Watch out

You could lose your business

Do you think there are many risks in ebusiness? 

Risk number one: Do you know you are in ebusiness?

 Click here for risk number two

Using the Internet to do business introduces a whole new collection of risks.

Most people in business are pretty risk aware. They have learned by their own or others mistakes and realise they have to take some risk to make a good return.

Risks associated with the Internet have caught a number of people and have lost their business and livelihood.

Why? Because they are often complex and difficult to avoid or minimise

The most important thing about risk is to know it is there and use your knowledge to make the best from it.

Risk management is now a very well defined process (which can easily be learned) to:

• identify risks
• prioritise and
• minimising
  • occurrence and
  • impact on Your Business.

So what are these risks? 

• Communication with customers, clients or suppliers via email.
• Ordering products or services by email from other businesses.
• Selling products or services via a website.
• Research on the internet to find industry trends, competitor information, reviews of products.
• Publishing information about our products and services electronically.
• Using the internet for storage and access to our business information.
• Online banking and bills paying.

What can we do?

Managing risk requires a systematic approach so let's test where we are......

Do you have this information currently documented on the ebusiness side of your business

Ebusiness description

·          how you are using the Internet in your business now and how you plan it to be a year from now – examples are ecommerce, marketing online, educating and training

·          your current objectives - ie what are you planning to achieve to increase the business

·          how your plans will affect everyone involved with your business including staff, customers, clients, and suppliers 

Objectives

·         your financial objectives - cutting costs, saving time, increasing customer base, or other requirements

·          how the aims fit in the business key result areas

·          how ebusiness will help to meet new  needs or demands – the results of any support  research

Management

·          have you identified the person or persons responsible for this ebusiness part of the enterprise. ; to  manage and deliver

·          management methodology/strategy to be adopted – meetings, communication

·          the risks and how you intend dealing with them – eg intellectual property, contracts with suppliers eg the web developer

Have a think on this and we can talk again tomorrow

If you would like more information just email and I will send you an ebook which will give you some useful planning material to help with the task ahead