Commonwealth Bank Australia: E-Business Operations, Applications And Strategies

Overview of Company’s Operations

Discuss about the E-Business for Commonwealth Bank Australia.

Commonwealth Bank is one of the leading banks in Australia that provides a number of banking and financial services to its customers along with retail, insurance, premium, superannuation and many others. E-business is a business strategy and presence that is a must and the same is expected by the customers as well. Customers prefer the applications and services to be completely accessible through web as a medium and the report covers the same aspect for the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. Company’s operations, e-commerce site description and utility, e-business applications, e-commerce marketing strategy, e-commerce supply chain strategy, e-commerce security strategy and IT architecture are covered in the report.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia offers financial and banking services to the customers and its operations include integrated financial services, including retail, premium, business and institutional banking, funds management, superannuation, insurance, investment and share-broking products and services. There are a number of initiatives that are run by the company such as in the sectors of education, innovation, performance reporting and many others (Commbank, 2016).

The e-commerce site of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia is easy to use and lists out all the features and functionalities in a clear and concise manner. There is a menu that is placed at the top of the home page that includes the menu options and sub-options to allow the user to choose from the desired one. There are also a number of options for the assistance to the user in terms of the search capability, technical assistance or other help that may be required. Log in functionality and the option to choose the location automatically or manually is also included in the e-commerce site. The company overview, contact details and the operations are also listed in an easy to understand structure.

The banking and finance related services that are present on the e-commerce site are categorized in to three categories as personal, business, corporate and institutional. The applications that are offered to the customers through the e-commerce site are as listed below.

There are a number of banking services that are offered by the application of the Commonwealth Game of Australia. The customers can view and apply for a number of banking account types such as savings account, transaction account and likewise. Credit card selector tool can also be utilized through this application along with the repayment calculator. A comparison between the various options under the banking account or credit cards can also be done to make the user understand the best available option as per the requirements. Personal loan services allow the user to use the selector tool, borrowing calculator and repayment calculator to understand the services that are offered. Insurance, travelling, savings, youth banking and buying a car are some of the other services offered under this application. The registered users who have availed the net banking can utilize the personal banking services as well such as balance enquiry, transferring of the funds and likewise.

E-Commerce Site

The application provides the users with all the essential details that would assist them in the process of buying a new home. The information around the home loans such as repayments calculator, upfront cost, borrowing calculator and much more can be used along with applying for the home loan. A detailed and step by step guidance is also made available for a number of buying options such as purchasing of a new home, renovation of the existing home, refinance of the home, purchase of another home, processes during the building and construction of the home and many others (Magutu, 2016).

This is the application that allows the users and the customers to invest better and smarter. It lists out the details on share trading, term deposits, managed funds, property investments, investment growth bonds and SMSF. Financial planning and the planning associated with the investments can be done with ease through the aid of this application that is offered by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

There are a number of options under this application as low fee super funds and self managed super funds along with the steps to plan better for the retirement. This application would allow the customers to invest better by proving a set of guidelines to follow and would also allow the ease of banking through the e-banking medium. Financial planning and the tracking of the account and the related activities can also be done easily with this application.

There are a number of e-commerce marketing strategies that have been followed by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia to ensure that its online presence is noticed and utilized by the customers.

The footer section of the site provides a link to the popular social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter and YouTube to allow the visitors to connect with the site using any of these mediums. It will not only allow the customers to feel connected with the site but will also market the site on the social media platforms through these user accounts. The social media presence and social media marketing is extremely necessary for the present day businesses and the same has been utilized intelligently by the business (Evans, 2016).

The site has been optimized correctly and quite intelligently to score well on the site rankings and the results that are retrieved from the search engines. The non-functional requirements such as usability, availability and reliability of the services are included so that the site can reach out to maximum number of users and maintain a strong customer base.

E-Business Applications

It is believed that presence and addition of a blog can improve the site traffic and customer engagement associated with a particular e-commerce website. The strategy has been well adopted by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia as there is a link the site’s blog in the footer section. The blog presents a number of user reviews, stories, experiences and other details about the services and applications offered by the business and are also updated frequently. This adds a lot to the excellent marketing strategy that is adopted by the business (Shabbir, 2016).

The e-commerce and e-business utilization by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia has ensured the customers with the quicker response to their requests, non-stop utilization of the services and faster delivery as well. Since the company is associated with banking and financial operations, there is not huge amount of inventory that is associated with it. However, the required supply chain strategies to maintain the supply chain management have been adapted by the company.

The response to the customer requests is given almost immediately along with the adoption of continuous improvement and updates associated with all of the services, applications and operations. The necessary information associated with every single component is also made available on the website of the company to maintain the flow of the supply chains (Reis, 2016).

Security has emerged as a huge concern for the e-businesses due to the increase in the number of attacks and the options to introduce the attacks. There are a number of entry points that are now available to the attackers which has made the overall security infrastructure weaker and more exposed than before. However, there is a constant effort being done to improve the security practices and the same is the case with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (Lao and Wang, 2005).

Since the services that are offered by the company are associated with banking and finance, the nature of information that is associated with it is sensitive, confidential and private in nature. There are mechanisms that are adopted to maintain the security of the business. There is a login functionality implemented in the web site to allow only the authenticated customers to use the core features of the site and single sign on and single sign offs are implemented in the same along with the multi-layer authentication as well. The information that is exchanged over the site is also encrypted so that the attackers may not succeed in utilizing the information even when they get hold of it. A secure version of Http that is Https is used for accessing the web site so that all the communications that are wired over the site are encrypted and secure (Niranjanamurthy, 2016).

E-Commerce Marketing Strategy

The e-business and the e-commerce web site of Commonwealth Bank of Australia follow a well defined IT architecture in the design and the implementation as well. The necessary aspects of the architecture such as fulfillment of the functional and non-functional requirements along with the ability to provide the enhanced user experience has been made possible with the help of the site. The e-commerce IT model that is used in the site is Business to Consumer (B2C) and Business to Business (B2B) in this case. The major portion of the services that are available are designed for the consumers such as banking, investing and likewise. The small and medium scale businesses can also make use of the services through the corporate and business banking options.

Conclusion

E-commerce is the buzzword in the present era and it is difficult for any business or organization to flourish in the present era without the online presence. Commonwealth Bank of Australia is one such company that has a marked online presence and has an e-commerce web site as well to offer the services and applications to the customers. There are a number of e-business applications that are offered to the customers for personal or corporate banking in terms of home buying, banking, credit card related activities and many others. The marketing strategy that has been adopted by the business is also as per the latest marketing norms and parameters. The involvement of social media platforms and social media marketing strategy has enabled the company to reach out to the maximum number of customers. IT architecture and the supply chain strategies that have been adopted are also in accordance with the required services. Security is also something that is taken care of properly by the site owners by the involvement of the advanced and latest security mechanisms. Use of multi layers authentication, secure http, encrypted information and likewise are also implemented well in the web site.

References

Commbank, (2016). Personal banking including accounts, credit cards and home loans - CommBank. [online] Commbank.com.au. Available at: https://www.commbank.com.au/ [Accessed 23 Sep. 2016].

Evans, M. (2016). Forbes Welcome. [online] Forbes.com. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/allbusiness/2014/01/16/12-e-commerce-strategies-to-grow-your-business-this-year/#29b47c86ec9d [Accessed 23 Sep. 2016].

Lao, G. and Wang, L. (2005). Application of e-commerce security management strategy in banking. Proceedings of the 7th international conference on Electronic commerce - ICEC '05.

Magutu, P. (2016). E-Commerce Products and Services in the Banking Industry: The Adoption and Usage in Commercial Banks in Kenya. [online] Available at: https://ibimapublishing.com/articles/JEBS/2011/678961/678961.pdf [Accessed 23 Sep. 2016].

Niranjanamurthy, M. (2016). The study of E-Commerce Security Issues and Solutions. [online] Available at: https://www.ijarcce.com/upload/2013/july/69-o-Niranjanamurthy%20-The%20study%20of%20E-Commerce%20Security%20Issues%20and%20Solutions.pdf [Accessed 23 Sep. 2016].

Reis, J. (2016). Supply Chain Strategies in the Context of an E-commerce Chain. [online] Researchgate.net. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sivanilza_Machado3/publication/275019438_Supply_Chain_Strategies_In_The_Context_Of_An_E-Commerce_Chain_E-Chain/links/552e68070cf2acd38cb9451d.pdf?origin=publication_detail [Accessed 23 Sep. 2016].

Shabbir, (2016). 19 Essential Ecommerce Marketing Strategies. [online] Bootstrappingecommerce.com. Available at: https://bootstrappingecommerce.com/ecommerce-marketing-strategies/ [Accessed 23 Sep. 2016].