DISSE8005 Dissertation Essay

The research is going to be conducted on the security measures and current portfolio of online billing system of Bangalore Electronic Supply Company Limited.

Now days, the entire world is going online. E-commerce has made a major place in the business world and hence in the monetary transactions also. The online transaction has ease the entire payment and billing procedure in every business sector. Though, the online billing system has given many facilities to the customers but there are few backlogs regarding the security in the transaction (E-commerce securities, 2017).

Online transaction security is the protection of financial assets from unauthorized access, alteration or use or destruction. The online transaction is done with an online banking account. A payment gateway is also required for the transaction of money from one account to another account. The security is very much necessary for protection against monetary assets and other financial credentials of a person. Recent days, the world has observed various cyber offenses regarding the lack of security in online transaction management. Thus, all the companies who use to facilitate their customers with the online payment support, always focuses on the security of their money during the transaction process and use to choose the best payment gateway with efficient data secure support (E-commerce securities, 2017).

There are various security threats in online transactions such as –
Loss of Privacy or Confidentiality
Unauthorized access and misuse of data
Cracking, spoofing or root kits related errors
Viruses, Trojan horse, worms mediators for theft attacks
System unavailability or power interruptions or network errors

 
The use of existing materials which are available on the internet without the permission of the owner can leads to the treats to the intellectual property. However, the threat to the computer used by the client can also cause various errors and theft incidents of confidential data. There are also various server threats like Common Gateway Interface or unauthorized file transfer and spamming (E-commerce securities, 2017).

The information technology has created a world of possibilities for monetary exchange purposes. The advancement in technology is day by day improving the entire system of e-monetary transactions through various payment gateways. Currently, there are few mechanisms exists which are as follows –
Electronic Fund Transfer at the Point of Sales (EFT/POS)

EFT/POS is about the use of plastic cards in the payment terminal on the merchants’ premises. The Electronic Fund transfer consists of two distinct mechanisms:

Debit-card transactions: The debit card transaction consists of a form of value-transfer by an authenticated presentation of token that is a data bearing card along with a keyword named as the PIN used for authorized monetary exchange through a terminal from an account of the customer to the merchant’s account (Monkhouse, & Monkhouse, 2017).

Credit-card transactions: The credit card transaction is a system to capture data with automated environment to continue the purchase procedure by revolving the credit account of the customer and transact a value to the merchant’s account. 
There are also direct data entry transactions, financial electronic data interchange, home banking, stored value card and electronic cash mechanisms in the online monetary transactions.

Integrity: The integrity is about prevention against modification of data in the online account or similar object. The data assembled with an account is very important regarding the unique identification. A unique identification is a necessary part for online monetary transaction.

Nonrepudiation: The nonrepudiation is about prevention against reneging on agreement by one party to the other party. 

 

Authenticity: Authenticity is a major criteria in online transaction which helps to protect the data source.

 

Confidentiality: Confidentiality is a major factor which is needed for protection of data like password or similar credential. Thus, in online transaction confidentiality of data from unauthorized access is very important.

 

Privacy: The privacy is the provision of disclosure of data and control over data transaction.

 

Availability: Delay in transaction process can rise malfunction or various types of error and this can lead to monetary loss or other consequences (E-commerce securities, 2017). Thus, availability of proper access at correct time is very much important in online payments.

The Bangalore Electronic Supply Company Limited is a state owned company operating in India. In the past the company has operated as a monopoly, presently Bangalore Electronic Supply Company Limited operates as a commercial electricity company in a liberalized competitive market of India. The company was founded in the year 1957. The products of the company are Electricity, Bandwidth solutions and Engineering consultants. The annual revenue generated by the organization is 3.4 billion (Indian rupee) as recorded in the year 2013. (About -Bangalore Electronic Supply Company Limited, 2017). 

The research has gone through the importance of security in the online bill payment system. The study has gone through a detailed research on the online bill payment system of Bangalore Electricity Supply Company. Along with that, the research focuses to find out crucial measures in the security matters provided by BESCOM to their customers for online billing.

Q1. How the BESCOM is operating their online transaction?
Q2. What are the criteria of choosing the payment gateway?
Q3. Does BESCOM enable the security measures in their e-payment system?
Q4. What are the steps taken by the company for enabling the security supports?

The first research question is important since it will make the research understand about the present operational context of technology in the business of BESCOM (Bangalore Electricity supply Company). 

The second question is needed for knowing the strategy of BESCOM of operating their online business transactions. 
The third question is important because it is important to know the crucial facts of security measures in the online payment system of BESCOM. 

The fourth question is important since it will help to understand, how much importance for the security BESCOM is giving in their business. 

The research will be conducted with the help of the data available in secondary sources. The chosen research method is Descriptive. The research will consists of qualitative analysis and the outcomes will be based on the secondary data collected by the researcher. The research methodology is based on an artifact development proposal and its design discussion. The research has guided by the theories of Information System and the proposed artifact is designed accordingly.

There are various researches conducted to understand the importance of the online billing system in today’s generation of technology. The literature review focuses to fine out the importance of the online billing system in any electricity board along with the importance of the security measures in the monetary transactions. Apart from that, the literature review finds the necessary equipment used by various electricity boards for the security purposes in billing system. 

The population of India is growing day by day and hence the state electricity boards in different states has increased the productivity and business processes for serving better the customers in India. The study by Sridharan states that, the modern advancement in the information technology in India has influenced the billing communication between the state electricity boards and their customers. The growth of the smart grid technology has build up the approaches by the electricity companies towards the implementation for the online bill payment system for their customers. The study has also concluded that the smart grid architecture is necessary for the better communication process (Kovendan & Sridharan, 2017).

Another research by Damodaran and fellows concluded that, the cloud based real life system is required to be implemented for the purpose of the online billing system of the Electricity boards. The research has gone through the cloud based frameworks to ease the understanding of the structural design of the artifact required for online billing system (Damodaran et al, 2015). The study shows that, for the development of the artifact design for the successful implementation of the online billing system the smart grid system should be implemented as well.

The concept of online billing is not as new as thought by many people and organizations. The revolution of internet has made the billing system easier with the help of online hosting and various softwares (Sharma et al, 2014). However, in today’s life, there are small numbers of people who use the electronic billing system, instead of paper bills. In the online billing system, the companies can send the bills to their customers without using any paper and the method is easier too. The increasing spread of internet is now influencing various sectors such as telephone companies, electricity companies to use the online billing system to make the payments easier than ever. For this purpose, the organizations need to develop some software to get the system flow easier.
According to the research article by Rahman and other researchers, the research has focuses on assessing the service quality of Dhaka Electric Supply Company Limited (DESCO), the online billing and payment system. In this research, the author found that, the DESCO has focuses on the security measures in the online billing system and it has extended their service by using SERVQUAL model to integrate customer’s expectation towards their organization (Rahman et al, 2017). 

According to various researches on the online billing system of various countries, the security in the online billing system is necessary for building the perception of the actual service quality which will enhance the customer satisfaction rate and loyalty towards the company. Along with that, the SERVQUAL-Butterfly model can help in eliminating the research limitations. Online billing system is one of the highest growing technologies around the globe (Jakobson, G., & Rueben, 2014). According to the recent surveys, there are big numbers of state electricity organization around the world is now approaching for the online billing system, for the ease of the payment and the loyalty of the customers. The in-depth penetration of the internet has leaded the application of various transactional processes (Singh & Chana, 2013). 

According to an article by C. Meinel, it is stated that, there are various countries where the government of that country has given interest in building online billing and other e-government systems to improve the efficiency of delivering the government services to the citizen. This strategy has increased the accountability of government processes and trust of the citizen of that country on their government.

 However, the research has found that, in such cases, the government has faced various issues relating to the security measures in implementation and access of such systems (Sukmana & Meinel, 2016). The research discusses that, the evaluation of such security tools and implementation in the system was hard enough but the importance was given to those security terms and at present they are following up the updates security norms to give flawless services to all the citizen.
According to the research by Pal and fellows the year 2016, the author has focus on the theft and related security measures in the online billing and e-payment system. The author states that, security is a crucial aspect of electronic payment systems. In few recent cases, it is found that, theft of personal data, confidential information regarding online account and monetary loss has been accounted by various media platforms. 

Now days, it has become a major concern for all the organizations using such online medium for their billing purposes and monetary transactions. The research has found that how such theft incidents has affected the choice of payment methods among the customers and still various researches are going on to stop this obstacles. The survey conducted by Survey of Consumer Payment Choice (SCPC) results in the decision that, the identity theft and monetary loss has increased the negative perception among the people in adopting money orders, debit or credit cards, back account payments and other various online bill payments systems. In the past centuries, the electricity sector has undergone significant transformations and they have acquired various security measures in their entire business operations with the help of technological innovations (Gupta, Muttoo & Pal, 2014) 

The literature review has gone through various contexts of research views of researchers who have worked on the similar subject. The literature review concluded that, there is various importance of the secure online billing system in today’s life. There are various government bodies that have taken interest in such lucrative technological system and has implemented to minimize the effort on billing purposes for both the government works along with the citizen. 

However, there are various obstacles found in the online system. Various theft incidents were happened and these incidents have affected the perception of the people. Presently various technological advanced solutions have reached to this organization and the research focus to deduce few more facts to increase the understanding the importance of security among all.
The Design science research can be constructed between the design science and the design research and these will reflects the guidance on the construction of the artifact and its evaluation. However, some of the design signs papers deals mainly with the evaluation part. The extension of the original research could be presented through specific design research frameworks. 

The chapter discusses about the artifact design for the online billing system of the BESCOM. The study has assessed the theoretical concepts of information system. The proposed design is meant to develop the present billing system of Bangalore Electric Supply Company and the research has also described the benefits and necessities of the proposed artifact design.

According to the research by, Rajendrnagar, the proposed design for the online billing system should be like as below –    
The figure 1 shows that, the structural design of the online billing system that will enhance the billing system of the company BESCOM. The figure 1 is mentioning the entities involved in the online billing system of any company that are Internet connectivity, Electricity department, Customers, Banks, Twins, water department and other organizational departments (Baskerville et al, 2014).

 

Figure 1: Entities implicated in online billing system

The figure 2 states the overall workflow of the online billing system with following steps as mentioned below –

 

 

The researches by Lohman can be used for guidance of the structure development of the artifact and its worthiness.
1. Customer gets an electronic chequebook from the bank. The use of the book with be required for the bill payments.
2. After getting the chequebook, the customer requests for the online billing through the website of the company or any responsible websites for the purpose.
3. The biller will then verify the credentials attached with the application of the customer and then the biller will grant a subscription for the online billing.
4. In the next step, the biller will send a unique user-id and password to the customer through the provided e-mail id. This will enable the customer to view and pay bills (Lohmann, 2013).
5. The next step consists of the process of logging in the website of the company. Along with the user-id and password, the customer will log in an activate their online profile over the company’s website.
6. In the next step, the customer pays the bill with the electronic chequebook and the e-cheque will be send to the biller.
7. The further step lies with the reception of the online e-cheque from the customer and the sending of the acknowledgement for the reception of the e-cheque.
8. Then the biller will check the validity statements, credentials of the endorses and proceed them for the processing in bank.
9. In the next step, the bank validates the reception of the e-cheques and sends them to the customer’s bank for making the clearance part.
10. After the cheque clearance, the biller updates the customer’s billing data on the system of the respective company and appropriate information will be send to the customer regarding this purpose.
    
 The user registration process can be understood with the help of the Flow chart below –

 

The implementation of the artifact design will enhance the overall billing system. The proposed artifact design will accordingly support the all sort of banking operations such as direct payment of bills, determination of the account balance, the records if the transactions and the status of the withdrawal and deposits.

 

 
The role of the artifact design lies with various components of the system such as –
Clients: The user or the customeris the main component of the system who will be benefitted with the online billing system. The customers can access the implemented online billing system from the website of the respective company and the user interface should be designed in such a way that will ease the interaction of the customers with the system. In the use of the system, the customer should enter he id and the password to the information bars to introduce the respective bank group to the biller organization (Gregor & Hevner, 2013).

Gateway: The gateway is an important component that will detail the role of the artifact design in the online billing system. The Gateway is used to take control on the several operation for the access purposes and the billing purposes. The Gateway is used to check the reliability and thevalidity of the customers for the use of the online billing system of a particular company. The gateway also assures whether the customer is a participant of the e-bank group he/she provided before. The user of the organization online billing system can login to the website of the e-bank group after the verification and assurance by the gateway. The gateway authenticates the user for the dealing purposes with the e-bank. The password and the user id be checked by the gateway to grant the customer the access to the online account and this also ensures the security purposes of online billing system.

 

For the new customers, the required information are the full name of the customer, the working email id, the respective address, a unique username and password and the other various limitations. There are mechanism used for the implementation of more protection of the process of monetary withdrawal and the transfers of the funds. The proposed online billing system will successfully work with the gateway, ensure the security in the process of with money withdrawal, and fund transfers.

 

The gateway component is oriented with few other components such as –
E-bank operations: The users need to choose a particular bank to deal the transaction processes for the online purposes. The attachment of the e-bank is required for such four operations namely the account balance information access, withdrawal of money, deposit of money, transfer of money from one account to another account.

 

The account balance operations are required for the determination of the capacity of expense of the user and the sufficiency of the amount for the bill payments.

Research Ethics

The theory behind the research ethics states, it is particularly concerned in the investigation of ethical issues that are come up when natives are involved as participants in research. There are mainly three purposes in research ethics. The first purpose is to shield participants or the related systems. The second purpose is to ensure the research process is progressed in a way that serves benefit of individuals, groups and/or society as a whole. Finally, the third purpose is to inspect detailed research behaviors and projects for the ethical reliability, looking at some issues such as the research risk, fortification of discretion and the procedure of informed assent.

 

During this research, all the ethical considerations will be followed and the researcher will never use the data for purposes other than this research (Millum, &Sina, 2014).  
Limitations Of The Research Methodology
1. Unavailability of required funds for the success of the research.
2. Lack of information available for the research.
3. Unwillingness of the customers.
4. Unwillingness of the employees.

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