The Information Characteristics and Controls in E-Commerce

The paper points out the significance of information control at first and then arises some Characters of information in e-commerce. Further more, the author analyzes the concept and ways of information integration and information flow control. 1 The Inevitability of Information Control All commercial activities take information as intermediary; the e-commerce superiority lies in the full use of the commercial function of information network, further strengthened the information intermediary function. Depends upon this function, we may promote enterprise's management level and reduce the running expenses greatly, orient the goal market quickly, more strive for and maintain the customer relations, achieve the goal of improving efficiency of the commercial activity. The success rate of the business activity is directly correlated with symmetry of information exchange. The information exchange of the traditional commercial activity takes hard carrier of information as the core, such as paper carriers, magnetism carriers, optics carriers, practicality carriers, communication establishment, terminal unit and vehicle, etc. These carriers have a lot of limitation in information exchange, such as time, space, region, specialty and personnel. But e-commerce is different, information carrier which appears with high-efficient information transport apparatus with the information network for main fact, not only has avoided all sorts of restrictions of information exchange but also opened up the information exchange channel greatly. In e-commerce era, information value among commercial activity is more prominent than any time [1, . Meanwhile, because of the e-commerce information characteristic itself, its management problem will be more complicated. It is essential and urgent to The Information Characteristics and Controls in E-Commerce 595 study information integration and information flow control on the basis of ecommerce. 2 The Inevitability of Information Control Transmitting and processing commercial information by using the Web technology is an important technical feature of e-commerce, but information in e-commerce has own Characteristics. From the angle of commodity exchange, e-commerce is not the operation transaction activity which completes by the physical exchange or the direct physical contact, but the operation transaction activity between transaction parts by the digital way, which indicated that information in the e-commerce has the digital feature. From the angle of financial process, e-commerce is the commercial activity that transaction parts take the internet as platform to realize business contact, the data transmission, the commodity exchange, the bank credit payment and the settlement, which indicated that information in the e-commerce, has the integrated feature and collaboration or coordination feature. From the angle of the operation pattern, e-commerce is the commercial activity that using modern information technology to change the traditional commerce pattern, which implied information in the e-commerce, has the control feature. From the angle of technical application, e-commerce is the process that includes internet, digital information and commerce activity. In brief, e-commerce is informanization of commerce. In other words, the essence of e-commerce is the trade without paper, which means that there is massive information flow to process in the e-commerce activity, but logistics, the fund flow and other commercial factors must also process and transform as the form of information flow. One of e-commerce goals is the realization of complete alternation of entire commerce information, in order to gain more attachments value and the profit. This indicated that information in the ecommerce has the economical increment characteristics. The development of network technology impelled the appearance and the development of e-commerce, and e-commerce through the information interaction affects information technology and value orientation of the social consumption behavior, which indicates information in the e-commerce has guiding feature. Through the analysis above, information Characteristics in the e-commerce are extremely obvious, namely the information in the e-commerce has digital feature the integration, the coordination, the controllability, the increment and the guidance feature and so on. In addition, the information in e-commerce also has the specialization, pertinence, large in quantity, the globality, the direct link, effectiveness, independence, openness, the interaction, sharing, inexpensive, authenticity, normative feature. and so on. 3 Information Integration Control 596 Yong Liu1, Junping Qiu2 supply, production, repertory, sale, human resource, finance) cooperation, supply ) Supplier, wholesaler Fig. 1. An AND/OR-network N on the left and a realization of N on the right side. ANDnodes are drawn as circles and OR-nodes as shaded squares 3.1 Conception of information integration As a technical methodology, Information Integration puts the information resources of e-commerce related application systems into the uniform information system architecture, thus realizes the division of work, cooperation, united management and effective utilization of information according to predetermined target. Information Integration does not mean simply gathering the information of related application systems, but mean integration based on technology, including the integration of application system interfaces, integration of information resource controlling agents, integration of organization and management model, integration of information users and services, etc. The core of Information integration is to merge information resources using modern information technology, and to realize the organic combination of information, technology, and intelligence, so that information resources can be well shared and effectively utilized. The information integration of Enterprise Resource Planning and e-commerce technology is an effectual way for e-commerce information integration control, so it is focused and discussed in detail subsequently. 3.2 Information integration control Two information chains exist in an enterprise: supply information chain, and market information chain. Thus, there are two separate application systems, namely Supply Chain Management system and Customer Relation Management system. ERP works as whole to link these two chains. The information exchanging relationship of them is displayed below as figure 1. A unified information platform is essential for information integration control, which integrating independent application systems through network and e-commerce, and covering all the flows from suppliers to customers, to establish a unified ecommerce information integrating architecture. It’s displayed as chart 2. The Information Characteristics and Controls in E-Commerce 597 The environmental structure of e-commerce information integration control is divided into three layers: supporting layer, application layer, and information layer. The e-commerce environment has integrated Web, EDI(Electronic Data Interchange), CA(Certificate authority) technology, etc., and provides interface for SCM(Supply Chain Management), CRM(Customer Relationship Management), ERP(Enterprise Resource Planning), DRP(Distribution Resource Planning), CAD(Computer Aided Design), CAM(Computer Aided Manufacturing) applications, so it plays a key part to build a information exchange channel. In the information environment level, the real-time connection between POS (Point Of Sells) and EOS (Electronic Ordering System) provided by the e-commerce environment makes the commodity sale information to be read straightly. The way of online ordering work and exchanging the order information is using the communication network and the computer system transmission. The integration between the e-commerce and the enterprise application system such as ERP, CRM and SCM will promote information communication between the supply chain and the customer chain, enhance the supply chain efficiency, satisfy the needs of the enterprise multiplication manufacture and the individuality service, effectively operate the interior and exterior enterprise resources, enhance customer satisfaction, meets the global competition and provides the source power which the enterprises develop. With the further development of e-commerce technology, the information integration control construction transforms from the core with ERP, SCM and CRM to the core with synthesis information integration between content management, knowledge management and data warehouse, which will realize the more widespread information integration control. Information integration control based on e-commerce will be the important way of future commerce development, which can avoid the unidirectional of the supply chain and customer chain information transmission in the traditional commerce pattern, effectively carry on the information track, the information record, the information storage, the information transmission, the information analysis and the policy-making consultation using the commercial network. Which will improve Supplier, wholesaler