Trace the evolution of software that supports activities along and management of the supply chain.
• Understand the relationships among ERP, SCM, and EC.

16. EC Strategy and Implementation

• Describe the strategy planning process for EC.
• Understand the strategy formulation process.
• Understand how EC applications are discovered and prioritized.
• Describe the role of CSFs and justification of EC.
• Describe strategy implementation.
• Understand how to reassess EC strategy.
• Describe the role of metrics in EC.
• Understand EC failures and lessons for success.

17. The Regulatory Environment of Electronic Commerce

• Understand the difficulties of protecting privacy and describe the measures taken by companies and individuals to protect it.
• Describe the intellectual property issues in EC and the measures provided for its protection.
• Describe some of the ethical issues in EC and the measures organizations take to improve ethics.
• Understand the conflict between Internet indecency and free speech and the attempts to resolve the conflict.
• Describe the issues involved in imposing sales tax on the Internet.
• Differentiate between contracts online and off-line.
• Discuss some legal issues of computer crimes.
• Describe the measures available to protect buyers and sellers on the Internet.

18. E-Communities, Global, and Other Issues in EC

• Evaluate the issues involved in global EC.
• Analyze the impact of EC on small businesses.
• Describe the relationship between EC and BPR, knowledge management, and virtual corporations.
• Understand the research opportunities in EC.
• Describe the future of EC.

19. M-Commerce

• Describe the drivers of m-commerce.
• Understand the supportive technologies and their capabilities.
• Describe the wireless standards and transmission networks.
• Describe applications of m-commerce to finance, marketing, and customer service.
• Describe the intra-enterprise applications of m-commerce.
• Describe B2B and supply chain applications of m-commerce.
• Describe consumer and personal applications of m-commerce.
• Describe some non-Internet m-commerce applications.
• Describe location-based commerce (L-commerce).
• Describe the major limitations and implementation issues of m-commerce.

Exams Detail: