Research Journal of Science & IT Management - RJSITM - The ...

Table of Contents 

Articles 

FUTURE TRENDS IN MOBILE COMMERCE: SERVICE OFFERINGS, TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES AND SECURITY 

CHALLENGES 

Ashok Kumar 

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF I-THOUN (INFORMATION THOUGHT NETWORK) 

Abhay Saxena, Dr. Pranav Pandya 

INTERNET BANKING: A CASE STUDY OF THE FACTORS INFLUENCING ITS ADOPTION IN MAURITIUS 

Dinesh Ramdhony, Deerajen Ramasawmy 

GRID COMPUTING: RELATED ISSUES AND BUSINESS APPLICATIONS 

Ahasanul Haque 

VENDOR RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT PROCESS FOR AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY TO 

REDUCE THE COST OF QUALITY 

Shivagond Nagappa Teli 

Book Review 

SOLAR POWER GENERATION USING ZVT INTERLEAVED BOOST CONVERTER 

Shiny Jasmine

Future Trends In Mobile Commerce: Service 

Offerings, Technological Advances And Security 

Challenges 

Dr. P. S. NAGARAJAN 

Assistant Professor, Alagappa Institute of Management, Alagappa University, Karaikudi – 4. 

J. ASHOKKUMAR 

Junior Research Fellow, Alagappa Institute of Management, Alagappa University, Karaikudi – 4. 

INTRODUCTION 

Mobile commerce is the conduct of business 

transactions over the Internet-enabled wireless devices is 

slowly becoming a dominant force in business and society. 

The push for advancing technology and the pull of public 

demand for low-cost, high-speed communications and 

ubiquitous access to information anytime anywhere have 

revolutionized the Telecommunications industry over the 

past two decades. This revolution has led Canada to have 

one of the lowest Internet access charges among G7 nations 

and to also have the lowest mobile communications of them 

all. More recently, Internet access and high computing 

power in wireless devices began to pave the way for the 

introduction of broadband interactive multimedia 

applications. Nevertheless, the wireless Web market is still 

in its infancy, and mobile commerce (m-commerce) is 

expected to evolve significantly in the future, especially in 

view of the current implementation of 3G systems and the 

future deployment of 4G systems, inter-connecting a 

multitude of diverse wireless networks, such as WBAN, 

WPAN, WLAN, and WMAN .m-commerce is the product 

of interaction among business transactions, Internet 

applications, and mobile communications. It is a highly 

evolved version of the 1980’s t-commerce (commerce via 

telephony) and the 1990’s e-commerce (commerce via the 

Internet). There has been a revolutionary change in cellular 

mobile communications in every decade. The first 

generation (1G) systems, introduced in the early 1980s, 

provided analog voice-only communications and the second 

generation (2G) systems, introduced in the early 1990s, 

provided digital voice applications and circuit-switched lowspeed 

data services. The introduction of third-generation 

(3G) systems resumed in the 21st century, with the focus 

shifting to packet data instead of just voice. The fourthgeneration 

(4G) systems will likely provide broadband IPbased 

multimedia services around the 2010. 

As wireless evolves from a secondary means of 

communication to a principal means of communication, it 

leads to the graying of lines between personal interactions 

and business transactions. Although the growth and 

pervasiveness of this continuing wireless revolution appears 

to be inevitable, the path and speed of growth of this 

technology are not so predictable. It is clear that different 

generations of mobile communication systems have evolved 

to satisfy the demands of high data rate, high mobility, wide 

area coverage, diverse applications, high spectral efficiency, 

high flexibility of mobile devices and networks, and low 

costs. In view of this backdrop, it is anticipated that m- 

commerce will become widely popular and ubiquitously 

available. In this paper, future trends in m-commerce 

services and technologies, as well as privacy concerns and 

security challenges will be highlighted 

WIRELESS USER EQUIPMENT AND SYSTEMS 

Today’s communication-centric and computingcentric 

devices are becoming a single intelligent wireless 

device. The future user wireless devices, dubbed as 

universal wireless handheld devices, will have numerous 

functionalities, all aiming to establish communications, 

enhance education, furnish entertainment, provide 

information, and conduct transactions for mobile users. Few 

of the device features are already available in handheld 

devices, but many of them, yet to be incorporated, will need 

to increase the device size, weight, complexity, power, 

memory, and processing requirements. To this end, 

engineering design trade-offs will be required to form the 

right balance between devices’ capabilities and their 

constraints. 

With low-power requirements and long-lasting 

batteries, the universal wireless handheld devices will be 

small, low-cost, light-weight, easy-to-use, and IC-cardreader 

equipped. They can be attached to desk-top/lap-top 

computers and their peripherals, including keyboards, 

printers, scanners, loud speakers, and fax machines. They 

will have high-resolution colour screens to present pin-point 

information, thus minimizing the burden on users’ attention. 

They will also possess features such as simple icon-menu, 

touch-pad, and artificial-intelligence-based natural 

languages. The wireless devices and networks will employ 

intrusion detection systems to detect cracking attempts in 

real time and to take effective protective measures based on 

the information it has. These devices include anti-virus 

software to handle malicious code and to support for 

authenticating users, servers, and applications. 

On a standalone basis, the devices will function as 

alarms, clocks, calculators, timers, flash lights, calendars, 

organizers, dictionaries, tape recorders, compasses, cameras, 

pocket PCs (with office applications), radios, TVs, 

biometric control devices, audio and video players. They 

will also be able to measure the temperature, pressure, 

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humidity, and heartbeat. They will all have high-speed, 

always-on, packet-switched bandwidth-on-demand access 

capabilities to the Internet and other networks, as well as to 

other wireless devices and equipment, anytime anywhere. 

While connected, they will function as virtual keys, secure 

ID cards, digital cash, tag-readers, remote control devices, 

pagers, locating devices, and phones, and will also get e- 

books, e-newspapers, e-mails, voice-mails, and video-mails. 

Although use of data, and, in general, multimedia 

continue to accelerate exponentially, voice will remain a 

dominant mode of communications while the user is on the 

move, for talking or listening provides hands- and eye-free 

operations and is also several times faster than typing or 

reading text messages. However, to convey the same 

information, typed texts require less bandwidth than spoken 

words; hence, the immense popularity of SMS. In view of 

the fact that voice, video, keypad, and pen can be all used as 

a means to input, and text, audio, and video can represent 

output formats, a number of I/O enabling technologies will 

have to be incorporated in the wireless devices. These 

technologies may include 

speech recognition (converting spoken words to 

text to avoid the use of alpha-numeric key pads), 

speech synthesis (converting e-mails to intelligible 

speech so as to hear the received e-mails), 

voice activation (bringing voice-control to navigate 

the Web sites and to replace a long series of 

sequential inputs in an automated voice-menudriven 

phone system), and 

 

Optical character recognition (converting handwritten 

text to typed-written format with a high 

degree of accuracy and an inherent learning 

mechanism). 

In the future, 4G systems will focus on seamlessly 

integrating all wireless networks, and they will be the 

platform for mobile systems. This focus contrasts with 3G 

systems, which merely focus on developing new standards 

and hardware. 4G systems will be all IP-based multimedia 

services in heterogeneous networks that allow users to use 

any system at anytime anywhere. The new challenge facing 

the mobile industry is to minimize the fragmentation of the 

market and to enable seamless interoperability so as to 

simulate the growth of mobile services. 4G devices should 

be multi-band, multi-functional, and multi-mode capable 

and be able to handle various contents. Also, 4G systems 

will provide the best connection to users. It is believed that 

the interfaces for 4G systems will exploit the new frequency 

spectrum that is to be identified by WRC-2007; therefore, a 

speculative time scale for a mature 4G system is beyond 

2010. 4G systems will be an evolved version of 3G systems 

and will also be based on a cellular system but will require 

very small cells. 4G systems will warrant the realization of 

automatic switching functions for such flexible networks, 

mobility control, coordination functions between layers 2 

and 3 to realize fast handover, rapid routing of packets, and 

so on. 4G systems will improve coverage in highly 

populated areas (i.e., hot spots) to carry more traffic by 

utilizing diverse access technologies to deliver the best 

possible services, while taking into account both cost and 

bandwidth efficiency. 

The primary 4G systems objectives over 3G 

systems objectives—higher transmission rate (by two orders 

of magnitude), larger capacity (by one order of magnitude), 

higher frequency band (beyond 3 GHz), single-device 

(ubiquitous, multi-functional, multi-service, multi-band), 

increased coverage (global roaming), simple billing (one bill 

with reduced total access cost), high quality of service 

(accommodating varying transmission rates, channel 

characteristics, bandwidth allocation, fault-tolerance levels, 

and different hand-off support), and lower system costs (one 

order of magnitude)—will directly play pivotal roles in all 

aspects of the next generation of m-commerce. 

M-COMMERCE SERVICES, PAYMENT, AND 

VALUE CHAIN 

There appears to be no m-commerce application 

that can be qualified as a “killer” application, per se. 

However, the key advantage of m-commerce is its ability to 

support a wide variety of attractive and innovative 

applications, and that will be the “killer” characteristic of m- 

commerce. It is worth highlighting that the highlypersonalized, 

context-aware, location-sensitive, time-critical 

applications, conducted in a very secure environment are the 

most promising m-commerce applications. There are 

indications that the next-generation of wireless 

communications services based on 4G systems will not be 

limited to human (as it has been before) but rather to 

anything that very small wireless chips can be attached to 

(i.e., machine-to-machine communications). M- 

commerce service categories encompassing sets of attractive 

applications. 

Mobile communications services originated from 

voice telephony. However, the cellular phone market, when 

measured in terms of the number of wireless devices, is 

becoming saturated at a rather rapid pace. In short, there can 

be no significant increase in traffic merely through voice 

telephony. In view of this limitation, there appear to be two 

viable strategies to achieve growth in mobile 

communications: (i) implementation of new mobile services 

with an array of diverse multimedia applications, and (ii) the 

introduction of new wireless devices with enhanced 

features, including direct device-to-device communications 

capabilities. The mobile multimedia applications warrant 

high transmission rates and allow various modalities—such 

as voice, data, image, music, text, and video—to be 

transmitted simultaneously and in an integrated fashion. The 

ubiquitous wireless devices with various radio interfaces 

possess capabilities to connect to a multitude of 

heterogeneous networks, including the Internet, PSTN, 

ISDN, and WLAN. They can also allow communications 

directly with other wireless devices, such as tether less 

machine-to-machine communications. Both of these 

developments can lead to a great increase in the volume of 

user traffic, thus increasing the average revenue per user, a 

key metric for measuring the profitability of mobile-based 

businesses. 

Future mobile systems will introduce various 

quality-of-service (QoS) levels in order to provide various 

types of best-effort multimedia services corresponding to 

users’ demand. QoS may include priority, reliability, bit 

error rate, security, and delay, jitter, and throughput 

measures. The conversational services, with their real-time 

voice/video, connection-oriented applications, are 

characterized by a low fixed delay of about 20 – 30 


milliseconds, a modest bit error rate of about 1E-03 to 1E- 

05, and a low-blocking probability for network access. On 

the other hand, transactional, retrieval, messaging, and 

distribution (e.g., multicasting) services, with their non-realtime 

connectionless applications, are characterized by a 

varying delay of 150 milliseconds or more, a low bit error 

rate of 1E-05 to 1E-07 to aim high data integrity, and a lowdelay 

probability for network access . It is worth noting that 

the effective user transmission rate (i.e., throughput) which 

can characterize, to a large extent, the set of m-commerce 

applications available to the user is a function of the cell size 

and the speed of the mobile user. For instance, a user in a 

stationary position in an urban area characterized by small 

cells can have a throughput 10 to 20 times higher than a user 

driving fast on a highway in a rural area consisting of large 

cells. 

Every generation of mobile services (e.g., 2G, 3G, 

and 4G) brings about more efficient spectrum utilization; 

that is, more users per unit spectrum per unit area (bits per 

second per Hz per square kilometres). Spectral efficiency 

measures the ability of a wireless system to deliver 

information or billable services. There are many factors 

which can contribute to the spectral efficiency of a system, 

including modulation format, channel coding technique, air 

interface overhead, multiple access method, and acceptable 

interference level, to name a few. The spectral efficiency for 

2G systems is about 0.15 to 0.20, that for 3G systems is 

about 0.25 to 0.30, and that for 4G systems will likely be as 

high as 3 to 4 bits per second per Hz .This efficiency will, in 

turn, reduce the overall service cost quite significantly. 

There are many factors shaping mobile billing, in 

general, and m-commerce payment, in particular. A major 

determining factor for the success of m-commerce is service 

affordability—such as low access, subscription, and usage 

fees. What basically the customer will have to pay depends 

on the fact that North America’s called-party-pays strategy, 

or Europe’s calling-party-pays strategy, or a reasonable mix 

of both will be employed. The service charge will also have 

to be a function of the user’s location, the time of call, the 

service type, the call priority, the service duration (measured 

in call seconds and/or Mega bytes), the call frequencies (to 

accommodate frequent micro-payments), and the payment 

plans (pre-pay or on-credit). Also, mobile payments, which 

are virtual payments, can be divided into macro-payments— 

typically a payment of $10 or more—and micro-payments— 

typically a payment of $10 or less. For a macro-payment, 

authentication through a trusted financial institution is 

required, which must be carried out over the public wireless 

access and wired-line backbone networks, while invoking 

all possible security measures. On the other hand, a micropayment 

may use the operator’s infrastructure or involve a 

cash card (in addition to the ID card which stores the 

confidential information, such as the user’s secret 

authentication key) and proximity payments through short 

distances by using Bluetooth, Infra-Red, RFID, and UWB 

technologies. 

The generic payment model for mobile commerce 

provides an abstract view of what information is passed 

between various parties to conclude a transaction and does 

not depict any particular ordering of the information flow. In 

the selection phase, the customer indicates what goods and 

services are desired, and he/she negotiates the price of the 

goods and services and the terms of conditions. The 

transaction details highlight the description of goods or 

services, the customer’s name, and other required details. 

The customer then responds with transaction credentials 

(which may contain the payment credentials), the 

transaction details, and some authentication of the customer. 

Upon authentication, the payment is approved, the funds are 

transferred, and the goods will be delivered, or services will 

be provided. 

In mobile payment, although confidentiality 

(making sure information is not visible to eavesdroppers), 

integrity (finding out the content has not been tampered 

with), and non-repudiation (proving the transaction has 

taken place) are primary concerns, authentication (ensuring 

communicating parties are certain of each other’s identity) is 

of paramount importance. As a result, public key 

cryptography, which is slower but more powerful than 

symmetric key cryptography, will be used for authentication 

and the exchange of symmetric session keys. In order to 

prevent a false (cracker’s) public key as a legitimate public 

key, a certificate authority issues a public key certificate that 

would contain the name, the public key, and the expiration 

date. In view of the fact that the emerging wireless devices 

will have more throughputs, processing power, and memory, 

more complex encryption techniques—such as longer keys 

and/or more sophisticated multi-level algorithms—will be 

employed to enhance mobile payment security. Although 

encryption can be the most effective tool for both privacy 

and security, it is generally used only as a security measure 

when m-commerce transactions are conducted and not when 

essential data are generally stored in databases. 

The development environment for m-commerce is 

significantly more complex than e-commerce, thus requiring 

a broader base of expertise. In m-commerce, it is virtually 

impossible to achieve all technical and business 

requirements simultaneously, for some are clearly in conflict 

with others. For instance, in the current state of technology, 

not all technical requirements (such as high-speed access 

and low-power devices) and business requirements (such as 

low-access fee and high-quality of service) can be 

completely fulfilled at the same time. Moreover, there are 

constraints associated with business and regulatory 

environments that can influence some of these requirements, 

such as service coverage, location determination, backward 

compatibility, and privacy concerns, to name a few. 

The m-commerce applications can be successfully 

provided to mobile users only when a number of enterprises, 

called the m-commerce value chain, are complementarily 

involved in the creation and delivery of these services, with 

the goal of sharing revenue. In order to drive interoperability 

of mobile data services, the world’s mobile operators, 

device and network suppliers, information and 

communication technology companies, application 

developers and content providers have joined forces to 

ensure seamless mobile services for end-users anywhere. 

This outcome will be achieved by defining industry-wide 

requirements, architectural frameworks, and industry 

specifications for enabling technologies and end-to-end 

interoperability, all based on open specifications of 

standards, protocols, and interfaces. 

The federal government also plays a pivotal role, 

not only in terms of setting policies and ensuring that 


egulatory issues are fully respected, but in terms of 

auctioning spectrum (instead of comparative bidding and 

lottery as licensing methods) .This role, in turn, can lead to 

huge investment requirements, which need to be met by 

some major players. 

M-commerce services with compelling contents are 

provided by tight business and strategic partnership 

arrangements and by involving a large number of 

companies, with each influencing other parties in the value 

chain. While no two value chains are the same, a company 

can assume multiple roles in the value chain for m- 

commerce, or a single role for a multiplicity of services, 

such as m-commerce, e-commerce. It would identify the 

main categories of players in the m-commerce value chain. 

M-COMMERCE ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES 

Providing mobile users with wireless 

communications functions for their communications, 

information, education, entertainment, and business needs, 

as well as giving wireless communications functions to 

stationary places for access and security and to moving 

objects for asset and logistic purposes form the cornerstones 

of mobile commerce. To achieve these goals, significant 

technological advances in a number of enabling 

technologies are anticipated. 

Radio frequency identification (RFID) is a 

generic term for technologies that use radio waves to 

automatically identify individual items or some of their 

attributes. RFID possesses several benefits over bar codes. 

First, it does not need to meet line-of-sight requirements as 

long as the RFID tags are within the range of a reader. 

Second, quite many number of RFID tags can be read 

simultaneously. Third, every unique item can have its own 

RFID tags. The mobile consumer will use RFID readers in 

their mobile phones to scan RFID tags, say in the packaging 

of products on store shelves, to pay for tolls and access fees, 

to purchase at vending machines and points of sales, to 

access secure rooms, buildings, and other partitioned areas, 

and to control home and office appliances. With RFID, a 

scanner can read the encoded information even when the tag 

is concealed. For example, it may be embedded in a 

product’s casing, or sewn into an item of clothing, or 

sandwiched between a banknote’s layered papers. The 

stealthy nature of RFID technology has raised concerns 

among privacy advocates that RFID tags could be tracked 

beyond their intended use. For example, security agencies 

might use them to covertly monitor individuals or their 

belongings. Lower frequencies (LF and MF) usually are 

cheaper, use less power, are better able to penetrate nonmetallic 

substances, and are ideal for scanning objects with 

high-water content. On the other hand, higher frequencies 

(HF and UHF) typically offer a better range and can transfer 

data faster; they tend to be more directed and, thus, require a 

clearer path. Active tags can have a farther read range than 

passive tags, but passive tags are less expensive and require 

no maintenance. RFID will play a critical role in emerging 

wireless access and monitoring applications, especially in 

today’s security-aware era. 

Location determination is seen to be an 

indispensable feature for mobile commerce. Network-based 

positioning is carried out by terrestrial systems through 

various techniques, such as cell of origin, time of arrival, 

angle of arrival, and enhanced observed time difference. The 

device-based positioning is carried out by satellite systems 

typically using three or four MEO satellites, also known as 

GPS. However, a hybrid approach delivering the accuracy 

of device-centric option, while avoiding a line-of-sight 

requirement as well as increased cost, size, and power 

consumption, is also used. Though FCC does not require the 

mobile network operators to use a specific technology, it has 

indicated specific performance metrics for location-enabled 

technology. For network-based technology, location 

information accuracy is required to be within 100 meters 

67% of the time and within 300 meters 95% of the time. But 

for the device-centric technology, these distances must be 

halved. In view of possible launches of LEO satellites and 

the significant increase in the processing capabilities of the 

wireless devices, as well as the fact that the cell sizes are 

shrinking from macro to micro to pico, the location-based 

technologies are expected to become more accurate and less 

costly in the future. 

Software defined radio (SDR) enables 

reconfigurable system architectures for wireless networks 

and user devices. To provide users with m-commerce 

services under an array of heterogeneous networks, certain 

design problems (such as limitations in device size, cost, 

power consumption, and backward compatibilities to 

systems) must all be overcome. The most viable way of 

implementing these types of wireless devices is to adopt a 

software radio approach. The received analog signal is 

processed by a reprogrammable baseband digital signal 

processor in accordance with the wireless environment. 

However, certain problems then need to be addressed—such 

as an analog radio interface with multiple antennas and 

amplifiers and very fast high-speed analog-to-digital 

conversions and DSP functions—which can all, in turn, add 

to the circuit complexity and high-power consumption and 

dissipation. SDR can provide the user with a single piece of 

scalable hardware that is at once compatible at a global 

scale. 

Software defined radio (SDR) enables 

reconfigurable system architectures for wireless networks 

and user devices. To provide users with m-commerce 

services under an array of heterogeneous networks, certain 

design problems (such as limitations in device size, cost, 

power consumption, and backward compatibilities to 

systems) must all be overcome. The most viable way of 

implementing these types of wireless devices is to adopt a 

software radio approach. The received analog signal is 

processed by a reprogrammable baseband digital signal 

processor in accordance with the wireless environment. 

However, certain problems then need to be addressed—such 

as an analog radio interface with multiple antennas and 

amplifiers and very fast high-speed analog-to-digital 

conversions and DSP functions—which can all, in turn, add 

to the circuit complexity and high-power consumption and 

dissipation. SDR can provide the user with a single piece of 

scalable hardware that is at once compatible at a global 

scale. 

Adaptive modulation and coding (AMC) is one 

of the most viable and effective means to dynamically 

combat wireless channel degradation and meet performance 

requirements. In AMC, for the same symbol rate (i.e., 

occupied bandwidth), the signal power, the modulation 


technique, the information rate, and the channel-coding rate, 

can all be adjusted in accordance with instantaneous 

variations in channel conditions (such as multi-path and 

proximity to the base station) and quality of service 

requirements. Forward-error- correcting (FEC) codes 

(whose rates may range from 1/2 to 5/6) and digital 

modulation techniques (ranging from QPSK to 64 QAM) 

will be dynamically adapted for every single individual, 

giving rise to up to a six-fold spectral efficiency (bits per 

second per Hz) . 

Mobile ad hoc networks vis-à-vis fixed topology 

wireless networks may be characterized by wireless nodes, 

the lack of fixed infrastructure support, dynamic topologies, 

bandwidth-constrained variable-capacity links, energyconstrained 

operations, and limited physical security. In 

such peer-to-peer networks, end-user wireless handsets also 

act as secure wireless routers that are part of the overall 

network infrastructure. Upstream and downstream 

transmissions hop through subscriber handsets and fixed 

wireless routers to reach the destination. Routing for the best 

path is defined for the least power. Mobile ad hoc networks 

will help a community of subscribers to increase 

dramatically spectrum reuse and reduce overall power 

consumption. Mobile ad hoc networks bring about a host of 

challenges and opportunities, but due to emerging wireless 

device-to-device connectivity requirements, mobile ad hoc 

networks will prove to be an ever-essential component. 

PRIVACY, SECURITY, AND TRUST IN M- 

COMMERCE 

The growth of the Internet and e-commerce has 

dramatically increased the amount of personal information 

that can be potentially collected about individuals by 

corporations and governments. Such data collections, along 

with usage tracking (click stream data) and the sharing of 

information with third parties are always invoking issues of 

privacy, especially in view of the fact that they can be easily 

done through high-speed links and high-capacity storage 

devices in a very accurate fashion, and most often without 

the consumer’s or citizen’s expressed knowledge or consent 

. This valuable information, often collected by hidden tools 

such as cookies and Web bugs can be shared with third 

parties for marketing purposes and surveillance operations, 

and its perceived value has been occasionally behind the 

stock-market valuations of some companies. In fact, this 

detailed information can be combined with other off-line 

data such as demographic and psychographic data to predict 

a user’s interests, needs, and possible future purchases. To 

deal with the problem of profiling, trust seals and 

government regulations appear to be two forces pushing for 

more and better privacy disclosures on the Web. The former 

tend to promote privacy in the form of self-regulation, 

where they may eventually become more of a privacy 

advocate for corporations rather than for consumers. The 

latter can advance privacy through legislation but can also 

potentially create privacy worries for citizens by monitoring 

their telecommunications traffic. For instance, the FBI’s 

powerful DCS1000 Carnivore program is a computerautomated 

snooping tool that is capable of intercepting and 

sorting out millions of text messages, such as telephone 

conversations and e-mails passing through ISPs by 

monitoring incoming and outgoing messages to specific IP 

addresses. It is clear that governments’ regulations and 

legislation can be as likely to thwart privacy as to enforce it. 

Even though wireless communications possess 

numerous merits, privacy is not one of them. M-commerce 

possesses, in addition to all privacy issues related to e- 

commerce, another major privacy threat: the sharing of 

knowledge about a user’s location with others. There are 

basically three solutions to this positioning problem: i) the 

network-based solution, where the calculations are carried 

out by the cellular network and the positioning information 

may then be passed to the user; ii) the device-based solution, 

where the wireless device computes its own position; and 

iii) a hybrid solution. The pitfall associated with the 

network-based positioning is that the information about the 

user’s whereabouts can be collected but not necessarily 

passed to the user. Instead, the information may be exploited 

by other entities, all without the user’s knowledge, let alone 

his/her consent. Also, there are some privacy implications 

about the requirement that wireless devices need to be 

embedded with a location-tracking technology to provide 

location-based services, such as targeted advertising and 

finding the nearest “X.” For instance, if location records 

were kept over time, an in-depth profile could be compiled 

for other, perhaps unwarranted, purposes. 

The essence of a business transaction is based on 

trust, and trust must be mutual. Trust in a business context 

may be expressed in laws, contracts, regulations, and 

policies, as well as in personal reputations and long-term 

relationships, but these measures are not easily transferable 

to an online environment. The people online are generally 

rather too trusting when involved in personal interactions, 

such as downloading software or engaging in chat rooms 

with strangers, but they are rather distrustful when involved 

in business transactions. A major barrier to the success of 

online businesses has been the fundamental lack of faith 

between most businesses and consumers. This lack of trust 

is mainly due to the fact that consumers must provide 

detailed personal and confidential information upon request. 

For instance, the seller is not sure if the credit card number 

is genuine and belongs to the buyer, nor is the buyer sure 

that the seller would not misuse the credit card number for 

purposes other than the one allowed. It takes a very long 

time for the parties in click-and-mortar businesses (i.e., e- 

commerce) to establish the same level of trust which has 

existed for so long between the parties in brick-and-mortar 

businesses, and it will take an even longer time for pushand-mortar 

businesses (i.e.,m-commerce) to achieve the 

same level of trust. 

The issue of health and safety in wireless devices 

either as legally imposed by the governments’ regulations or 

as apparently complied by the manufacturer’s raises the 

issue of trust. In principle, the strong majority of people 

accept the safety guidelines, health recommendations, and 

regulatory standards issued by governments and what the 

manufacturers claim to respect. But, on the other hand, some 

of the health and safety guidelines in the past did not protect 

citizens’ safety and consumers’ heath. The guidelines and 

advisories for nuclear tests and smoking during the fifties 

are two cases in point. 


CONCLUSION 

The major limitations of m-commerce, as viewed 

today, are small screens on wireless devices, limited 

processing power, modest memory, restricted power 

consumption, poor voice quality, low-speed data 

transmission, non-ubiquitous coverage, unproven security, 

scarce bandwidth, and possible health hazards. In view of 

the fact that mobile computing is accelerating at a rate 

faster than Moore’s law, and according to Edholm’s law of 

bandwidth , wireless transmission rates also follow Moore’s 

law, many of these limitations are expected to diminish, if 

not being eliminated, over time. 

In light of the fact that m-commerce is just at its 

inception, the real potential has yet to be visualized, let 

alone tapped. Noting that the highly-personalized, contextaware, 

location-sensitive, time-critical applications are the 

most promising applications in m-commerce, there are many 

m-commerce applications envisaged to become very widely 

popular. They include: i) digital cash (to enable mobile users 

to settle transactions requiring micro-payments), ii) humanto-machine 

communications (to facilitate mobile users to 

communicate to stationary locations for access and security 

and to moving objects for asset and logistic purposes using 

RFID technologies), iii) telemetry (to activate remote 

recording devices for sensing and measurement 

information), and iv) broadband-interactive multimedia 

communications and messaging anytime, anywhere. 

4G systems with more security, higher speeds, 

higher capacity, lower costs, and more intelligent 

infrastructures and devices will help realize m- 

commerce applications. With improved wireless security 

and privacy through data encryption and user education, on 

the one hand, and with the wide deployment of 4G systems 

,it is anticipated that m-commerce will inescapably, become 

the most dominant method of conducting business 

transactions. 

REFERENCES 

[1] ITU, World Telecommunications Development Report, 

2008 

[2] Merrill Lynch, Wireless Matrix, 3Q03. 

[3] A. Mehrotra, Cellular Radio: Analog and Digital 

Systems, Artech House, 1999. 

[4] www.umts-forum.org 

[5] www.docomo.com 

[6] K. Tachikawa, “A perspective on the evolution of 

mobile communications,” IEEE Communications 

Magazine, pp. 66-73, October 2003. 

[7] Y. Kim et al., “Beyond 3G: vision, requirements, and 

enabling technologies,” IEEE Communications Magazine, 

pp. 120-124, March 2003. 

[8] A. Dornan, The Essential Guide to Wireless 

Communications Applications, Prentice-Hall, 2001. 

[9] N. J. Muller, Wireless A to Z, McGraw-Hill, 2003. 

[10] U. Varshney and R. Jain, “Issues in emerging 4G 

wireless networks,” IEEE Computer Magazine, pp. 94-96, 

June 2001. 

[11] L. Garber, “Will 3G really be the next big wireless 

technology?” IEEE Computer Magazine, pp. 26-32, 

January 2002. 

[12] Y. Yuan and J. J. Zhang, “Toward an appropriate 

business model for m-commerce,” International Journal of 

Mobile Communications, pp. 35-56, January 2003. 

[13] B. G. Evans and K. Baughan, “Visions of 4G,” 

Electronics and Communication Engineering Journal, pp. 

293-303, December 2000. 

[14] J. Z. Sun, J. Sauvola, and D. Howie “Features in 

future: 4G visions from a technical perspective,” 

Proceedings of IEEE GlobeCom Conference, pp. 3533- 

3537, November 2001. 

[15] T. Zahariadis, “Trends in the path to 4G,” 

Communications Engineer, pp. 12-15, February 2003. 

[16] S. K. Hui and K. H. Yeung, “Challenges in the 

migration to 4G mobile systems,” IEEE Communications 

Magazine, pp. 54-59, December 2008. 

[17] J. A. Senn, “The emergence of m-commerce,” IEEE 

Computer Magazine, pp. 148-150, December 2009. 

[18] E. Turban, D. King, J. Lee, and D. Viehland, 

Electronic Commerce 2009: a Managerial Perspective, 

Pearson, 2010. 

*** 


Theoretical framework of I-Thoun 

(Information Thought Network) 

(A futuristic generation computational device) 

Dr. Pranav Pandya, 

Chancellor of Dev Sanskriti University,Haridwar, India 

Prof. Abhay Saxena 

Associate Professor and Head, Dept. Of Computer Science, Dev sanskriti University, Hardwar, India 

Abstract: The world of computing is changing 

enormously. The new generation computing like green, 

cloud, grid has taken the place of conventional computing. 

The latest generation gadgets i-pad, i-pod, i-phone are 

making the life smooth and affordable. Most of these 

devices are controlled by the human being with some 

physical movement. Think of the situation when the 

futuristic devices will move with the power of thoughts and 

speed of emotions. The present paper is a core idea of i- 

Thoun (an electronic gadget Intelligent based Thought 

network), a new generation computing device which will 

run with the speed of thoughts. The network, system 

connectivity and data transfer all will be available with a 

high definition speed and with enormous security. The 

present paper will give the technocrats a new vision and 

direction of the futuristic computing devices. 

KeyWords: I-Thoun, futuristic computing, Internet 

devices, thought power 

INTRODUCTION 

We do believe that God has created this world but the 

technology avatar is a new incarnation of human being 

endeavours. The paradigm shifted from the world which 

revolves around the God to technology governed life. The 

wonderful world of I-revolution has shaken the world. The 

enormous demand for I-Pad, I-Pod and I-Phone is across the 

globe. “Information technology and business are becoming 

inextricably interwoven. I don't think anybody can talk 

meaningfully about one without the talking about the other” 

(Bill Gates, 2004). 

We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor 

planet of a very average star. But we can understand the 

Universe. That makes us something very special (Stephen 

Hawkins, 2010). The banking, medical science, 

transportation, communication and education mostly track 

on one common platform i.e. technology and believe it most 

of us enjoys it. 

THOUGHTS & DREAMS – THE ENOURMOUS 

POWERHOUSES 

The world which evolved around the thoughts, emotions and 

sentiments is enormous. The length and breadth of the world 

looks small when the thought flies along with the 

imagination. The question bobbles up in mind, why only 

Newton had a wonderful idea of innovation that leads 

toward the ‘Principle of Gravity’. The falling of apple 

happens several times in our life but we never come up with 

new idea. 

The (Steve, 2005) rightly quoted, “Your time is limited, so 

don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped 

by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s 

thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out 

your own inner voice and most important, have the courage 

to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already 

know what you truly want to become. Everything else is 

secondary.” 

Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam had quoted, “Great dreams of great 

dreamers are always transcended.” We usually hesitate to 

dream. It is important to be innovative and it comes through 

dreams, the thought power to materialize those dreams into 

reality makes man a real innovator, an inventor or 

sometimes lucky to get even a noble. Every great dream 

begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within 

yourself the strength, the patience, and the passion to change 

the world (Harriet Tubman, 1865). We know that the 

technology is good but it should be used to make the best of 

mankind. The most exciting breakthroughs of the 21st 

century will not occur because of technology but because of 

an expanding concept of what it means to be human” (Johns 

Naisbitt, 2000). The scientist community is making some 

sincere efforts in this direction. 

• A wheel chair that reads your mind: (emmet cole, 

2007) 

Spanish scientists have begun work on a new braincomputer 

interface, or BCI, capable of converting thought 

into commands that a wheelchair can execute. Researchers 

are developing a thought-controlled robotic wheelchair. The 

Spanish researchers hope to develop a small, mobile 

interface that works with electroencephalogram electrodes, 

or EEG, placed on the scalp. Two 800-MHz Intel 

computers mounted on the wheelchair will process these 

readings and send instructions to the wheels. After about a 

week's training the software will adapt to patients' thought 

patterns for simple commands such as "left" and "right." 

• Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) 

A more user-friendly brain-machine interface, (Bex 

coxworth, 2011) 


Practical thought-controlled devices, such as wheelchairs, 

artificial arms, or even cars, are perhaps a step closer to 

reality thanks to research being carried out at Switzerland's 

Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). The 

(EPFL) system utilizes EEG readings obtained from a 

network of sensors on the user’s scalp to control assistive 

devices such as an electric wheelchair; in addition it uses 

statistical analysis, or probability theory, when processing 

these readings, allowing it to learn what the user expects of 

it. When combined with a Shared Control system, which 

uses cameras and sensors to augment the thought control 

system, it can accomplish tasks such as avoiding obstacles 

without constant mental updates from the user. 

• The Mental Typewriter (Mike Hanlon, 2006) 

Scientists demonstrated a brain-computer interface that 

translates brain signals into computer control signals at 

CeBIT in Berlin. The initial project demonstrates how a 

paralysed patient could communicate by using a mental 

typewriter alone – without touching the keyboard. 

• Playing computer games with the blink of an eye 

(Paul Ridden, 2010) 

Under the supervision of Dr Aldo Faisal, a group of 

undergraduates from Imperial College London have adapted 

an open source version of the Atari video game Pong so that 

the player's paddle can be controlled using only eye 

movement. an infra-red sensor and a webcam to a pair of 

glasses to track the movement of a player's eye and feeding 

the information to synchronization software on a laptop that 

translates it into onscreen paddle movement. 

• Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape 

Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 

2100 (Michio Kaku, 2011) 

In all likelihood, by 2100 we will control computers via tiny 

brain sensors and, like magicians, move objects around with 

the power of our minds. Artificial intelligence will be 

dispersed throughout the environment, and Internet-enabled 

contact lenses will allow us to access the world's 

information base or conjure up any image we desire in the 

blink of an eye. Meanwhile, cars will drive themselves using 

GPS, and if room-temperature superconductors are 

discovered, vehicles will effortlessly fly on a cushion of air, 

coasting on powerful magnetic fields and ushering in the age 

of magnetism. 

• Xbox Kinect foretells computers of the future ( Matt 

Warman , 2011) 

Microsoft's head of research says that computers of the 

future will recognise you and be more intuitive than ever. In 

a radical new approach to gaming, Kinect uses a camera 

simply to “read” a user’s movements and insert them into a 

video game. “You are the controller” is the slogan, and, in 

short, the device allows people to take up bowling, tennis 

and much more, simply by standing in front of their TV 

screens. The change in computing scenario is pushing the 

world towards smarter technologies rather than quicker. 

Smarter, not faster, is the future of computing research 

(Steeve Lohr, 2011). In an interesting article in Thinkquest, 

May 2011, the future of computers were predicted as the 

computers are going to all be in cars and may even drive the 

cars someday. It also talks about cat liter box to cupboards 

that open up on request. The possibilities are boundless and 

endless. 

I POWER OF THOUGHT 

What can’t be conquered by sword can be easily achievable 

by thought. The power of thought is enormous and it can 

change the destiny (Sharma Sriram, 1985). Thought is 

everywhere. You are surrounded by an ocean of thought. 

You are floating in the ocean of thought. You are absorbing 

certain thoughts and repelling some in the thought-world, 

(Shivanand Swami, 1997). The power of thought is like a 

spiritual power, (Emerson, 1935). 

CONCEPT OF I-THOUN 

The I-Thoun”, (intelligent Thought network device) will be 

a new version of trio i.e. I-Pad, I-pod, I-phone with advance 

features. It may have a small tablet shape device. The menu 

button will shows the features of education, TV, 

entertainment, sport, travel tour, telephone, guide, 

knowledge and a virtual teacher. This will provide the entire 

syllabus of quality continental education at the figure tip. 

The various streams, subjects and the course contents will 

be easily available. It will also have the long series of TV’s 

program especially cartoons covering the entire globe. The 

Pandora Box – (I-thoun) will have much more to cheer 

about. 

FUNCTIONALITY OF I-THOUN 

The daily digital newspaper will display automatically all 

because of the idea to have a newspaper. An idea to have 

food will bring the ‘I-Thoun’ to display the contents and the 

availability of food in the house. It was also be ready with 

the nearby grocery stores and food marts. It will also be 

connected with the helping servant ‘Robomania’ (a new 

version of Robots) who will be ready to press the menu 

button to have the food. It will also help the Microwave to 

get started automatically to pre-heating process so as to 

serve the food on time. 

I-thoun will also perform “Daily health check up”. The 

vitamins, minerals, carbohydrate, proteins are available in 

various potencies (in aroma format) just like time waver 

machine (Germany). The moment one press the button of 

Medicine and the entire stuff of pathology, biochemistry and 

routine check up parameters will be there on the screen. One 

can inhale the prescribed medicines with the help of ‘I- 

Thoun’ and will definitely get away with the smell and taste 

of medicines while consuming the same orally. 

The idea to play Basket ball will allow the I-thoun to display 

the virtual basket ball court on screen. It will also prompt to 

choose any of the continental teams and as the concept of 

countries will be over by 2025, it will be purely on the 

continent based. Surprisingly one has to buy this in 

“Eudolee”, which is nothing but a combination of Euro, 

Dollar and Rupee. 

I-thoun will also take care of security issue seriously. The 

‘thought enabled lock’ will be good exercise in taking care 

of valuable materials and property. The various digital 

mantras (thought generated data packets) to open and close 


the digital doors will also make the police station a part of 

history. 

improve the living condition and a pathway for global 

harmony, peace and brotherhood. 

II WORK PROCESS 

Basically it will work on the Thought Technology. The I- 

thoun microprocessors will receive signals from the brain 

and perform the process which is either pre-programmed or 

can be develop through ANN trained chips. The voluminous 

database will be highly sophisticated and will be connected 

through Google earth, sky and water along with various 

upcoming functionality and utility based databases and 

search engines. 

III DATA CONNECTIVITY & NETWORK 

The question may arise that how does this I-thoun will be 

managed effectively? Don’t we have the network problem 

as it will be handling millions of data on the same device 

and its connectivity with many other hi end computing 

peripherals? What about the network? Which topology will 

be best suited? The new wave of cloud computing had taken 

care of some of these questions. The question of thought 

governing device will definite be successful as it will take 

care most of the day to day activities with the available 

transcripted databases and the meta crawler based search 

engines. The upgraded and new emerging processors will 

work with the speed much more than Petaflops (10 15 ) and 

exaflops (10 18 ). The Network will be Wi-Fi as the system 

will be interacting at the speed of thoughts. Data 

transmission will definitely be in data packets labelled as 

“Thoughtrons”. 

OS OF I-THOUN 

The FPGA and advanced VLSI chips we are using for 

modern supercomputers. The I-thoun will work on 

“Thoughtrons” based chip. The Genome Technology, grid 

computing, expert system, ANN all are going to play a vital 

role in developing this chip. The neurologist, the 

psychiatrist, the microbiologist and the technocrats will have 

to come together to develop this sophisticated chip of 

“Thoughtrons”. The idea was originally conceived from the 

Vichar Kranti, the thought transformation process carried 

out at various eras. The words of Lord Buddha, Lord 

Mahaveer, Socrates, and Gandhi will have to be transcript. 

The wave of thoughts of Pt. shriram Sharma, Sri Aurobindo 

and Swami Vivekananda has to be programmed and to be 

converted into thought chips, - Thoughtrons. 

CONCLUSION 

The I-thoun is going to hit the market with recent 

development and researches in the field of computer science. 

The modern computing grid, cloud, green or parallel all are 

going to be changed with the time frame and the futuristic 

computing will be thought governed computing i.e. Thought 

computing. The I-thoun is going to shake the world as there 

will be hardly any space for lie, hatred and hiding the 

emotions as everything and anything will be on display and 

public. Our greatest hopes could become reality in the future. 

With the technology at our disposal the possibilities are 

unbounded (Steve Hawkins, 1993). This will definitely 

REFERENCES: 

1. Cole, E., 2007: “ A wheel chair that reads your mind”, 

January 29, 2007 available at : 

http://www.transhumanism.org/pipermail/ieetnews/2007-January/000517.html 

2. Emerson, 1935; “the three fundamental concept of 

Emerson philosophy”, theosophy, volume 24, pp 49-54. 

3. Guevin, J., 2006: “Say what? A look back at Gates’, 

pearls of wisdom”, Cnet, June 15, 2006, available at 

http://news.cnet.com/Say-what-A-look-back-at-Gatespearls-of-wisdom/2100-1014_3-6084505.html 

4. Hanlon, M., 2006: “The mental typewriter”, March 13, 

2006, gizmag, available at 

http://www.gizmag.com/go/5356/ 

5. Hawkins, S., 2010: “A brief history of time: The 

updated and expanded Tenth anniversary edition, 

Bantam books, New York. 

6. Jobs, S.; 2005; “Standford commencement address”, 

June 12, 2005, available at 

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs- 

061505.html 

7. Kalam, A. P. J., 1999: “Wings of fire, An 

Autobiography of APJ Abdul kalam”, Universities 

press, pp 161. 

8. Kaku, M., 2011: “ Physics of the future: How Science 

Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the 

Year 2100, Double day, New York 

9. Lohr, S., 2011: “Big data, speed and the future of 

computing”, October 31, 2011, New York times. 

Available 

at: 

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/31/big-dataspeed-and-the-future-of-computing/ 

10. Naisbitt, J. B., Aburdene, P., 2000; available at 

http://tomdohm.wordpress.com/2011/08/24/deus-extranshumanism-and-you/ 

11. Ridden, P., 2010 : “playing computer game with the 

blink of an eye”, March 30, 2010, Gizmag, available at : 

http://www.gizmag.com/eye-movement-game-controldevelopment/14667/ 

12. Tubman, H., 1865 available at : 

http://thinkexist.com/quotation/ 

every_great_dream_begins_with_a_dreameralways/346539.html 

13. Sharma, S.A., 1985: “Vicharo ki prachand Samarth”, 

yugantar chetna press, mathura 

14. Shivanand, S., 1997: “ Thought Power”, The divine life 

society publication, Tehri Garhwal, 

15. Warman, M., 2011: “ Xbox kinect foretells computers 

of the future; February 24, 2011, The telegraph, UK, 

available at : 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/microsoft/8344 

028/Xbox-Kinect-foretells-computers-of-thefuture.html 

 

Websites: 

http://library.thinkquest.org/C0113882/futcomputer.sht 

ml 

*** 


Internet Banking: A Case Study of the Factors 

influencing its Adoption in Mauritius 

Dinesh RAMDHONY * and Deerajen RAMASAWMY 

Abstract 

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the 

factors that influence bank customers in Mauritius to adopt 

Internet Banking (IB). 

Methodology – An online survey was conducted with a 

response rate of 73%. 

Findings – Around 54% of the respondents were IB users. 

The commonly used services were for information inquiry 

and transfer of funds. Factor Analysis reveals that from a 

user’s point of view ‘availability of infrastructure’ and 

‘perceived ease of use’ are the most important factors in 

determining adoption of IB. In contrast, for non-users of IB, 

it was ‘trust and security issues’. Based on Logistic 

Regression analysis, household income group and age group 

were found to be the most significant demographic variables 

that determine adoption of IB. 

Practical implications – The results can be used by banks 

to devise strategies in increasing their customer base by 

catering for the needs of actual users and taking on board 

non-users. 

Research limitation – The use of convenience sampling 

weakens the objectivity of this research. 

Originality – This study considers the factors leading to 

actual usage or non-usage of IB unlike other studies which 

investigate the intention to use IB. 

Keywords: Internet Banking, Internet Banking Adoption, 

Technological Acceptance Model, Mauritius 

Introduction 

Advances in information technology have significantly 

changed the way banks deliver services to their customers 

and the way the latter undertake their regular banking 

transactions. Pressured by rising costs, ever more 

demanding customers, and the need to preserve profitability 

while standing out from the competition, banks found 

themselves forced to invest in new customer service 

channels such as internet banking (IB) (Hernandez and 

Mazon, 2007:72). The trend is evident in several developing 

countries such as Malaysia (Hway-Boon and Yu, 2003) and 

Thailand (Rotchanakitumnuai and Speece, 2003). Mauritian 

banks have joined the bandwagon and offer a multiplechannel 

strategy to meet the needs of their clients. 

Internet banking offers a multitude of benefits to both the 

user and the provider. Studies in Spain and Italy have found 

a positive correlation between provision of online services 

and financial performance (Hernando and Nieto, 2007, 

Hasan et al., 2005). Other benefits include cost savings, 

increased customer base, delivery of services in an 

innovative manner, increased marketing and communication 

possibilities, mass customisation and development of noncore 

businesses (Jayawardhena and Foley, 2000). From a 

user’s perspective the decision to adopt internet banking is 

mainly motivated by convenience and efficiency (Bruno, 

2003). Customers can access their bank account and effect 

transactions anywhere at any time. Internet banking has 

been found to be the cheapest delivery channel for 

standardised banking transactions such as account services 

and transfer of funds (Polatoglu and Ekin, 2001). 

A study on the adoption of internet banking in Mauritius 

was carried out by Padachi, Seetanah and Rojid (2006). 

However, the study lacked theoretical underpinning. The 

last five years witnessed several cuts in the rates of internet 

access coupled with various initiatives by the local and 

central government to provide internet access in public 

places which justifies a new study on the adoption of 

internet banking. The paper sets out to investigate the 

factors influencing the use of internet banking in Mauritius 

and tries to draw the profile of the Mauritian Internet 

banking user. The findings are expected to be of great use to 

policy makers, financial institutions willing to launch IB 

services and more particularly to commercial banks already 

offering IB facilities in devising strategies towards greater 

customer satisfaction and increasing their customer base. 

The paper is organised as follows. The next part contains a 

discussion of the theoretical models used to explain 

technology acceptance and findings of other studies 

regarding the adoption of internet banking. Then, the paper 

outlines the research methodology and presents the findings 

from the data analysis. From the findings, conclusions are 

drawn and recommendations are provided for assisting 

banks in devising strategies to increase their customer base. 

Theoretical framework 

Several theories have been used to explain the determinants 

of IT adoption for individuals; the Theory of Reasoned 

Action (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975), the Theory of Planned 

Behaviour (Ajzen, 1991) and the Technological Acceptance 

Model (TAM). Yousafzai et al. (2010) compared the three 

previously named theories in predicting IB behaviour. They 

concluded that TAM is superior to other models. Chang and 

Hamid (2010) and Eriksson (1995) have also used the TAM 

for explaining IB adoption. This paper uses to a large extent 

the constructs of the TAM to explain IB adoption / nonadoption 

in Mauritius. TAM involves two primary 

predictors for the potential adopter, namely Perceived 

Usefulness and Perceived Ease of Use. 

Perceived Usefulness is defined as “the degree to which a 

technology is able to provide a means-end relationship, that 

is, the given technology as a means to a desired end” (Doll 

et al., 1998). The work of Wai-Ching Poon (2008) 

emphasised on the degree of convenience that customers can 


attribute to the service and accordingly, 82% of the 

respondents agreed that e-banking is time saving and 53% 

strongly agreed that no queuing at the banks’ branches is 

advantageous. Sayar and Wolfe (2007) stated that customers 

find IB attractive as it is possible to conduct transactions 

anytime and anywhere, faster and lower fees are incurred 

compared to using traditional bank branches. 

Perceived Ease of Use refers to “the extent to which a 

person believes that using a particular system would be free 

of effort” (Davis et al., 1989). Rogers (1962) theorised that 

perceived ease of use demonstrates the degree to which an 

invention is seen as being not too difficult to understand, 

learn or operate. One of the attributes of Perceived Ease of 

Use as suggested by Taylor and Todd (1995) is the 

complexity associated with the innovation, and in their study 

the latter was found to have the most significant relationship 

with adoption across a broad range of innovation types. 

Several other factors apart from Perceived Usefulness and 

Perceived Ease of Use, have been identified as influencing 

the decision to adopt IB. Davies (1989) refers to them as 

external variables. Some examples are: security or safety, 

the level of consumer trust, the risks associated with online 

banking, the infrastructure available, and eventually 

technological knowledge or awareness. 

Security or Safety 

The banking industry has declared information privacy and 

security to be major obstacles in the development of 

consumer related electronic commerce (Thomas et al., 

2002). Fear and anguish among the consumers 

psychological state that may bar them from using the system 

may be intensified if there exists any lapse of security in 

internet usage. Customers will not be willing to use the 

service if it is perceived as being easily susceptible to fraud 

(Al-Somali et al., 2009). This point was corroborated in a 

research conducted by Al-Hajri and Tatnall (2007). Most 

respondents were concerned about the problem of internet 

security as bank customers cannot put their full trust in 

internet technology due to possible fraud and privacy 

violation problems. In addition, feeling secure in doing 

transactions on the Web is often cited by users as a major 

factor that removes their concerns about the effective use of 

the Internet for making online transactions (Salisbury et al., 

2001). 

Trust 

The existence of a great deal of scepticism about the 

security of online transactions makes the element of trust a 

crucial factor when it comes to deciding upon the use of e- 

banking. Wai-Ching Poon (2008) confirmed that 69% 

respondents agreed that trust is affecting their demand for e- 

banking services. There could be a limitation of the 

opportunities from web technology if there is a dearth of 

trust by the consumers in the system (Rotchanakitumnuai 

and Speece, 2003). Customers usually do not have faith in 

internet based technology for reasons like security of the 

system, distrust of service providers, and anxiety regarding 

the dependability and consistency of the internet services 

(Rotchanakitumnuai and Speece, 2003). Finally, in a 

research by Fassnacht and Kose (2007), the customers‟ level 

of trust in e-banking was confirmed to have a considerable 

effect on the consumer’s choice of adopting this technology 

and for its continued usage. 

Awareness of the Service 

In general, customers will seek out those financial products 

which offer the best value for money and about which they 

are educated. Once customers become aware of the 

integrated and secure services available somewhere, they are 

likely to switch to the providers of such services (Kalakota 

and Frei, 1998). El-Nawawy and Ismail (1999) in their study 

of e-commerce adoption by SMEs in Egypt reported that the 

main factors revolve around awareness and education. An 

innovative product will not achieve great heights if 

consumers are not aware of its existence and the potential 

benefits it presents. An Australian study by Sathye (1999) 

highlighted awareness as one of the main factors hindering 

the migration of consumers to IB. 

Availability of Infrastructure 

O’Connell (1996) identified lack of access to computers or 

internet as one of the possible reasons for slow adoption of 

IB. The study by Wai-Ching Poon (2008) divulged that a 

majority of the respondents (81%) agreed that internet 

accessibility is an advantage for users’ satisfaction in 

adopting e-banking services. Likewise, through observations 

and narrative analysis of IB customers, Broderick and 

Vachirapornpuk (2002) identified issues like slowness, poor 

navigational possibilities, poor interactivity and critical 

incidents such as lack of help by the providers of IB service 

to be capable of deterring customers from adopting the 

service. 

Other Factors 

Many studies have investigated the effects of the customers’ 

demographic characteristics; age (Czaja et al., 2001), gender 

(Venkatesh and Morris, 2000, Burke, 2002), financial 

income (Venkatesh and Morris, 2000), and education level 

(Burke, 2002). For example, it was found that older 

customers generally have negative attitudes towards 

technology and innovations; younger adults on the other 

hand were seen to be more interested in using new 

technologies (Czaja et al., 2001). Income was found by 

Venkatesh and Morris, (2000) to potentially exert a strong 

effect on the adoption and diffusion of technology. 

Similarly, gender and education level also played a 

significant role with regards to attitude towards technology 

use (Burke, 2002). 

Internet Banking in Mauritius 

The banking sector is a major component of the financial 

system in Mauritius. The sector is constantly growing and 

has attracted new players in the last five years. Presently the 

banking industry comprises of 20 banks holding a banking 

licence from the Bank of Mauritius, of which 7 are local 

banks, 8 are foreign owned subsidiaries, 1 is a joint venture 

and 4 are branches of foreign banks. The sector has been at 

the forefront of technological innovations offering several 

banking channels via telephone / PC / terminal / Internet. 

The Mauritius Commercial Bank was the first bank to 

launch internet banking services in 1998 followed by the 

State Bank of Mauritius in 1999. As evidenced by Table I, 


the number of IB customers have increased almost three fold 

between 2007 and 2010 while the value of IB transactions 

have tripled over the same period. The trend is expected to 

continue with gradual decrease in the costs of internet access 

and an increase in the number of banks offering this service 

Methodology 

According to Internet World Stats 1 , Mauritius is considered 

an Intermediately Internet Penetrated Country. For a 

population size of 1,303,717 (2011) and 340,000 Internet 

Users, Mauritius has an Internet Penetration 26.7% and has 

a constantly growing part of its population using IB. As a 

result, it is very important for this study to investigate the 

different factors that influence the usage of IB in Mauritius. 

For the purpose of this study only individual users have 

been considered. 

A quantitative study was selected to obtain data regarding 

the usage of and attitudes towards IB. An online survey 

methodology approach was adopted. Based on Statistical 

Tables, a sample size of 398 was required for 95% 

Confidence Level, +/-5% and 0.5 degree of variability. 

Since a detailed list of all bank account holders is not 

available (for obvious confidential reasons), a convenience 

sampling method was used instead of a probabilistic method 

(such as simple random sampling). Emails were sent to 

individuals on the assumption that every working person 

holds a bank account. A total of 321 responses were 

obtained out of which 30 were incomplete. Thus, a total of 

291 valid responses were obtained with a response rate of 

73.1%. 

Organisation of the Questionnaire 

The questionnaire was prepared based on various sources of 

IB and technology acceptance literature (Polatoglu and 

Ekin, 2001; Wai-Ching Poon, 2008; Yousafzai et al., 2010). 

The first section of the questionnaire contained biographical 

information about respondents which was meant for all 

users. The second part contained information destined for 

users of IB while the third part was aimed at non-users of 

IB. A five-point Likert scale was used for questions in parts 

two and three of the questionnaire. 

The questionnaire was pretested several times with 

colleagues and experts in the field of IB to ensure face 

validity of items included in the data collection instrument. 

The pilot test also included a random sample of 20 bank 

account holders to ensure that the questions were clear and 

easily understandable so as to avoid any confusion and thus 

not deterring the participation of the bank account holders 

which is of paramount importance (Wai-Ching Poon, 2008). 

Following comments from respondents of the pilot test, 

minor amendments were made to the wordings and 

sequence of sentences contained in the questionnaire. The 

questionnaire was then sent online with a cover letter 

explaining the academic purpose of the study and 

highlighting the fact that participation was purely voluntary. 

An online questionnaire was deemed better than a paper 

based one for the following reasons: there is no need to print 

questionnaires which saves on cost and contributes to the 

1 www.internetworldstats.com : Usage and Population Statistics 

promotion of a sustainable world; responses remain 

anonymous; respondents can fill the questionnaire at their 

own convenience; a large number of people can be reached 

at the click of the mouse. In addition, it saves us time on 

data input. 

Data Analysis 

Data collected was analysed using version 19 of IBM SPSS 

Statistics. A total of 321 responses were obtained out of 

which 30 were incomplete. A total of 291 valid responses 

were obtained. Two sets of factor analyses were performed 

for both users and non-users. A logistic regression (LR) was 

also performed to identify the profile of the Mauritian IB 

user/non-user. 

Findings 

The demographic profile of the respondents that participated 

in the survey are summarised in Table II. We observe that 

there were more females (60%) than males (40%). In 

addition, the majority of the respondents (above 80%) were 

below 35 years of age and (around 75%) possesses at least a 

Diploma. In terms of household income, about 40% were in 

the group Rs 10,000 to Rs 25,000. Above 90% have Internet 

at home and above 80% have it at the work place. However, 

only around 54% use IB. Among IB users, the frequency of 

usage of the majority of users is once a week or less. Table 

III summarises the different activities or tasks performed by 

IB users. The list was prepared based on decreasing 

frequency of usage. We observe that the majority use IB for 

viewing their account details (including account balance), 

for making transfers (internally, i.e., within accounts of the 

users or externally, to other users within same banks and 

other banks) and recharging mobile phones. The findings are 

in line with Polatoglu and Ekin (2001) who found that the 

mostly used IB services in Turkey are for information 

inquiry and transfer of funds. The least used services were 

found to be ‘Stop lost / stolen cheque’ and ‘Remove 'stop 

cheque' request’ which could be anticipated as bank 

customers will prefer to go personally to the bank given the 

urgency of the matter. 

Factor Analysis 

Users of IB 

The aim of this analysis is to group the 19 variables 

indicating usage of IB into underlying dimensions. The 

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) value reached 0.823 which is 

considered excellent for factor analysis (Kaiser, 1974). The 

Barlett test of sphericity reached statistical significance 

(0.000) indicating that factor analysis is appropriate. 

According to the Kaiser principle, only those factors with 

eigenvalues greater than 1 were maintained for further 

analysis. Principal Component Analysis revealed the 

presence of four factors which together explain a variance of 

64%. A clear structure emerged after reducing the variables 

to four factors. A varimax rotation was performed to 

reorganise the four components. As a general rule factor, 

loadings less than 0.4 have been suppressed. The variables 

are listed in the Table IV, in the order of size of their factor 

loadings. Statements around component one give evidence 

of perceived ease of use and availability of infrastructure 

which are in accord with the findings of Davis et al., (1989) 

and Broderick and Vachirapornpuk (2002). 


Non-users of IB 

For non-users of IB, 16 variables were used in the Factor 

Analysis so as to reduce the factors into underlying 

dimensions. The KMO value reached 0.827 while the 

Barlett test of sphericity reached statistical significance 

(0.000) indicating that factor analysis is appropriate. The 

same criteria as mentioned for users of IBS were used. As in 

the case of users of IB, the PCA revealed the presence of 

four factors which together explain a variance of 69%. A 

clear structure emerged after reducing the variables to four 

factors. The variables are listed in the Table V, in the order 

of size of their factor loadings. 

Both univariate and multivariate Logistic Regression were 

used. The results are summarised in Table VI. For univariate 

Logistic Regression, out of the four demographic profiles, 

namely gender, age group, household income and highest 

education level, only household income (above Rs 10,000) 

was found to be significant. Moreover with the multivariate 

LR, it was found that in addition to household income, age 

group was another significant demographic variable, in 

particular those in the age group below 45. 

Discussion 

Based on the findings, it is observed that users of IB attach 

high importance to the availability of infrastructure and 

perceived ease of use. The results show that users value 

‘friendly design’ and ‘availability of help when using IB’. 

These findings are in accord with Gerrard and Cunningham 

(2003) who found that availability of an innovation to meet 

user’s needs using different feature availability on the 

website is of paramount importance for success in e- 

banking. The second best factor in determining usage of IB 

was found to be perceived usefulness. However, these 

findings are in contradiction with Wu and Kuo (2008) who 

noted that the respective predicting power of Perceived Use 

and Perceived Ease of Use on intention is considerably 

diluted by the addition of habitual usage or past usage. A 

possible factor explaining the Perceived Use and Perceived 

Ease of Use as being primary predictors of IB usage is that 

the IB phenomenon is quite new in Mauritius. Based on 

figures in Table I, we note that strong growth in the number 

of IB customers has been recorded from 2009 onwards thus 

confirming that mass usage of IB is quite new. Surprisingly, 

security issues rank last among the determinants of IB usage 

in Mauritius. This could be explained by the fact that with 

continued and regular usage, people start to trust the system 

and security becomes a salient issue. 

In contrast, for non-users of IB, ‘Trust and Security Issues’ 

was the most important component extracted among the 5 

components as shown in Table V. Even with the advent of 

secured website and secured login, some people were found 

not to trust IB. This can be attributed to the fact that there 

are many users have been fooled by scams and are reluctant 

to use IB. Availability of infrastructure and awareness of 

service were the second and third components extracted 

respectively. There are still people with no access to Internet 

either because they come from a low-income group or they 

have Personal Computers but without access to the Internet. 

The last component extracted is the Perceived Usefulness 

and Ease of Use. Non-IB users would usually use traditional 

banking services available at branches of banks or ATMs 

which becomes part of their routine and thereby ignoring the 

perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness of IB. 

In terms of profile of users, we have found that household 

income and age groups are the demographic variables that 

determine whether or not a person uses IB. People in the 

age groups 25 – 35 and 36 – 45 are keener to use IB. The 

results confirm the findings of Czaja et al. (2001) who claim 

that younger adults were more interested in using new 

technologies and older customers generally have a negative 

attitude toward technology and innovation. The level of 

income significantly influences the use of IB. Our results are 

in line with the findings of Wai-Ching Poon (2008) who 

found that upper and middle income groups are affluent 

users of IB. No significant relationship was found between 

gender and IB use. This finding is contrary to that of Singh 

(2004) who found that males are more prone to use IB than 

females. Similarly, education level is not significantly 

related to the use of IB. The use of IB requires basic 

computer skills which could be a possible explanation for 

this result. 

Conclusions and Managerial implications 

The study identifies the motivators to use IB as being 

‘Availability of infrastructure and perceived ease of use’, 

‘perceived usefulness’, ‘Awareness of the service’ and 

‘security issues’, according to the degree of importance. The 

pattern is reversed from the point of view of non –users who 

claim that obstacles to IB adoption according to the degree 

of importance are: ‘Trust and security issues’; ‘Availability 

of infrastructure’; ‘Awareness’ and ‘Perceived ease of use 

and perceived usefulness’. 

The findings of this study have several implications for 

commercial banks offering IB services and potential IB 

providers. Banks should keep an eye on the design of their 

IB portal to ensure that they are user friendly and that timely 

assistance is provided to customers. The present conditions 

of distrust and insecurity among non-IB users needs to be 

addressed by educating customers, showing them the 

different safety measures taken by the bank to ensure 

privacy and confidentiality of information. Awareness 

campaigns could be run to that effect and at the same time 

reminding bank customers of the benefits of using IB and 

services offered. Banks should upgrade their security 

system to win the trust of non-IB users. More assistance has 

to be provided online, to help customers effect their banking 

transactions. The findings on the demographic variables 

linked to the adoption of IB are also relevant for banks in 

devising strategies to increase their customer base. 

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ANNEXURE 

Table I: Internet Banking Trend 

Year Number of customers Number of transactions 

(monthly) 

Value of transactions (monthly) 

(Rs mn) 

Dec 2007 47, 616 164, 038 14, 442 

Dec 2008 63, 285 198, 205 28, 806 

Dec 2009 108, 414 252, 554 37, 607 

Dec 2010 133,508 171,088 4 4,038 

(Source: Bank of Mauritius (BoM) Monthly Bulletin – June 2011) 

Table II: Demographic Profile of Respondents 

Demographic Profile Details % 

Gender Male 40.3 

Female 59.7 

Age Group Less than 25 37.6 

25 – 35 47.2 

36 – 45 10.0 

More than 45 5.2 

Highest Education Level School Certificate (O Level) 1.7 

Higher School Certificate (A Level) 20.3 

Diploma / Degree 54.5 

Post Graduate 23.4 

Monthly Household Income Group < Rs 5,000 16.2 

Rs 5,000 – Rs 10,000 8.6 

Rs 10,000 – < Rs 25,000 40.0 

Rs 25,000 – < Rs 50,000 24.5 

Rs 50,000 and above 10.7 

Internet Access Home 92.4 

Workplace 86.4 

Use of IB 53.8 

Frequency of Usage of IB Daily 6.4 

2 – 3 times a week 14.0 

Once a week 24.8 

2 – 3 times a month 14.0 

Once a month 21.0 

Rarely 19.7 


Table III: Uses of IB 

1 2 3 4 

USES OF IB Never Rarely Sometimes Regularly Mean SD 

Viewing Account Details 3.2 5.1 19.2 72.4 3.61 .732 

Inter Account Funds Transfer 28.8 14.7 28.2 28.2 2.56 1.182 

Making Online Payments 33.0 20.8 27.4 18.9 2.32 1.126 

Payment to other personal account 34.9 20.8 25.5 18.9 2.28 1.136 

Transfer of funds to credit card account 45.3 16.0 21.7 17.0 2.10 1.162 

Recharging Mobile Phones 53.8 8.5 12.3 25.5 2.09 1.299 

Payment to other local bank account 48.1 25.5 19.8 6.6 1.85 .964 

Loans, Credit Cards Application 62.8 12.2 11.5 13.5 1.76 1.109 

Standing Order Transactions 60.3 18.6 11.5 9.6 1.71 1.011 

Downloading Application Forms 59.4 20.8 13.2 6.6 1.67 .943 

Request Issue of C/A statement 66.0 19.8 10.4 3.8 1.52 .831 

Foreign transfer: Draft or Swift 70.8 15.1 13.2 0.9 1.44 .757 

Payment by office cheque 73.6 17.0 6.6 2.8 1.39 .738 

Cheque Book Request 76.4 15.1 6.6 1.9 1.34 .689 

Apply credit card limit charge 75.5 17.9 3.8 2.8 1.34 .689 

Stop lost / stolen cheque 89.6 7.5 1.9 0.9 1.14 .467 

Remove 'stop cheque' request 88.7 10.4 0.9 0.0 1.12 .357 


Table IV : Users of IB 

IB Users 

Availability of 

Infrastructure 

and Perceived 

Ease of Use 

Perceived 

Usefulness 

Awareness of 

the Service 

Security Issues 

Rotated Component Matrix 

Component 

1 2 3 4 

My bank’s website has a clear, user-friendly design and the bank focuses on .787 

interactivity, navigation & security 

The availability of help simplifies navigation on the bank’s website .741 

The bank provides sufficient training, guides & manuals to support the use .716 

on IB 

IB usage requires no further knowledge apart from simply being 

.699 

acquaintained to use the computer 

It is easy to learn to use Internet Banking .661 

The bank is able to help me quickly in technical and non-technical issues .634 

related to IB 

It is flexible to interact with Internet Banking while utilising online services .609 .424 

I prefer internet Banking because online services are available 24 hours a 

.796 

day 

With IB, accounts can be paid and funds transferred without queues and 

.760 

writing out cheques 

IB is useful in conducting transactions .683 

Banking services are available more handily with IB .672 

Various banking services can be accessed at the same time, via Internet 

.652 

Banking 

I have enough information about how to use Internet Banking .838 

I am aware of the benefits and risks involved in Internet Banking .787 

I have enough information about Internet Banking .776 

I am aware about the different services being provided online .765 

I trust in the ability of the bank to protect my confidentiality .812 

I use Internet Banking because the bank is able to provide me with the 

.735 

necessary security 

The use of digital signatures, encryption & authorisation mechanisms 

.725 

provide a more secured IB service 


GRID Computing: Related Issues and Business 

Applications 

Sanoara Yasmin and Musharuf Hossain Mollah 

School of Business, University of Information Technology and Science 

Chittagong Campus, Bangladesh 

Department of Marketing 

Southeast University, Dhaka, Bangladesh 

Abstract 

Grid computing is a virtual computing system 

developed through the coordination and sharing of 

computing power, application, data, and storage facilities of 

different computers of geographically dispersed 

organizations. This paper is an effort to highlight the 

conceptual aspects, key characteristics, benefits and 

business applications of Grid computing. It focuses on 

different applications of Grid computing in Bangladesh 

perspective. Relevant peripheral issues of Grid computing 

like storage, security, integration and transparency of data, 

etc. are also discussed in the paper. Finally, the paper 

focuses on different strategies to implement Grid computing 

along with the future scope of Grid and a brief account of its 

limitations. 

INTRODUCTION 

Grid computing has been positioned as a promising next 

generation computing platforms due to the accelerated 

development of sharing the computation resources from peer 

computers as well computers across geographically 

dispersed organizations. It is a geographically distributed 

environment with autonomous domains that share resources 

amongst themselves (Azzedin and Maheswaran 2002). 

Foster et al. (1998) defined grid computing as a hardware 

and software infrastructure that provides dependable, 

consistent, pervasive and inexpensive access to high-end 

computational capabilities. It coordinates and shares 

computing, application, data, storage, or network resources 

across dynamic and geographically dispersed organizations. 

It is a “virtualized” computing system comprised of 

distributed system components (e.g., processors and storage) 

interconnected by a high-speed network. Grid computing 

enables creation of virtual enterprise for sharing and 

aggregation of millions of resources of geographically 

dispersed organizations (Buyya et al. 2004). It also suggests 

a computing paradigm similar to an electric power grid, 

which is a shared pool of resources that can be accessed on 

an as-needed basis. Thus grid computing has become a 

mainstream technology for large scale resources sharing and 

distributing system integration (Foster et al. 2002). 

EVOLUTION OF GRID COMPUTING 

Traditionally, computing typically was performed 

within highly integrated host-centric enterprise computing 

centers. The rise of the internet and the emergence of e- 

business have led to a growing awareness that an 

enterprise’s IT infrastructure encompasses external 

networks, resources, and services (Foster et al. 2002). In the 

early 1970s when computers were first linked by networks, 

the idea of harnessing unused CPU cycles was born. In 

1973, the Xerox installed the first Ethernet network and the 

first full-fledged distributed computing effort was underway. 

Scientists John F. Shoch and Jon A. Hupp created a worm, 

as they called it, and envisioned it moving from machine to 

machine using idle resources for beneficial purposes. 

Distributed computing scaled to a global level with the 

maturation of the Internet in the 1990s. One of the most 

famous projects of Grid computing in those years was the 

‘dnet’. It used thousands of independently owned computers 

across the Internet to crack encryption codes. 

The origin of the grid concept was established in 

the early 90’s when great efforts were made to deploy 

several gigabyte testbeds such as CASA that linked super 

computer link across the USA (Lyster et al., 1992). The 

successes of these tesbeds inspired the I-WAY experiment 

in North America in 1995 where a large scale testbed where 

multiple supercomputers and advanced visualization devices 

at 17 different places were connected through ATM 

networks in order to allow high performance applications to 

be studied in a controlled environment (Bote-Lorenzo et al. 

2004). Grid computing entered the mainstream of research 

with the establishment of Global Grid Forum 

(www.gridforum.org) by early grid developers and 

practitioners. The publication of the book tiled “The Grid: 

Blueprint for a Future Computing Infrastructure” by Foster 

et al. (1998) laid the groundwork of the field. 

TYPES OF GRID 

From an application perspective, there are two 

types of grids: ‘compute grids’ and ‘data grids’ and from 

a topology view there are intra-grids (enterprise), extra 

grids(utility), clusters and inter-grids(partner). 

As the name suggests the ‘compute grid’ is 

essentially a collection of distributed computing resources, 

within or across locations, that are combined together to act 

as a unified processing resource or a virtual supercomputer. 

The main aspect of a compute grid is that it eliminates the 

binding of specific machines to certain computing processes 

by allowing the aggregated pool to service sequential and 

other attributes that need the power. 

Similarly a ‘data grid’ provides wide area, secure 

access to current data. These grid enables users and 

applications to manage ad efficiently use database 

information from distributed locations. Importance of data 


grid is that it eliminates the need to move, replicate or 

centralize data and thereby saves costs. The above grids rely 

on software for secure access and usage policies and utilize 

the existing resources. 

‘Intra grids’ or ‘enterprise grids’ work within 

organizations that want to share information for better use of 

resources and tangible business benefits. Examples of 

companies are that have deployed Enterprise Grids include 

JP Morgan Chase, General Motors, Monsanto, Toshiba, etc. 

‘Extra’ or ‘utility grids’ basically are computing resources 

accessible on the internet and delivered by ASPs 

(Application Service Providers). This is an expansive grid 

spanning different business models, applications, operating 

platforms, etc. Example: IBM has successfully implemented 

an extra grid with its subsidiaries all across the world using 

the Internet. Many companies around the world are in the 

implementation process as yet. 

CHARACTERISTICS OF GRID COMPUTING 

Extant literature (e.g. Foster, 2002; Foster et al., 2001; 

Grimshaw, 2002) pointed out different characteristics of 

Grid Computing. Bote-Lorenzo et al. (2004) compiled the 

key characteristics and outlined the following characteristics 

of Grid – 

a) A grid must be seen as a single virtual computer. 

b) Grid computing must be able to manage large scale 

resources from just a few to millions. 

c) Grid resources may be located at geographically 

distant places. 

d) A grid should be able to host heterogeneous 

resources such as both hardware and software 

resources varying from data, files, programs, to 

sensors, scientific instruments, display devices, 

super-computers, networks, etc. 

e) A grid should involve resources of many 

organizations that allow other user organizations to 

access the resources. 

f) Each organizations involved with a particular grid 

may have different administration in order to 

establish and administer different customized 

security and administrative policies to access and to 

use the resources of the grid. 

g) Resources in a grid should be coordinated in order 

to provide aggregated computing capabilities. 

h) A grid should assure the delivery of services under 

established Quality of Service requirements. 

i) A grid must be built with standard services, 

protocols, and inter-faces and should hide the 

heterogeneity of the resources while allowing its 

scalability. 

j) A grid should be accessible to available resources 

by adapting to a dynamic environment. The grid 

must tailor its behavior to extract the maximum 

performance from the available resources. 

USES AND BENEFITS OF GRID COMPUTING 

Many companies want to take advantage of the cost 

and efficiency benefits that come from a grid infrastructure. 

The benefits of Grid computing can be more extensive. 

They include increased speed of computing, improved 

productivity and collaboration, more flexible and resilient 

infrastructure, etc. The benefits of Grid computing are 

discussed below - 

Utilization of Computing Power 

The main benefit from the full utilization of 

computing power of the PCs. The desktop PCs of an 

organization are often underutilized. “PCs and Windows 

servers are about 5 percent utilized; Unix servers are 15 

percent utilized,” said Dan Powers, vice president of grid 

strategy at IBM. Even IBM mainframes are only utilized 

about 65 percent of the time. 1 By harnessing these plentiful 

underused computing assets and leveraging them for 

revenue-driving projects, the Grid MP platform provides 

immediate value for companies. Moreover, PCs are not in 

use on evenings, weekends, and daytime hours can provide 

significant computational resources. 

Faster Project Results 

Increased processing speed is an enormous benefit 

of Grid computing. It squeezes more computing speed from 

an organization's machines. The increased processing power 

of a grid enables applications run faster and delivers results 

more quickly. It has a direct impact on an organization's 

ability to win in the marketplace by shortening product 

development cycles and accelerating research and 

development processes. 

Reduced Operational Costs 

Grid computing enables to reduce the operational 

cost. On a price-to-performance basis, the Grid platform 

gets more work done with less administration and budget 

than dedicated hardware solutions. Depending on the size of 

the network, the price-for-performance ratio for computing 

power can literally improve by an order of magnitude 2 

Optimized Capital Investment 

Reduced hardware capital investment is another 

significant and attractive cost saving means yielded by grid 

computing. As applications increase in breadth, volume and 

complexity, they increasingly require more compute 

horsepower. This necessitates that more and more funds be 

spent on hardware. However, with resource utilization 

across most enterprises, funding the purchase of new 

hardware is not required. Thus the company may have a 

lower TCO (total cost of ownership) for its IT projects 

through effective sharing of investments in storage with 

other enterprises. 

Increased Productivity 

Under a Grid infrastructure, productivity jumps due 

to increased computational activity. Besides, conservation of 

resources from the underutilized CPUs also contributes to 

the productivity the whole system. It is aggregating 

computing power and converting it into value to the 

1 

http://www.networkmagazine.com/shared/article/show 

Article.jhtml?articleId=17602029 ). 

2 (www.grid.org) 


usiness, which directs resources to more value-added tasks, 

entering new markets, offering new services (both internally 

and externally) and directly impacting revenue and profit 

contribution. 

Sharing Data and Resources 

Grid computing allows widely dispersed 

departments and business to create virtual organizations to 

share data and resources. As a result, it is of immense help 

for the successful implementation of international projects. 

In addition to above mentioned benefits, grid 

computing facilitates an infrastructure that bonds and unifies 

globally remote and diverse resources to provide 

computational support (Bote-Lorenzo et al. 2004). Hence 

different types of computational support offered by grids 

can be used in different purposes in business. Following 

discussions outline different computation supports offered 

by Grid and their respective uses - 

Distributed Supercomputing Support: Grid 

computing provides distributed supercomputing support that 

combines computational resources in order to reduce the 

completion time of a job (Krauter et al. 2002). It also helps 

to tackle problems that cannot be solved by a single 

computer system (Foster 1998). 

On-Demand Computing Support: Grid 

computing offers on-demand computing support that helps 

to retrieve resources that cannot be cost-effectively or 

conveniently located locally (Foster 1998). For example 

users who intend to perform accurate stock market analysis 

and price prediction in their home desktop can be benefitted 

from on-deman computing by employing grid connectivity 

(Bote-Lorenzo et al. 2004). 

Data Intensive Computing Support: It allows 

applications to use grids to synthesize new information from 

distributed data repositories, digital libraries, and databases 

(Foster 1998). The creation of a new database using data 

mining from a number of online databases would be an 

example of data-intensive computing applications (Bote- 

Lorenzo et al. 2004). 

Multimedia Computing Support: It allows 

applications to use grids to deliver contents assuring end-toend 

quality service (Krauter et al. 2002). For example, a 

video conferencing application is a typical example of 

application requiring multimedia computing support (Bote- 

Lorenzo et al. 2004). 

APPLICATIONS OF GRID COMPUTING – 

BANGLADESH PERSPECTIVE 

Though Grid computing started in laboratories 

facilitating researchers to collaborate among themselves and 

utilize the unused computational power to perform complex 

mathematical operations, the concept has real business 

applications right now. Grid technologies can be applied in 

the following industries - 

Universities and Academic Institutions 

Universities can utilize the benefits of grid for the 

greater wellbeing of the all universities of Bangladesh. 

Universities possess plenty of computers used both for 

academic and administrative purpose, which can be brought 

under grid network to utilize their unused resources. 

Specially, the after hours idle administrative computer 

resources can be used for academic purposes by throughout 

the country. In addition, universities can also share their 

library resources, which will be beneficial to all the parties 

involved in the Grid network. University Grant Commission 

(UGC) may wish to conduct a through study and prepare a 

central plan in this regard. Similar university grid is 

proposed for Canadian universities to utilize their idle 

resources for the greater wellbeing (Schick, 2005). 

Financial Services 

It is a common situation in financial services 

industry that subsidiaries, divisions and line of business 

maintain their own set of system and data. Standardizing 

them by a common technology and harnessing its 

underutilized resources through Grid Computing can result 

in huge improvement in operational efficiency. Different 

financial service companies such as JP Morgan, Charles 

Schwab, etc. already implemented grid computing and 

reaped benefit out of it (Glasgow 2003). 

Pharmaceutical Industry 

Most Pharmaceutical companies derive 

competitive advantage from faster discovery of new drugs. 

However such discoveries almost always require molecular 

modeling and computational chemistry. These tasks needs 

huge amount of computing power. Pharmaceutical 

companies can harness the power from unused resources in 

their organization by adopting grid technology. This can 

greatly reduce the cost of drug discovery and provide 

significant competitive advantage. For example, Novartis 

already implemented grid computing and using it for about a 

decade by linking together more than 2700 personal 

computers (PCs) available in its research and development 

and already came up with several interesting molecules as a 

result of incorporating the great amount of computing power 

tied into the grid (Glasgow 2003). 

Geosciences 

Upstream operations are absolutely vital for 

petroleum companies and hence analysis of large amount of 

geophysical datasets for reservoir modeling is critical. It 

requires huge computing power and companies can 

significantly reduce seismic imaging turnaround time and 

maximize reservoir simulation productivity by 

implementing Grid Computing Technology. 

Industrial Engineering 

Many aerospace companies and automobile 

companies use computational fluid dynamics and finite 

element analysis to improve the design of an automobile 

part or build a more sustainable aircraft. Employing grid 

computing can result in running simulation and modeling 

faster and with more precision. This improvement will result 

in better quality products with shorter development time, 

significantly boosting the bottom line. 

PERIPHERAL ISSUES OF GRID COMPUTING 

Peripheral issues of Grid computing deals with the 

factors related with the implementation of Grid computing 

in an organization. To build a Grid, the development and 

deployment of a number of services is required. However, 


the key issues where managers need to focus in this regard 

are - Service-Oriented Architecture, Security issues and 

Storage 3 . 

Service-Oriented Architecture 

A service-oriented architecture (SOA) is essentially 

a collection of services. These services communicate with 

each other. The communication can involve either simple 

data passing or it could involve two or more services 

coordinating some activity. It uses web services to connect 

the service provider and service consumer. 4 It is designed in 

such a way that it can seamlessly connect with existing 

platforms and management solutions. 

For the successful implementation of Grid, the 

organizations should have service-oriented architecture as it 

enables the grid architecture to work flexibly on real world 

heterogeneous operating platforms and manage the entire 

infrastructure of a dynamic business. Besides, scalability is 

also important in an on-demand environment. The 

architecture should be scalable enough to support the needs 

of the business as it grows, and maximize administrative 

productivity in a dynamic environment. A SOA can meet 

such need of the Grid architecture. 

Security 

Another most important factor to consider in the 

utility computing model is its security issue. Grid computing 

calls for servers to be dynamically configured and shared by 

different partners. As a result, there should be proper 

deployment and maintenance of security policies. There 

should be an agreed understanding among the partners to 

what extent and how much time the resources of the grid 

will be shared by a specific party. There should be a 

centralized security department committed to ensuring that 

these security issues are enforced across the organization 

and end-users conform to guidelines set forth by the 

Security department. 

Storage 

As grid computing enables the participants to share 

data, computational power and other resources, 

consequently, there should be a storage system of all these 

data or other resources. The term storage here essentially 

means a virtual storage, which acts as one of the main 

enablers of the utility computing model. As the amount of 

data companies need to store has increased, companies have 

to buy huge storage devices to keep all those electronic 

records and information. The two key technologies that are 

enabling the virtualization of storage for on-demand 

computing are Storage Area Networks (SAN) and Network 

Attached Storage (NAS). 5 Storage Area Network (SAN) is 

3 Don LeClair, Managing On-Demand Computing, CA 

White Paper, July 14, 2003, 

http://whitepapers.informationweek.com/detail/RES/105904 

9277_795.html 

4 SOA definition at http://www.servicearchitecture.com/web-services/articles/serviceoriented_architecture_soa_definition.html) 

5 Don LeClair, Managing On-Demand Computing, CA 


a high-speed sub network of shared storage devices. A 

storage device is a machine that contains nothing but a disk 

or disks for storing data. A SAN’s architecture works in a 

way that makes all storage devices available to all servers on 

a LAN or WAN. As more storage devices are added to a 

SAN, they too will be accessible from any server in the 

larger network. In this case, the server merely acts as a 

pathway between the end user and the stored data. Because 

stored data does not reside directly on any of a network's 

servers, server power is utilized for business applications, 

and network capacity is released to the end user. 6 On the 

other hand, a Network-Attached Storage (NAS) device is a 

server that is dedicated to nothing more than file sharing. 

NAS does not provide any of the activities that a server in a 

server-centric system typically provides, such as e-mail, 

authentication or file management. NAS allows more hard 

disk storage space to be added to a network that already 

utilizes servers without shutting them down for maintenance 

and upgrades. With a NAS device, storage is not an integral 

part of the server. Instead, in this storage-centric design, the 

server still handles all of the processing of data but a NAS 

device delivers the data to the user. A NAS device does not 

need to be located within the server but can exist anywhere 

in a LAN and can be made up of multiple networked NAS 

devices. 7 

Integration and Transparency of Data 

Another key issue to consider here is the 

integration and transparency of the data. A strict 

enforcement of rules for data management needs to be 

established across the organization. Because of open 

standards and a distributed environment, any updates made 

by end-users are available in real time across the 

organization and business units. But there is no control 

mechanism to check for errors or duplications in the 

database. As a result the integration of the data and its 

transparency is a vital issue here. The end users need to be 

more responsible in this regard. 

STRATEGIES FOR IMPLEMENTING GRID 

COMPUTING 

Grid computing is still in infancy and very few 

companies have embraced these technology full heartedly. 

However these early adopters have learnt from their 

mistakes. This continuous learning will someday evolve into 

best practices once the technology is mature. Therefore, by 

analyzing how the early adopters like IBM, GM, JP Morgan 

Chase, and others have implemented Grid Computing and 

what were their mistakes, some strategies for the successful 

implementation of Grid Computing are outlined below - 

Evaluate Business Needs 

Though it might sound cliché, this is the classic 

mistakes corporations have been doing over time while 

adopting new technology. Grid computing is certainly a 

“buzzword” in technology arena today; however companies 


9277_795.html 

6 http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/SAN.html 

7 http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/N/networkattached_storage.html 


have to contemplate whether they are going to get some 

business value out of it or not. Our reading of various 

articles gives us an impression that technology is mature 

enough to move out of research phase and ready to roll into 

industry, but suitable only for industries that need enormous 

computational power and perform complex mathematical 

operations. Grid computing may be a natural fit for 

aerospace, financial services and petroleum industries. 

Go Slow 

Grid computing is still in experimental stage and 

people are exploring the technology in various directions. It 

will not be prudent to make huge commitment based on 

early trends. It has seen observed that often technologies 

change the course and move in different direction, which 

was not thought of in early stages. Moreover as the concept 

and standard of Grid Computing is still evolving and such 

evolving standard means companies have to constantly 

upgrade the technology, the company might not have 

enough resources to cope with it. Therefore, the companies 

should follow a go-slow policy to implement Grid 

Computing. 

Pick a partner not a product 

As grid computing is gaining attention from 

corporate world, many small firms are coming up with new 

products. However quality of the products and after sales 

services must be evaluated carefully before choosing a 

product. We rather suggest that it would be very important 

to choose a right partner rather than a product. This 

approach can be handy as the technology is still evolving. 

Companies must be able to upgrade their existing 

technologies in line with evolving standards. A vendor who 

is committed to the technology can be of real value in this 

case. 

Check Compatibility 

The biggest challenge for grid computing is that 

many existing applications are not compatible with grid 

technology. In other words it means that if application is not 

written for multi processing, it requires significant effort to 

get those applications on the grid. It is very important that 

while doing cost benefit analysis; companies factor in the 

cost of modifying the applications to make them compatible 

with grid technology. 

Manage Change 

Grid computing is a paradigm shift in the way 

people used resources and thus it is certain to bring 

enormous changes in people’s work life. This enormous 

change has to be managed in order to realize the full 

potential of the technology. Though resources belong to the 

company, departmental view of personal ownership is hard 

to shake. Thus it requires significant effort from 

management to adjust the mindset of the company. This is 

critical for the enterprise wide success of the grid 

computing. 

FUTURE SCOPE OF GRID 

According to an estimate by Grid Technology 

Partners, a firm that specializes in grid computing, total 

worldwide market for grid computing is expected to touch 

$8 billion by end of 2008. Gartner research report says grid 

computing is one of the few emerging technologies that will 

transform enterprise computing over the next 10 years. Thus 

the question is not whether we will be using grid in future; 

the question is how we will be using grid in future. 

On Demand Computing 

Information Technology (IT) as an integral part of 

a business cannot be an exception. On 

demand computing is a model in which computing resources 

are made available to the users as needed. Because an 

enterprise's demand on computing resources can vary 

drastically from one time to another, maintaining sufficient 

resources to meet peak requirements can be costly. Thus if 

company needs exceptionally high computing power for 

short period of time, it can get it from vendors like IBM and 

pay based on the computing power used. The same concept 

can be applied for applications and network storage. Thus 

combination of web services, grid computing and open 

architecture will help IT gain advantage from economies of 

scale. This also means that over a period of time companies 

may substantially reduce their fixed cost in IT and reduce 

the total cost of ownership. This also means that IT staff 

becomes more of a broker between company and vendors 

thus significantly changing their role. 

Global Grid 

Grid computing holds excellent promise as the next 

generation of the shift from proprietary to open based 

computing architecture. It is the next level of eliminating the 

complexities of dependencies. This is how we envision a 

more promising application of on-demand technology. The 

computing power on PCs is mostly unutilized and hence 

concept of applying grid is a possibility. Grid computing can 

be of great value to students, individual researchers, 

entrepreneurs and professionals. As a student we come 

across situations where we need access to very expensive 

software but the state is not willing to pay the huge licensing 

fees, especially in case of public universities. What if you 

are an entrepreneur and you need access to a data warehouse 

that contains critical information about your target 

customers. Imagine a researcher who needs access to a large 

amount of processing power for a highly specialized 

research project. In the current computing environment, it is 

not possible for these individuals to reach their goals 

without a huge corporate or government sponsorship. Now 

imagine if the university can go to a website and purchase 

the pricey software for 12 students every Wednesday from 

5:00 to 6:30 pm. What if the entrepreneur could access the 

data warehouse for fifteen minutes and download the 

information he/she needs. What is the researcher could tap 

into the grid for a couple of hour’s everyday to perform his 

calculations at 600 GHz. Though this may sound day 

dreaming, the apt combination of web services, grid 

computing and open source architecture can make it happen. 

A global grid connecting computing resources all over the 

world accessible through internet is the ultimate destination 

proponents of grid computing should strive for! 


LIMITATIONS AND CONCLUSION 

Grid computing is a technology with huge 

potentials. It could bring a paradigm shift in the way people 

share computing resources. However, grid computing is still 

is in its infancy and hence standards are not well developed. 

As grid resources are not entirely dedicated to the 

environment, computational and networking capabilities can 

vary significantly over time (Cao et al. 2003). Hence, 

predicting application performance may become difficult 

and real-time resource information update within a largescale 

global grid may become impossible. In addition, as the 

process of grid work flow encompass multiple 

administrative domains or organizations, lack of central 

ownership and control over the grid may result in 

incomplete information processing as well as many other 

uncertainties (Cao et al. 2003). 

Despite these limiting issues, it is sure that 

adopting grid computing will help improving operational 

efficiency of existing infrastructure and achieve more 

collaboration among various organizations. Specially, 

computational grid enables creation of virtual computing 

environment for sharing and aggregation of distributed 

resources for solving large-scale problems in science, 

engineering, and commerce (Buyya et al. 2002). Hence, 

application of grid computing is limited to businesses where 

high computational power is required. If web services and 

grid computing could be merged seamlessly, it can be 

utilized the productivity of masses and world can reap 

enormous advantages from it. Consequently, relevant 

legislations should be enacted in order to ensure proper 

direction and management of the resources of the virtual 

organization developed by the GRID itself. Hence further 

research is warranted in this regard. 

REFERENCES 

1. Azzedin, F. and Maheswaran, M. (2002), “Evolving and 

Managing Trust in Grid Computing Systems”, In 

Proceedings of the 2002 IEEE Canadian Conference on 

Electrical Computer Engineering, 0-7802-xxxx-x. 

2. Bote-Lorenzo, M. L., Yannis A. Dimitriadis, and 

Eduardo Gómez-Sánchez (2004), “Grid 

Characteristics and Uses: A Grid Definition”, in Miguel 

L., F. Fernández Rivera et al. (Eds.): Across Grids 

2003, LNCS 2970, pp. 291–298. 

3. Buyya, R. et al. (2002), “Economic models for resource 

management and scheduling in Grid computing”, 

Concurrency and Computation: Practice and 

Experiences, 14, 1507-1542. 

4. Cao, J., et al. (2003), “GridFlow: Workflow 

Management for Grid Computing”, In Proceedings of 

the 3 rd IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Cluster 

Computing and the Grid (CCGRID’03), 0—7695-1919- 

9/03. 

5. Foster, I. and Kesselman, C. (1998), “The Globus 

Project: a Status Report”, In Proceedings of 

IPPS/SPDP’98 Workshop on Heterogeneous 

Computing, pp. 4–18. 

6. Foster, I., Kesselman, C., Nick, J., and Tuecke, S. 

(2002), “Grid Services for Distributed 

System Integration”, Computer, 35(6):37–46. 

7. Foster, I. (1998), Computational Grids, pp. 15–52, in 

[10]. 

8. Foster, I. (2002), “What Is the Grid? A Three Point 

Checklist”, Grid Today, 1(6). 

9. Grimshaw, A. (2002), “What is a Grid?”, Grid Today, 

1(26). 

Krauter, K., Buyya, R., and Maheswaran, M. (2002), 

“A taxonomy and survey of grid 

resource management systems for distributed 

computing. Int. J. of Software Practice 

and Experience, 32(2):135–164. 

10. Glasgow, B. 2003, “Information Technology Insights: 

Grid Computing Moves Into the Next Wave,” Chemical 

Market Reporter; Dec 22-Dec 29, 2003; 264, 22; 

ABI/INFORM Global pg. 17. 

11. Lyster, P., Bergman, L., Li, P., Stanfill, D., Crippe, B., 

Blom, R., and Okaya, D. (1992), 

“CASA Gigabit Supercomputing Network: 

CALCRUST Three-Dimensional Real- 

Time Multi-Dataset Rendering”, In Proc. 

Supercomputing’92, Minneapolis. 

12. Schick, S. (2005), “Canadian grid computing project 

finds place in ATLAS”, Computing Canada; Sep 9, 31, 

12; ABI/INFORM Global pg. 10. 

Web sources: 

1. Liberated from Light Reading by Rick Thompson 

2. Characterizing Grids: Attributes, definitions and 

formalisms by N’emethl & Sunderam, EBSCO. 

http://www.networkmagazine.com/shared/article/showArticl 

e.jhtml?articleId=17602029 ). 

3. (www.grid.org) 

4. Don LeClair, Managing On-Demand Computing, CA 



9277_795.html 

5. SOA definition at http://www.servicearchitecture.com/web-services/articles/serviceoriented_architecture_soa_definition.html) 

6. Don LeClair, Managing On-Demand Computing, CA 


7. http://whitepapers.informationweek.com/detail/RES/1059 

049277_795.html 

8. http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/SAN.html 

9. http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/N/networkattached_storage.html 

*** 


Solar Power Generation Using ZVT interleaved 

Boost Converter 

S.Shiny Jasmine 

Asst.Prof, EEE, SNS College of Technology, Coimbatore. 

Abstract: The paper proposed is based on the 

implementation of a photo voltaic(PV) power system with 

high voltage gain. For a typical solar-tracking electricity 

generation system output voltage is relative low. High 

voltage gain is necessary to improve the grid connected 

function .The proposed PV system employs ZVT Boost 

converter with winding coupled inductor which can boost a 

low voltage of PV array to a high Dc bus voltage . A full 

bridge inverter with bidirectional power flow which can 

stabilize the dc bus voltage and shape the output current .A 

simple MPPT method based on power balance is applied to 

reduce the system complexity and cost. A prototype has 

been build and tested to verify the theoretical analysis of the 

paper. 

Keyword: PIC µc, ZVT Boost converter, 

photocell, Maximum power point 

tracking(MPPT)Photo voltaic(PV)system. 

I.INTRODUCTION 

The source of conventional energy are limited and 

every nation is planning to make an alternative arrangement 

to come out of the deficiencies of energy generating through 

depleting conventional sources of energy .So emphasis is 

given to the renewable energy programmes to keep the 

generating capacity upgraded. 

Solar energy is the energy that is present in 

sunlight. It has been used for thousands of years in many 

different ways by people all over the world. As well as its 

traditional human uses are heating, cooking, and drying, it is 

used today to generate electricity where other power 

supplies are absent, such as in remote places and in space. It 

is becoming cheaper to generate electricity from solar 

energy and in many ways it is competitive with other 

sources of energy like coal or oil. 

A solar tracker is a device for orienting a day lighting 

reflector, solar photovoltaic panel or concentrating solar 

reflector or lens toward the sun. The sun's position in the sky 

changes with the season and time of day as the sun moves 

across the sky. Solar powered equipment works best when 

pointed at or near the sun, so a solar tracker can increase the 

effectiveness of such equipment over any fixed position, at 

the cost of additional system complexity. 

In remote areas the sun is a cheap source of electricity 

because instead of hydraulic generators solar cells can be 

used to generate electricity. While the output of solar cells 

depends on the intensity of sunlight . 

PV cell is achieved rapidly by development of 

semiconductor. Also, price of solar cell is descending 

continuously. Therefore, photovoltaic system is a very 

important alternative energy and increasing constantly. 

There are three methods for increasing the efficiency of 

photovoltaic system. 

Increasing efficiency of PV cell, it becomes more cost. 

Efficiency of converter. 

Tracking the solar path to increase the use of solar 

energy. 

Increasing the efficiency of the converter is proposed in 

this paper. Efficiency of the converter is achieved by using 

a ZVT interleaved boost converter with winding coupled 

inductor. 

II.STEADY STATE MODEL OF 

ZVT-INTERLEAVED BOOST CONVERTER 

Fig1.Shows the ZVT interleaved boost converter with 

winding coupled inductor. The winding coupled inductor 

Offer the voltage gain extension [1]-[4]The active clamp 

circuits gives the ZVT commutation for the main switches 

and the auxiliary switches.S 1 and S 2 are the main switchers 

S c1 and S c2 are the active clamp switches. D 1 and D 2 are the 

output diodes. The coupling method of the winding inductor 

is marked by open circle and asterisks .The equivalent 

circuit model is shown in fig2 where L 1 and L 2 are the 

magnetizing inductor.L k1 and L k2 are the leakage inductance. 

C 1 and C 2 are the clamped capacitors. N is the turns ratio 

n 2/ n 1. 

Fig. 1 ZVT interleaved boost converter 

Fig. 2 Equivalent circuit of ZVT interleaved boost converter 


Fig.3 Proposed PV power system 

ZVT converter has three following advantages. 

(i) Voltage gain is increased by using proper turn ratio .As 

the turn ratio increases, the voltage gain increases without 

the extreme duty ratio,which can reduce the input and output 

current ripples. The voltage gain is given by 

M=V out /V in =N+1/1-D (1) 

(ii)Voltage stress of the main switches is reduced,as the turn 

ratio increases. Therefore low voltage and high performance 

device can be used to reduce the switching and conduction 

losses .And the voltage spikes are clamped effectively and 

the leakage energy is recovered .The voltage stress of the 

main switches are given by 

V ds =V out /N+1 (2) 

(iii)ZVT soft switching is achieved for both main switches 

and auxiliary switches during the whole switching transition 

which means the switching losses are reduce greatly. The 

diode reverse - recovery losses are reduced greatly because 

the di/dt of the diode current is controlled by the leakage 

inductor of a coupled boost inductor. 

To simplify the calculation, the following conditions are 

considered. 

(i)The clamp capacitance is large enough so the voltage 

ripple on the main switches can be ignored and the voltage 

V ds is taken as a constant when they turn off. 

(ii)The magnetizing inductance is much larger than the 

leakage inductance so that the magnetizing current I m, the 

dead time of the main switches and the corresponding 

auxiliary switches are ignored. 

(iv)The two interleaved and inter coupled boost converter 

cells are provided with a strict symmetry. Based on the 

previous assumptions,the wave forms of the converter are 

shown in Fig.4 

Fig.4 Wave form of the converter 

From the graph the following approximation are given 

∆ If ≈ ∆ Ir ≈∆ I (3) 

V Lk1 ≈ V LK2 ≈V LK (4) 

The equation of the output voltage is always true by the 

Kirchhoff voltage law 

V OUT = V ds1 + V o n2 + V * n2 (5) 

Where V o n2 and V * n2 respectively, represents the voltage of 

the second winding L 12 the voltage of the third winding L 23 

Stage(i) Main switch S 1 is off and S 2 is on 

Based on the voltage second balance to the magnetizing 

inductor , the switching voltage of S 1 is given by 

V ds1 =V in /1-D (6) 

From the wave form we can found that 

V LK = V LK1 = L k1 x ∆ If /∆ t1 

= L k1 x ∆I/(1D)/F c (7) 

As shown in fig. 2 the voltage on the winding coupled 

inductors are decided by 

V o n1=V L1 =V ds1 -V LK1 (8) V o n2=N xV in 

(9) V * n2=Nx(V in -V LK2 ) (10) 

Where V n1 represents the voltage of the first winding L 11 

Therefore , substituting (6),(9) and (10) in to (5) the 

equation of the output voltage in stage (i) is obtain as 

V out = (N-1) x V ds1 - 2 x N x V LK 

=(N+1/1-D)xV in -2xNxL k1 x∆I (11) 


(1-D)/f s 

Stage(ii)Main switches S 1 is on and S 2 is on 

From the waveform in fig4, it can be found that 

64 bytes of data EEPROM memory 

The internal hardware architecture of PIC16F84A is 

represented by the block diagram shown in the below 

figure 5 

V ds1 = 0 (12) 

V LK = V LK1 = L K1 x ∆ Ir /∆ t2 

= L k1 x ∆I/∆ t2 (13) 

Considering the polarity of the voltage on the winding 

coupled inductor in stage (ii), the voltage expression for the 

winding coupled inductor can be obtained by 

V o n1=V L1 

=V LK1 -V in 

V o n2=nxV o n1 

(14) 

(15) 

V * n2=Nx(V LK2 +V in ) (16) 

Therefore substituting (12), (15) and (16) in to (5) we can 

obtain the output voltage of stage b 

V OUT = 2x N x V LK 

=2 x L K1 x ∆I/∆ t2 (17) 

The charge through the two output diodes in one switching 

period can be decided by 

Q 1 =2 QD1 =(∆ t1 +∆ t2 )x∆I/N (18) 

Change through the load in one switching period is 

Q 2 =( V out /R )x (1/f s ) (19) 

Therefore the charge conservation equation can be found 

that 

(∆ t1 + ∆ t2 ) x ∆I/N 

=( V ou t /R) x( 1/f s ) (20) 

Therefore , the (11),(17) and (20) can be solved to obtain 

the expression for the steady state model of the converter. 

M =V out /V in 

All the blocks of figure. 5 are main bits of 

hardware and the lines that connect them are called 

buses. These buses are basically small parallel lines 

along which data can be passed simultaneously from 

one hardware block to the other. The number besides each 

bus indicates the number of lines present within that bus, 

denoting the bits that can be sent along these buses. 

IV. FULL- BRIDGE INVERTER. 

The full bridge inverter shown in fig.6 is a 

voltage source inverter. It has the capability to force the 

instantaneous load current to accurately follow the 

sinusoidal reference ,which synchronizes with the utility 

grid voltage. And the high power factor the low THD and 

the fast dynamic response are achieved. The bidirectional 

power flow facilitates the compensation of the Dc bus and 

the Ac side voltage variation. 

=(N+1)√ [(1-D)R] 2 +8N 2 f s L k1 R - (1-D)R 

4N 2 x f s x L k 

Where Lk is the equivalent leakage inductance of the 

winding coupled inductor ,and 

Lk = Lk1=Lk2, and R is the equivalent load of the 

converter. 

III. PIC16F84A ARCHITECTURE 

There are three types of PIC16F84A packaging designs 

available in the market PDIP (18-Lead Plastic Dual Inline), 

SOIP (18-Lead Plastic Small Outline), SSOP (20- 

Lead Plastic Shrink Small Outline). PDIP type packaging 

will be used for the solar tracker embedded design. 

Figure 3 illustrates the PIC16F84A PDIP [11] and shows 

the name and pin positions [7,12]. The PDIP has three key 

features that satisfy the objective. These are [13,14] 

8-bit multi channel analog to digital Converter 

13 input/output pin 

Full bridge inverter 

Fig.6 

The inverter can deliver and accept both real and reactive 

power .The inverter has two legs .Each leg consist of two 

power control devices .The load is connected between the 

mid point of the two phase legs. Each power control devices 

has a diode connected in anti parallel to it .This diodes 

provides an alternate path for load current if the power 

switches are turn off. For example if the lower IGBT in the 

left leg is conducting and carrying current towards the 


negative DC bus ,this current would commutate into the 

diode across the upper IGBT of the left leg ,if the lower 

IGBT is turned off .Control of circuit is accomplished by 

varying the turn on time of the upper and lower IGBT of 

each inverter leg ,with the provision of never turning on 

both at the same time ,to avoid a short circuit of the DC bus 

.In fact the modern drives does not allow this to happen 

even if the controller would erroneously command both 

controller devices to be turned on .The controller will 

therefore alternate the turn 

on command for the upper and lower switch .ie turn the 

upper switch on and the lower switch off and vice versa 

.The drive circuit should add some additional blanking time 

(typically 500-1000ns) during the switch transitions to avoid 

any over lap in the condition intervals. 

The controller will control the duty cycle of 

the conduction phase of the switches .The average potential 

of the centre point of each leg will be given by the DC bus 

voltage multiplied by the duty cycle of the upper switches ,if 

the negative side of the DC bus is used as a reference. If 

this duty cycle is modulated with a sinusoidal signal with a 

frequency much smaller than the switching frequency the 

short term average of the centre point potential will follow 

the modulation signal 

For a single phase inverter 

the modulation of the two legs are inverse of each other 

such that if the left leg has a large duty cycle for the upper 

switch , the right leg has a small one .The frequency ,wave 

shape and the amplitude of the inverter out put voltage can 

be controlled as long as the switching frequency is at least 

25 to 100 times higher than the fundamental output 

frequency of the inverter .The actual generation of PWM 

signals is done using microcontroller Fig 8 shows the 

control block diagram of photovoltaic power system . 

Solar panel 

Fig.8 

However, solar-thermal panels are still in 

production, and are common in portions of the world where 

energy costs, and solar energy availability, are high. 

Recently there has been a surge toward large scale 

production of PV modules. The largest solar panel in the 

world is under construction in the south of Portugal. A 

52,000 photovoltaic module, 11-megawatt facility covering 

a 60- hectare 

VI. MAXIMUM POWER POINT TRACKER (MPPT) 

MPPT solutions are developed to ensure the 

optimum utilization of PV module[8],[11].The 

implementation generally involves sensing the output 

current and voltage of PV modules. Such realizations are are 

costly and complex. 

This paper presents a simple maximum power point 

tracker (or MPPT) that presents an optimal electrical load to 

a solar panel or array and produces a voltage suitable for the 

load.PV cells have a single operating point where the values 

of the current (I) and Voltage (V) of the cell result in a 

maximum power output. These values correspond to a 

particular resistance, which is equal to V/I as specified by 

Ohm's Law. A PV cell has an exponential relationship 

between current and voltage, and the maximum power point 

(MPP) will occurs .where the resistance is equal to the 

negative of the differential resistance (V/I = -dV/dI). 

Maximum power point trackers utilize some type of control 

circuit or logic to search for this point and thus to allow the 

converter circuit to extract the maximum power available 

from a cell. MPPT increases the total power harvested by 

50% 

VII . EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS 

Simulation result. 

Fig.7 Control block diagram of PV power system 

V. SOLAR PANEL 

Fig.9 shows the experimental results of the ZVT interleaved 

boost converter when the input voltage is 38-50V and the 

out put voltage is 380v 

Solar panel is refer to a photovoltaic module which is 

an assembly of solar cells used to generate electricity. In all 

cases, the panels are typically flat, and are available in 

various heights and widths An array is an assembly of solarthermal 

panels or photovoltaic (PV) modules; the panels can 

be connected either in parallel or series depending upon the 

design objective. Solar panels typically find use in 

residential, commercial, institutional, and light industrial 

applications. 


[4] K. C. Tseng and T. J. Liang, “Novel high-efficiency 

step-up converter,” 

IEE Electr. Power Appl., vol. 151, no. 2, pp. 182–190, Mar. 

2004.6 

[5] F. C. Lee, S. Wang, P. Kong, C. Wang, and D. Fu, 

“Power architecture 

Fig 9 Simulation result of the proposed system 

Hard ware designed 

design with improved system efficiency, EMI and power 

density,” in Proc. 

IEEE PESC Conf., 2008, pp. 4131–4137. 

[6] A. Bellini, S. Bifaretti, and V. Iacovone, “Resonant 

DC–DC converters 

for photovoltaic energy generation systems,” in Proc. IEEE 

SPEEDAM 

Conf., 2008, pp. 815–820. 

[7]. Microcomputer Control of a Residential Photovoltaic 

Power Condictioning System” 

B.K. Bose, P.M. Szczesny and R.L. Steigerwald, IEEE 

Trans. on Industry Applications, vol. IA-21, no. 5,Sep. 

1985, ppll82-1191. 

[8]. .D. P. Hohm, M. E. Ropp,“Comparative Study of 

Maximum Power Point Tracking Algorithms Using an 

Experimental, Programmable, Maximum Power Point 

Tracking Test Bed”,IEEE,2000.pp.1699-1702. 

Fig12.Photograph of prototype 

VIII .CONCLUSION 

The paper proposed a photovoltaic power system 

with high voltage gain .The proposed PV system employs a 

high step up ZVT- interleaved boost converter with winding 

coupled inductors .A full bridge inverter with bidirectional 

power flow is used to stabilize the DC bus voltage and shape 

the output current .Further more a simple MPPT solution is 

applied in the PV system and a good performance is 

obtained. 

REFERENCES 

[1]W. Li and X. He, “ZVT interleaved boost converters for 

high-efficiency, 

high step-up DC/DC conversion,” IET Electr. Power Appl., 

vol. 1, no. 2, 

pp. 284–290, Mar. 2007. 

[2]Q. Zhao and F. C. Lee, “High-efficiency, high stepupDC–DC 

converters,” 

IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 65–73, Jan. 

2003. 

[3] R. J.Wai and R. Y. Duan, “High step-up converter with 

coupled-inductor,” 

IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 20, no. 5, pp. 1025–1035, 

Sep. 2005. 

[9]. SteveHeckeroth. Solar is the Solution, 

2008.http://www.motherearthnews.com/Renewable- 

Energy/2007-12-01/Solar-is-the-Solution.aspx (accessed 

Dec 20, 2008). 

[10]. J. Rizk, and Y. Chaiko. (2008). Solar Tracking System: 

More Efficient Use of Solar Panels. Proceedings of 

World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology, 

2-3 

[11]. Gay, CF and Wilson, JH and Yerkes, JW. 

"Performance advantages of two-axis tracking for large flatplate 

photovoltaic energy systems." 1982, Conf. Rec. IEEE 

Photovoltaic Spec. 

[12]. Iovine, John. (2000). PIC Microcontroller Project 

Book, 1st edition. Ch. 3, pg 35. McGraw-Hill. 

[13]. Ibrahim, Dogan. (2006).PIC Basic Projects: 30 

Projects Using PIC BASIC and PIC BASIC PRO, Ch. 2, pg 

14-16. Elsevier 

[14] Inoue, Seiichi. Hardware of the PIC16F84A, 

2008.http://www.interq.or.jp/japan/seinoue/e_pic2.htm 

accessed Jan 12, 2009. 

[15]. Microchip Technology Incorporated (2001). 

PIC16F84A, 18-pin Enhanced FLASH/EEPROM 8-Bit 

Microcontroller, PIC16F84A Data Sheet 

[16]. Inoue, Seiichi. Hardware of the PIC16F84A, 2008. 

http://www.interq.or.jp/japan/se-inoue/e_pic2.htm 

(accessed Feb 2, 2009 

[17]. Mohan, N (1995). Electronics Converters, 

Applications and Design, 2 nd Edition, John Wiley. 


Vendor Relationship Management strategy 

development Process for Automobile Industry to 

reduce the cost of quality 

S.N.Teli 

Associate Professor & HOD -Mech. Engg. Dept., SCOE, Kharghar, NaviMumbai 

Dr.V.S.Majali 

Professor & HOD – Mech. Engg.Dept. , GIT, Belgaum 

Dr.U.M.Bhushi 

Principal - Sahyadri College of Mangalore Engineering & Management, Mangalore 

Kalyan Kumar Hatti 

AGM (PD) - Ashok Leyland, Chennai 

Abstract: 

Vendors play a key role in the success of your business 

irrespective of the sphere of business. The following vendor 

management practices build a mutually strong relationship 

with your vendor which in turn strengthens your company's 

overall performance in the marketplace. Ignoring these 

sound vendor management principles will result in a 

dysfunctional relationship that will have the potential to 

negatively impact your business. The time, money and 

energy used to nurture a positive vendor relationship cannot 

be measured directly against the company's bottom line. 

However, a well managed vendor relationship will result in 

increased customer satisfaction, reduced costs, better 

quality, and better service from the vendor. When and if 

problems arise, rest assured that a well managed vendor 

will be quick to remedy the situation. Successful vendorvendee 

relationship is viewed as an important ingredient for 

maintaining competitiveness in the current marketplace. 

This calls for a careful and comprehensive approach in 

selecting vendors. 

Keywords—Vendor Relationship Management, Customer 

Satisfaction, cost of quality 

I Introduction 

1. The Successful Vendor Selection Process 

The vendor selection process can be a very complicated and 

emotionally undertaking if you don't know how to approach 

it from the very start. Here are five steps to help you select 

the right vendor for your business. This guide will show you 

how to analyze your business requirements, search for 

prospective vendors, lead the team in selecting the winning 

vendor and provide you with insight on contract 

negotiations and avoiding negotiation mistakes. 

1.1Analyze the Business Requirements: Before you begin 

to gather data or perform interviews, assemble a team of 

people who have a vested interest in this particular vendor 

selection process. The first task that the vendor selection 

team needs accomplish is to define, in writing, the product, 

material or service that you are searching for a vendor. Next 

define the technical and business requirements. Also, define 

the vendor requirements. 

Finally, publish your document to the areas relevant to this 

vendor selection process and seek their input. Have the team 

analyze the comments and create a final document. In 

summary: 

Assemble an Evaluation Team 

Define the Product, Material or Service 

Define the Technical and Business Requirements 

Define the Vendor Requirements 

Publish a Requirements Document for Approval 

1.2 Vendor Search :Now that you have agreement on the 

business and vendor requirements, the team now must start 

to search for possible vendors that will be able to deliver the 

material, product or service. The larger the scope of the 

vendor selection process the more vendors you should put 

on the table. Of course, not all vendors will meet your 

minimum requirements and the team will have to decide 

which vendors you will seek more information from. Next 

write a Request for Information (RFI) and send it to the 

selected vendors. Finally, evaluate their responses and select 

a small number of vendors that will make the "Short List" 

and move on to the next round. In summary: 

Compile a List of Possible Vendors 

Select Vendors to Request More Information From 

 

 

Write a Request for Information (RFI) 

Evaluate Responses and Create a "Short List" of 

Vendors 

1.3 Request for Proposal (RFP) and Request for 

Quotation (RFQ): The business requirements are 

defined and you have a short list of vendors that you want to 

evaluate. It is now time to write a Request for Proposal or 

Request for Quotation. Whichever format you decide, your 

RFP or RFQ should contain the following sections: 

Submission Details 

Introduction and Executive Summary 

Business Overview & Background 

Detailed Specifications 

Assumptions & Constraints 

Terms and Conditions 

Selection Criteria 

1.4 Proposal Evaluation and Vendor Selection: The main 

objective of this phase is to minimize human emotion and 

political positioning in order to arrive at a decision that is in 


the best interest of the company. Be thorough in your 

investigation, seek input from all stakeholders and use the 

following methodology to lead the team to a unified vendor 

selection decision: 

Preliminary Review of All Vendor Proposals 

Record Business Requirements and Vendor 

Requirements 

Assign Importance Value for Each Requirement 

Assign a Performance Value for Each Requirement 

Calculate a Total Performance Score 

Select a the Winning Vendor 

1.5 Contract Negotiation Strategies: The final stage in the 

vendor selection process is developing a contract negotiation 

strategy. Remember, you want to "partner" with your vendor 

and not "take them to the cleaners." Review your objectives 

for your contract negotiation and plan for the negotiations 

are covering the following items: 

List Rank Your Priorities Along With Alternatives 

Know the Difference Between What You Need and 

What You Want 

Know Your Bottom Line So You Know When to Walk 

Away 

Define Any Time Constraints and Benchmarks 

Assess Potential Liabilities and Risks 

Confidentiality, non-compete, dispute resolution, 

changes in requirements 

Do the Same for Your Vendor (i.e. Walk a Mile in 

Their Shoes) 

1.6 Contract Negotiation Mistakes: The smallest mistake 

can kill an otherwise productive contract negotiation 

process. Avoid the following ten contract negotiation 

mistakes to protect jeopardizing an otherwise productive 

contract negotiation process. 

2. Ten Mistakes to Avoid In The Contract Negotiation 

Process 

These contract negotiation mistakes should be avoided so 

that you and your vendor will come to an agreement that 

will benefit both parties. 

2.1 Thinking the Yard is fenced In: Don't assume that 

only a certain subset of resources or conditions can be 

negotiated. The sky is the limit and finding creative and 

original alternatives that can benefit both parties will result 

in a better negotiated contract. Do not propose ridiculous or 

insulting alternatives that will destroy your sincerity and 

integrity. 

2.2 Failure to Study Your Opponent: Too many people 

approach contract negotiation process with an egotistic 

mentality. They fail to research the vendor that they will be 

negotiating with. They don’t understand the vendor's market 

and what other influences control their environment. The 

larger the contract, the more time you should spend on this. 

2.3 Too Aggressive: You need to be certain that your 

company's interests are at the forefront of your priorities but 

at the same time you need to be mindful and sensitive 

regarding the person representing the vendor. Aggressive 

discussions will only succeed in raising the vendor’s 

defensive mechanisms and negotiations will turn out to be 

fruitless. 

2.4 It's All About Price: Of course nobody wants to pay 

too much for their goods and services, but there is a lot more 

on the table than just money. Look for alternatives that are 

high on your priority list and low on the vendors. Then you 

both win. 

2.5 Jumping Too Quick: No matter how low the opening 

price is, offer lower or ask for something more. If you jump 

too quickly at the first offer, the vendor will feel like they 

made a stupid mistake. 

2.6 Don't Gloat: When you do end up striking a fantastic 

deal in your favor, don't embarrass the vendor by saying 

something that will give you an ego-trip at his/her expense. 

Not only is this unprofessional, but the vendor may then 

look for loop-holes in the contract to regain some money 

and pride. 

2.7 Terminology Not Defined or Understood: Don't 

assume that everyone who will read the contract will 

understand every technical term or complicated provision. 

Insist that every area of the contract that has the possibility 

of being misunderstood is clearly defined. 

2.8 Inconsistencies within the Contract: Look for 

inconsistencies within the contract that can come back to 

haunt you in some form of arbitration. If necessary, have a 

third party review the contract in order to uncover any 

inconsistencies. 

2.9 Concern in One Area Will be Overridden by Another 

Area: Do not assume that a perceived weakness or 

apprehension in one area of the contract can be compensated 

by strength in another area. Be specific and direct in all 

areas. Once the contract is contested in a court of law, all 

control is removed from your hands. 

2.10 Avoid Redundancies: Stating the same thing twice in 

different section of the contract will not reinforce their 

value. In most instances lawyers and the courts will come up 

with a reason to differentiate and justify both areas; usually 

with an interpretation that neither party anticipated. 

II Methodology 

3. Vendor Management Success Tips: 

Strategies to Strengthen Vendor Relations 

Vendor management allows you to build a relationship with 

your suppliers and service providers that will strengthen 

both businesses. Vendor management is not negotiating the 

lowest price possible. Vendor management is constantly 

working with your vendors to come to agreements that will 

mutually benefit both companies. 

3.1 Share Information and Priorities: The most important 

success factor of vendor management is to share information 

and priorities with your vendors. That does not mean that 

you throw open the accounting books and give them user 

IDs and passwords to your systems. Appropriate vendor 

management practices provide only the necessary 

information at the right time that will allow a vendor to 

better service your needs. This may include limited forecast 


information, new product launches, changes in design and 

expansion or relocation changes, just to name a few. 

3.2 Balance Commitment and Competition: One of the 

goals in vendor management is to gain the commitment of 

your vendors to assist and support the operations of your 

business. On-the-other-hand, the vendor is expecting a 

certain level of commitment from you. This does not mean 

that you should blindly accept the prices they provide. 

3.3 Allow Key Vendors to Help You Strategize: If a 

vendor supplies a key part or service to your operation, 

invite that vendor to strategic meetings that involve the 

product they work with. Remember, you brought in the 

vendor because they could make the product or service 

better and/or cheaper than you could. They are the experts in 

that area and you can tap into that expertise in order to give 

you a competitive advantage. 

3.4 Build Partnerships for the Long Term: Vendor 

management seeks long term relationships over short term 

gains and marginal cost savings. Constantly changing 

vendors in order to save a penny here or there will cost more 

money in the long run and will impact quality. Other 

benefits of a long term relationship include trust, preferential 

treatment and access to insider or expert knowledge. 

3.4 Seek to Understand Your Vendor's Business Too: 

Remember, your vendor is in business to make money too. 

If you are constantly leaning on them to cut costs, either 

quality will suffer or they will go out of business. Part of 

vendor management is to contribute knowledge or resources 

that may help the vendor better serve you. Asking questions 

of your vendors will help you understand their side of the 

business and build a better relationship between the two of 

you. 

3.5 Negotiate to a Win-Win Agreement: Good vendor 

management dictates that negotiations are completed in 

good faith. Look for negotiation points that can help both 

sides accomplish their goals. A strong-arm negotiation tactic 

will only work for so long before one party walks away 

from the deal. 

3.6 Come Together on Value: Vendor management is more 

than getting the lowest price. Most often the lowest price 

also brings the lowest quality. Vendor management will 

focus quality for the money that is paid. In other words: 

value! You should be willing to pay more in order to receive 

better quality. If the vendor is serious about the quality they 

deliver, they won't have a problem specifying the quality 

details in the contract. 

4. Vendor Management Best Practices 

Whether you're a multimillion dollar company or a small 

business with a few employees, here are some Vendor 

Management Best Practices that any size business can use. 

4.1 Vendor Selection: The vendor management process 

begins by selecting the right vendor for the right reasons. 

You will need to analyze your business requirements, search 

for prospective vendors, lead the team in selecting the 

winning vendor and successfully negotiate a contract while 

avoiding contract negotiation mistakes. 

4.2 Scrutinize the Prospects: Once you start to look at 

individual vendors, be careful that you don't get blinded by 

the deceptive offers. Depending upon the size of the 

possible contract, they will pull out all the stops in order to 

get your business. This may include a barrage of 

overzealous salespeople and consultants. Just because they 

send a lot of people in the beginning, doesn't mean they will 

be there after the contract is signed. 

As you begin your vendor search, ask some questions that 

will help you eliminate the more obvious misfits. For 

example, Is the proposed material, service or outsourcing 

project within the vendor's area of expertise? 

4.3 Remain Flexible: Be wary of restrictive or exclusive 

relationships. For example, limitations with other vendors or 

with future customers. In addition, contracts that have 

severe penalties for seemingly small incidents should be 

avoided. If the vendor asks for an extremely long term 

contract, you should ask for a shorter term with a renewal 

option. On the other hand, you should be open to the 

vendor's requests also. If an issue is small and insignificant 

to you but the vendor insists on adding it to the contract you 

may choose to bend in this situation. This shows good faith 

on your part and your willingness to work towards a 

contract that is mutually beneficial to both parties. 

4.4 Monitor Performance: Once the relationship with the 

vendor has begun, don't assume that everything will go 

according to plan and executed exactly as specified in the 

contract. The vendor's performance must be monitored 

constantly in the beginning. This should include the 

requirements that are most critical to your business. For 

example: shipping times, quality of service performed, order 

completion, call answer time, etc. 

4.5 Communicate Constantly: The bottom line in vendor 

management best practices is: communication. Don't assume 

that the vendor intimately knows your business or can read 

your mind. A well established and well maintained line of 

communication will avoid misunderstandings and 

proactively address issues before they become problems. 

5. Choose Your Vendors Wisely: 

Your vendors have as much interest in your company's 

success as you do. When you make a lot of sales, they make 

a lot of sales; when you get paid, they get paid. Having 

reliable and trustworthy vendors can help your business 

succeed, just as dealing with unreliable or shady firms can 

cause major setbacks. Start by asking around; other business 

owners in your area can be a great source of information. 

Once you've got a list of names, call your local Better 

Business Bureau to find out whether any complaints have 

been filed against any of the vendors on your list. You can 

visit vendor Web sites and even tour their physical 

locations. You can ask for customer testimonials and for 

product samples as well. The key is to get as much 

information as possible before you make a large monetary 

commitment to a vendor you don't know. 

As you begin to choose vendors, particularly those who will 

stock your inventory, try to think of them as business 

partners. You want to choose the ones with whom your 

company can develop a long-term, mutually profitable 

relationship, and that relationship starts with your first 


equest for a price quote. Don't be afraid to ask vendors for 

quotes; they're used to it and they probably expect it. After 

all, this is a major purchase, and it's never wise to make a 

major purchase without shopping around — especially when 

you're going to a vendor you've never dealt with before. If 

you're having a hard time finding vendors, and an even 

harder time finding information about them, you can run 

your own test by placing a very small order, under $100 in 

total value. If that process goes well, take it up a notch and 

place a slightly larger order the next time. Once you feel 

comfortable with the vendor, you can place your full-blown 

orders without worry. 

5.1 Getting Quotes: When you want to make a big purchase 

for your business, you need to know the total cost upfront. 

To get that information, you need to ask the people who sell 

whatever it is you want to buy. In order for that information 

to be fixed (as opposed to changeable), it's best to get it in 

writing. When your company is buying a product, that 

information will come in the form of a quote; when it's 

services you're after, the quote is usually referred to as an 

estimate. 

The best way to get a quote is to talk with a salesperson; 

quote requests that come by mail are often ignored. Phone 

contact is fine, especially after you've begun to build a 

relationship with that vendor or salesman. For your first 

time out, though, a face-to-face meeting could prove more 

fruitful, especially if you're spending a significant sum. 

Even though salesmen themselves are seldom involved in 

setting company pricing policy, they often have some 

leeway when it comes to closing a deal. When you establish 

a personal connection with a salesman, he'll work harder 

with you and for you; after all, making a sale to you is his 

bread and butter. Flexible areas often include lower unit 

pricing when you buy in bulk, and better credit terms. 

5.2 Avoid These Vendors: There are some vendors that you 

should avoid. If you run across a vendor with one (or more) 

of the following characteristics, run in another direction: 

Accepts cash only 

Asks for checks made out to cash 

Won't send a brochure or catalog 

Won't give you a price quote or estimate in writing 

Dirty, disorganized stockroom 

No warehouse or storage facility 

If one (or more) of these factors is the norm in your 

industry, and the vendor in question has gotten high marks 

from a reliable source, it's probably safe to keep him on your 

list. However, if it's the vendor telling you this is normal 

practice, and you can't verify that with anyone else, look for 

a different vendor. 

6. Establishing Good Vendor Relations: 

Developing your vendor relations will save you stress and 

time, both of which you can save for planning more events. 

6.1 The Vendor Cast of Characters: Your vendor list will 

vary depending on your field of event planning. When 

shopping for a vendor, ask other players in the same area for 

recommendations. You can also ask the company for 

referrals from other clients in the industry. Be sure to call 

the company for a full report before you decide to hire a 

vendor. As with industries, vendors rely heavily on their 

reputations to be successful. You might find yourself 

looking for the following vendors when you begin your 

career. 

Labor companies, which includes electricians, 

general contractors, carpenters, and painters 

Graphic designer or Web designer 

Specialty stationery designer or printing company 

6.2 Working with an Existing Vendor List: You may also 

find you are entering into a position with an existing vendor 

list. Ask your new associates how the relationship between 

the company and the vendor has been in the past. When 

appropriate, schedule a meeting with the vendor to introduce 

yourself. During the meeting you should get an idea of the 

existing process of ordering, delivering, and billing. You 

should reserve offering suggestions until you have worked 

with the company for a few months 

6.3 Creating Goodwill among Your Vendors: If your 

goal is to develop a healthy relationship with a vendor, you 

must make a conscious effort to show your appreciation. 

Here are some suggestions to create goodwill and develop 

your vendor relationships. 

Offer a drink to your delivery people. Restaurants have 

the luxury of offering this service to their vendors. If you 

are working in an office, keep coffee, sodas, and bottled 

water on hand for company drivers. 

Provide vendor meals. Do so not only for your staff but 

also for vendors who may be working. This simple act 

encourages staff relationships and builds a sense of 

community. 

Have a volunteer day. Choose a charity and get your 

company, vendors, and staff involved. 

Invite vendors to events. When appropriate, put your 

vendors on the guest list of an event your company is 

hosting. 

Extend an invitation to company parties. Holiday staff 

parties are a great way to integrate vendors into your 

company. 

7. Repairing a Relationship with a Vendor 

It is possible a relationship with a vendor may strain at some 

point in your career. You should make every effort to repair 

the relationship. Misunderstandings often occur in the heat 

of the moment. Tempers and emotions flare at this time 

between two otherwise calm people. In this case, an apology 

in your thank-you letter may solve this matter. 

7.1 Working toward a Solution: In the instance of larger 

disagreements, the first step to mending the working 

relationship is to have a meeting with your vendor. Revisit a 

disagreement after a few days have passed, to give both 

parties some clarity. Begin the meeting by addressing the 

problem, then listen to your vendor's side of the story. 

Accept your responsibility in the matter and apologize. If 

warranted, address any issues you may be having with your 

vendor, and hopefully he will return the apology and you 

both can continue working together. 

7.2 Monetary Issues: If the matter involves a monetary 

issue, try and invite a third party to resolve the dispute. The 

third party should be someone you both have worked with 

and trust. Another vendor would be good choices for a third 

party. If the matter involves a client and a complaint, you 

might ask the client how he/she would like the matter 

resolved and recommend this to your vendor. 

7.3 Knowing When to Walk Away: Sometimes a sour 

vendor relationship has passed the point of repair. If you 


have followed all the suggested tips for repairing a 

relationship, it may be time to walk away. It is best to make 

a clean break. Do not embellish or gossip to other vendors. 

A vendor can also gossip about his experience working for 

you. Make it a practice not to speak negatively about 

vendors. Simply stating you used to work with a vendor but 

no longer do will speak volumes to a client asking for a 

vendor referral. 

Conclusion: Although today’s reason for implementing 

VRM is mostly driven by cost-savings and efficiency 

increase propositions, Substantial improvements in efficacy 

and quality in different areas of Automobile Industries can 

be achieved. 

The implementation of the above mentioned vendor 

relationship management practices can boost the vendor 

response towards our own company which in turn will make 

him a staunch support at dire times of need. The cost of 

quality (or better phrased as the cost of “unquality”) resulted 

from imperfections of a vendor's incoming input materials is 

one component of the total costs in the evaluation of 

vendors. 

A well managed vendor will prove to be of great support 

when it comes to customer satisfaction and job shop 

productions in terms of cost and quality. 

In an automobile industry where the competition is 

enormous it becomes the need of the hour to have 

competitive and well managed vendors for developing new 

products at a faster pace to have a greater edge amongst the 

other major players. 

References: 

[1] Aberdeen Group. (2004, June). The Quiet Revolution in 

Vendor Management — A Benchmark Study on 

HowCompanies Are Communicating with and Monitoring 

Their Suppliers. [Online]. 

Available:http://www.aberdeen.com/summary/report/bench 

mark/suppliermgmt.asp. 

[2] W. Appelfeller, and W. Buchholz, Supplier Relationship 

Management: Strategie, Organisation und IT 

desmodernenen Beschaffungsmanagements, Wiesbaden: 

Gabler, 2005. 

[3] I. Benbasat, D. K. Goldstein, and M. Mead, The Case 

Research Strategy in Studies of Information Systems, 

MISQuarterly, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 369-386, 1987. 

[4] T. Boland, and A. Fowler, A Systems Perspective of 

Performance Management in Public Sector 

Organisations,The International Journal of Public Sector 

Management, vol. 13, no. 5, pp. 417-446, 2000. 

[5] M. C. J. Caniëls, and C. J. Gelderman, Power and 

Interdependence in Buyer Supplier Relationships: 

A Purchasing Portfolio Approach, Industrial Marketing 

Management, vol. 36, no. 2, pp. 219-229, 2007. 

[6] M. G. Christopher, Logistics and Supply Chain 

Management, London: Pitman Publishing, 1992. 

1992. 

[7] T. H. Davenport, and J. E. Short, The New Industrial 

Engineering - Information Technology and Business Process 

Redesign, Sloan Management Review 

[8]F. R. Dwyer, P. H. Schurr, and S. Oh, Developing Buyer- 

Seller Relationships, Journal of Marketing. 

[9] European Commission, ICT and e-Business in Hospital 

Activities: ICT Adoption and e-Business Activity in 

2006,Sector Report No. 10/2006, e Business Watch, Bonn, 

Germany, 2006. 

***

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