What is Open Source?

Open source software and applications are released under General Public License (GNU) and are freely available with their complete source code along with their help documents. These applications are continuously being updated and extended by the community members. Programmers can customize these software according to their needs and redistribute their customized work. Open source software is much better and stable than proprietary software in many aspects. Programmers all around the world contribute to the software features, quality, bug fixes and security making it more reliable and safe. Most leading open source software are built on tried and tested frameworks such as MVC. Furthermore, they are supported by third party modules, add-ons, plug-ins, localization packs and connectors which make it real easy to not only enhance the functionality but also integrate with other systems and applications.

Which Open Source Application to choose for your shopping cart?

Selection of open source shopping cart application for your online store is not an easy task. You have to consider each and every aspect from basic layout towards the complex payment processing features right from the beginning. However, the application features must fulfill the business needs and requirements. For example if you are have thousands of products and expect a huge volume of traffic, then it is recommended to go for a most stable and enterprise level application. On the other hand if you have few products to sell online and expect low volume traffic, you can go for an entry level application. The entry level applications are easy to customize, have a low cost to run and maintain but may not be able to handle large volume of transactions and security demanded by medium to large size businesses.

We have prepared a comparison matrix of some popular open source shopping carts with respect to their stability, ease of use, feature list, availability of advance options, customization complexity etc. The matrix will help you choose the right product for your online business.

Most Popular Shopping Carts

For the comparison matrix, we have selected the following most popular open source shopping cart applications:

1. Magento
2. ZenCart
3. OpenCart
4. OsCommerce

Magento

Magento is a feature-rich ecommerce platform built on open-source technology (MySQL and PHP) that provides online merchants with unprecedented flexibility and control over the look, content and functionality of their ecommerce store. Magento’s powerful administration interface features, search engine optimization and catalog-management tools give merchants the power to create sites that are tailored to their unique business needs [1].

Magento is the ecommerce platform of choice for integration with Openbravo ERP system. For medium to large businesses, Openbravo ERP extends the functionality of an ecommerce application to include stock control, sales order management and finance and accounting.

ZenCart

ZenCart is a free, user-friendly and open source shopping cart software. It has been developed by a group of like-minded shop owners, programmers, designers, and consultants that think ecommerce web design could be and should be done differently. [2].

OpenCart

OpenCart is an open source PHP-based online shopping cart system. A robust e-commerce solution for Internet merchants with the ability to create their own online business and participate in e-commerce at a minimal cost. OpenCart is designed feature rich, easy to use, search engine friendly and with a visually appealing interface [3].

OsCommerce

osCommerce Online Merchant is an Open Source online shop e-commerce solution that is available for free with a feature rich set of out-of-the-box online shopping cart functionality that allows store owners to setup, run, and maintain online stores with minimum effort and with no costs, fees, or limitations involved. [4].

Comparison Matrix of open source ecommerce Applications

Here we are going to present a comparison matrix of these 4 most popular open source ecommerce applications.

1 – Essentials

2 – Site Management

	Magento	ZenCart	OpenCart	OsCommerce
Multi-store
Multi-Lingual
Support for Multiple Currencies
Tax Rate support
iPhone optimised
Template system
WYSIWYG Editor for HTML content				add-on (ck editor)
Page content management
Email template management
Administration Roles and Users
Open Source?
Unlimited products?

3 – Catalog Management

	Magento	ZenCart	OpenCart	OsCommerce
Batch Import and Export of catalog		add-on
Google Base Integration		add-on	add-on
Downloadable/Digital Products
Filtering of products		limited
Product comparisons				add-on
Product reviews

4 – Product Management

	Magento	Zen Cart	OpenCart	OsCommerce
Multiple Images Per Product
Reports		limited
Bundled products			add-on	add-on
Up-sells in Shopping Cart
Stock Control		limited	limited	add-on
Product call for price	add-on		add-on	add-on
Min or max quantities and units	add-on		add-on
Cross Sells				add-on
Related Products
Auctions	add-on	add-on	add-on	add-o

5 – Marketing, Sales and SEO

	Magento	Zen Cart	OpenCart	OsCommerce
Google Site Map		add-on	add-on	add-on
URL Rewrites		add-on	add-on	add-on
Meta-information for products and categories
Discount Coupons		limited	limited
Catalog Promotional Pricing
Multi-tier pricing			add-on
Customer groups		add-on	add-on
Wishlist
Newsletter
Gift Certificates

6 – Checkout

	Magento	Zen Cart	Opencart	OsCommerce
Delivery / Billing address
Ship products to multiple addresses in one order
One-Page Checkout		add-on	add-on	add-on
Checkout without account/Guest Checkout		add-on	add-on	add-on
Integrated with Google Checkout (Level 2)		add-on	add-on	add-o

7 – Order Management

	Magento	Zen Cart	OpenCart	OsCommerce
Manage orders from admin
Create, edit orders from admin panel.		add-on	add-on	add-on
Create one or multiple invoices, shipments and credit memos per order to allow for split fulfillment
Order statuses

Conclusion

We hope that after going through this article you are able to select the right product for your online store. If you feel that this article was informative and helpful, please share it with others.

References

1 – http://www.magentocommerce.com

2 – http://www.zen-cart.com

3 – http://www.opencart.com

4 – http://www.oscommerce.com

What is next for jComply?  With feedback from existing clients, partners and the fact that jComply is built on web friendly technologies anyway, the obvious next step was to put it on cloud.  We are  excited about this move and feel that it will help with the following:

1. Make it easy for users to demo the application online
2. Take a trial for 30 days and really see how jComply can benefit your organisation
3. If you like what you see, sign up straight away
4. Low cost to use the application
5. Scale up as the business grows

Here is a glimpse of the features available in the cloud version:

• Online storage
• Flexible sharing
• Version control
• Tagging, searching and filtering
• Integration with Microsoft Office
• Alerts and email notifications
• eLearning
• Task management
• Audit log
• And many more

Follow us on http://www.facebook.com/jcomply to stay tuned.  We will be making more announcements about the features, price plans and most importantly when jComply is going LIVE.

• Protect your password(s) at all times
• Change your passwords regularly and if you believe it has been compromised
• When you leave your computer – secure it (Ctrl-Alt-Del) and log-off from protected systems
• Ensure that your password is sufficiently complex that you can remember it but it cannot be guessed by others.

2. Preventing Computer Viruses

• Ensure that all media and transmitted files are virus scanned before they are downloaded onto Company systems
• Be suspicious of e-mail attachments from unknown origins
• If you think your computer has a virus or you have a message to that effect – STOP using the PC – and tell your line/network manager
• Please report all faults promptly.

3. Email Use

• E-mails are monitored and must be business related
• You must not send or forward chain letters, or emails containing offensive, abusive, racist or sexist comments
• Personal e-mails must not be sent externally by the Company’s email facility

4. Internet Use

• Your activity on the internet will be monitored
• Only connect to the Internet via the Company’s network
• Ensure that authorised and downloaded files from the internet are virus scanned
• Do not browse, download, duplicate or transmit data from the internet which is pornographic, racist, sexist, vulgar or obscene. 

5. “Need to Know” Principle

• Only tell others what they need to know, in order to do their job
• Ask yourself the question “Is that person really who they say they are and how can their identity be verified?” (Call them back, find them on a company address book)
• Don’t inadvertently reveal Secret, Confidential or Personal-in-Confidence information to others, for example if you are talking in a public area, or someone tries to trick you into releasing it.

6. Protecting Company Information

• Use the Company’s classification process to protect sensitive information; the levels are: 
• Secret (information if released to unauthorised persons could cause serious damage to the Company’s business/reputation)
• Confidential (information if released to unauthorised persons could cause damage to the Company’s business or reputation)
• Personal-in-Confidence (Information held internally by the Company that relates to individuals)
• If a Company document (electronic/paper) does not have a visible classification marking it must be assumed to have an Internal  classification
• Classification should normally be placed on top left hand corner of document.

7. Protecting Your Information Online

• Ensure personal details are not given out onto the Internet without personal authority
• Never reply to an e-mail request to forward personal or banking details - email is not secure
• Do not reply or click on a link in an unsolicited email

8. Data Protection Act 1988

• Personal data is any information about a living, identifiable individual that is held, or going to be held on a computer, other electronic equipment, within paper files, or on video or audio tape
• Strict rules govern the release of Data Protection information
• If in doubt regarding the handling or release of Data Protection information please refer the matter to your line manager

9. Security of Customer Payment Information

• The Company is required to protect card payment details including name and account number at all times
• All documents containing card payment details must be secured (lock and key) at all times
• Card numbers must not be displayed in clear in emails or other documentation
• Documents containing card payment details must be destroyed by using a cross cut shredder.

10. Disposal of Sensitive Information

• Documents containing sensitive (Secret, Confidential, Personal-in-Confidence) information must be disposed of by cross cut shredder
• Company owned computer equipment must not be disposed of without permission and must follow the instructions detailed on the Company’s Intranet.

CRM systems enables managers to streamline the entire process from lead generation to managing huge marketing campaigns. Every time your customer has contact with you, the details of their history with you are available to whoever is serving them. With all the information you have about your customers you are in a much better position to focus your marketing efforts. Through this system CRM enables instant market research as well far better than any market survey. Good CRM also helps you grow your business: customers stay with you longer; customer churn rates reduce; referrals to new customers increase from increasing numbers of satisfied customers; demand reduces on fire-fighting and trouble-shooting staff, and overall the organization’s service flows and teams work more efficiently and more happily.

How does a CRM system achieve all this? There is a simple answer to this; through the  integration of major marketing processes. CRM system allows you to transfer lead information seamlessly between marketing and sales, ensuring you present the right messages at the right time. Better alignment between marketing and sales will improve the effectiveness of campaigns, and provide a stronger return on your software – and marketing – investments.

In the past year I have trained many people on SEO, and each time I trained a group of people I would always ask them a question to begin with, a simple looking question that has a hundred answers.

“What is the Internet?”

Think about this for just one moment… Now when I asked this question I would always get hit with people giving me the purpose of the Internet but no one really knew what it was. But intriguingly the number of times I heard “Google” is the Internet was amazing, so this got me thinking, people think Google is the Internet so “search” for them is the primary function of the Internet.

If Google is being perceived as the Internet to many modern day browsers and search is their primary function of using the Internet that means optimising websites for search engines could never have been more important. Just think about it, traditionally businesses go out to customers, reaching them with promotions and adverts, expensive campaigns and sponsorship. But the Internet has delivered an avenue where customers are searching for products and services, as a business owner this is very exciting, people are searching for my products everyday, with an active purchase intention. That’s great!

But this is where the art comes in, how to get my website in the top 10 results of search engines to get a slice of that delicious pie which is buzzing with users wanting my product.

Before actually looking at the art I want to outline, search engines are businesses with a product. Their product is to deliver the most relevant, reliable and accessible search results. SEO is the process that shows search engines your website and online business presence is the most relevant, reliable and accessible in relation to the search that people are putting in.

Spiders/Bots/Crawlers: These are the search engines henchmen that read websites and determine who should be in those top 10 positions. So how to get those results:

SEO revolves around 2 main elements:
1. On-page Optimisation
2. Off-page Optimisation

On-page is focused around your actual website as an entity, the content, structure, keyword density, domestic links and design. Most people will commit suicide the fact I have included design in that list, but contact me if you want to debate over that.

Off-page is focused around how external sources link to your website and the weighting of those sources, different links give different value so simply having 1 million links could mean nothing unless they have a high value. Also not in the distant past social media was considered a part of off-page optimisation, but with that exploding it has its own realm now SMO (Social Media Optimisation), but that’s for another blog.

Now personally my philosophy is simple, “get your own house in order before stepping out”, this essentially means, get your basics right, don’t buy a gazillion links before you have even looked at the content on your own website. SEO is an art because it is fragile and is process driven and if you take shortcuts you will not nowhere.

To finish once I was training a group of individuals and at the end of the session, there was a lady and she looked like if she had seen a ghost. I asked her “Whats the matter…are you OK?” she replied “It truly is a whole new world the Internet, I never knew the potential”

Blog contributed by Akmal Saleem.

In 2008, more than 16.5 million people were placed at risk when their identities were lost or stolen by the financial services firms, reported by Computer Weekly.

Last year (2010), CIFAS, the not for profit association dedicated to prevention of fraud in UK identified and protected over 89,000 victims of identity theft. This has increased over nine-fold from 9,000 cases reported in 1999.

Almost every other retail business has an online presence. If you don’t have an online presence, you may be missing a business opportunity, which entices businesses to create ecommerce sites without realising the responsibility to the consumer it brings with it. Stealing an identity for professional criminals is easy, all you have to do is to go through someone’s paper waste and recover bills and invoices. Unless you live in Knightsbridge or South Kensington where due to the high rate of identity theft, residents take extra precautions in shredding every single invoice, people are generally laid back in how they dispose of important documents.

On the street, it is very easy to obtain official documents illegally. Consider opening a bank account and if you are a foreign student or just moved to UK you may have very little to none identity footprint. So how could you be eligible for a credit card, or bank account or even a mobile phone? The answer is to manufacture an identity through illegal means. Small and medium size financial organisations are aware of this and are most vulnerable but most use manual application forms while demanding paper based proof of identity documents from customers. Paper based procedures open the door for organised fraudsters and criminals to cheat the system. SMEs also tend to use manual identity verification sources to run identity and sanction checks which are time consuming. With high volumes, employees have to dedicate their time to running these checks instead of doing more productive work which causes pressure and often results in compromises in decision making. Simply put, more sophisticated systems are needed to solve these problems.

Similar problems exist for local authorities as most are suffering from project and hiring freezes. Council employees are under pressure to complete their work obligations because of shortage of staff. With increasing unemployment and layoffs, citizens are forced to claim benefits which further creates a strain on the council’s budget. Most councils rely on paper based procedures which like the SMEs in financial and retail sector, open room for the organised fraudsters to operate in.

Tabaq Software’s Fraud Prevention Solution is an automated online electronic ID authentication solution developed on top of the jComply GRC platform. The solution offers a risk based approach to identity authentication by directly integrating with data providers such as Experian, Complinet, World Check, MK Denial, FSA, UK Companies House, FOA and more. The paper based forms are replaced by workflow based online forms which run automatic checks with the subscribed data sources while maintaining a full audit trail to prove compliance. With email notifications and alerts, employees are equipped with a system that enhances productivity, efficiency and reduces the cost of compliance.

To learn more about this system and how you can benefit from it, please email sales@tabaqsoftware.com or call Sultan Noori at 01344 668400.

Most small and medium size financial institutions rely on paper based applications with applicants required to submit paper documents (passport, utility bills, etc.) as proof of identity. There is a difference in perspective as applicants generally do not feel comfortable in submitting paper based documents. Delay in submitting the paper documents can cause the business a new customer. Paper based procedures also open the doors for fraudsters to submit forged documents.

All of the above mentioned practices, beliefs and difference is perspectives create a market place that is ripe for the identity thief and intelligent fraudster.

The solution is to move the paper based application forms to digital workflow based forms with electronic verification of identity. The workflow based forms provide cost savings in paper and human resource and also fulfils compliance requirements. The electronic verification of ID eliminates the need for paper documents for customer due diligence. It eliminates the risk of a fraudster submitting forged documents and fast tracks the process of identity verification.

If you require help with converting a manual paper application form to an electronic workflow based form or integrating with electronic ID verification, Tabaq Software has the solution for you. Tabaq has successfully converted paper based procedures into workflow based procedures and also partner with identity management providers to provide a completely integration solution.

To get more information on electronic ID verification and workflow based forms, email sultan.noori@tabaqsoftware.com.

Whilst surfing the web for KYC solutions I am inundated with solutions to support anti money laundering, this is certainly a part of the issue but by no means the entire solution.

What Does Know Your Customer – KYC Mean?

A standard form in the investment industry that ensures investment advisers know detailed information about their clients’ risk tolerance, investment knowledge and financial position.

KYC forms protect both clients and investment advisers. Clients are protected by having their investment advisor know what investments best suit their personal situations. Investment advisers are protected by knowing what they can and can not include in their client’s portfolio.

So protection covers both sides of the desk. On the one hand, the financial institution needs to understand the client not just for their own corporate governance but just as importantly to understand the clients needs too.

Many of our financial clients have turned to jComply to support the management of their policies and procedures. Take a look at the client reference at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbmjJx07xJM.

Here, our client began to use jComply to support training of staff in policies and procedures however, by working with Tabaq’s post sale consultancy team a number of further usages have been prescribed.

An area that was expressed as a concern during a recent visit to Central Markets had been with client suitability. A paper based fact find is currently carried out with the prospective client over the telephone, with a suitably qualified interviewer.

Depending on the outcome of the questionnaire a decision is taken as to the suitability of the applicant to be a client. This could be granted immediately, referred to a more senior manager or lead to a decline.

Some training is available to support the claim of the applicant that they are suitably aware of the derivatives and spread betting market.

By developing an electronic fact find form within jComply, the current paper based system could be improved.
The e-form system will ensure that all mandatory sections are completed satisfactorily, the e-form itself would be version controlled, a full auditable and time/date stamped version is recorded and stored within jComply and all answers could be linked back to a weighted response, signalled as red amber or green to highlight suitability by way of corporate standards rather than an interviewers own subjective interpretation.

Leading on from the fact find, the question library could be extended to an application section, where applicants are given a password to enter into the training section to understand derivatives and spread betting and of course eventually take an examination.

This would identify all acceptable clients to an external auditor through the auditing features within jComply.

All of these actions are achievable within the standard version of jComply and the e-forms module.

The deliverables are obvious and include:
• A complete reduction of paper.
• Increased security of client data.
• All applications are controlled within the secure environment of jComply.
• Subjectivity is reduced assessing the suitability of a client for certain types of trading.
• The applicant is taken through a thought provoking, self assessment that will encourage fair trading all round.
• Accessibility through a secure web link enables access through a secure log in from anywhere.
• eMail notification and time nagging features ensure an application is carried out in an appropriate timescale, convenient to both client and broker.
• Integration into existing Customer Relationship data base ensures consistency of client information.
• Workflow to senior managers for exceptions only, reducing none relevant applications.
• Automatic notification that supporting application information has been sent such as age consent forms.
• An efficient and effective way to demonstrate client due dilligence.

Of course, anti money laundering is still important an as such we have designed an additional e-form to cater for AML reporting thus improving the way the client carries out SAR’s ( suspicious activity reporting). Once again the inbuilt workflow and security area within jComply provides an excellent method of achieving SAR’s regulations for front line workers.

Certainly this solution has driven down the cost of governance at our client and will do so whilst improving the effectiveness of the FSA compliance process.

For more information or a demonstration visit http://www.jcomply.com/
or email sales@tabaqsoftware.com
Or telephone 01344 668400

What is BPM?

Business Process Management is a management approach to improve the business processes in order to make them more efficient, effective and agile or quick to change as and when needed. Technology based BPM systems or suites have enhanced the concept by providing GUI design environments which even the non-technical people can use to design or model their business processes. This has tremendously increased the application of BPM to a wide range of business processes. Especially the processes that require large volume of transactions, or complex collaboration and integration with disparate systems, or rules based decision making, or transactions that require full audit trail for compliance are best suited for BPM.

There are a number of BPM technologies out there, from high priced third party software to open source BPM suites. Open source solutions tend to offer the best of both worlds. Not only they are free to use but open source solutions like jBPM and Process Maker come with GUI development environments and plug-ins to make the life of a business analyst real easy.

How can BPM benefit compliance?

Business process improvement is continuously ranked as the top business priority by business managers, according to a recent survey. There are many options for improving the business processes – ranging from complete process re-engineering to adopting new process management methodologies, such as Lean Six Sigma, or adding new capabilities to existing system. An investment in the right BPM suite can enable an organisation to embark on a sustainable business process improvement programme.

Mikel Harry, one of the founders of the Six Sigma methodology, has documented the economic impact of focusing on process improvement. Using the base measure of his methodology – Sigma, Dr. Harry provides a tangible example of how companies like GE have benefited from a commitment to process improvement:

With just a one-sigma shift, companies will experience a 20 percent margin improvement, a 12 to 18 percent increase in capacity, a 12 percent reduction in the number of employees, as well as a 10 to 30 percent capital reduction.
(Source: Six Sigma: The Breakthrough Management Strategy, Mikel Harry, Richard Schroeder)

The core benefits of BPM include efficiency, effectiveness and agility. The first benefit seen of a business improvement is that of improved efficiency. For example, Darlington Borough Council realised savings of 1,000 hours when they moved their manual accident and incident reporting (including manual data entry to MS Access database) to jComply Accident and Incident Management Module.

As the efficiencies are realised, the organisation focuses on making the process more effective. Often inconsistencies and loop holes are realised when the new processes are implemented. For example, in a healthcare organisation, patient pathway was reduced to 18 weeks (nearly 25%) as a result of cancelling the repetition of tasks performed in two different departments.

One of the most useful benefits of BPM is that organisations can continue to change and adapt their business processes to the changing business needs. Agility is a well known concept in a more technical arena of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). Some of our customers change their processes a few times a year. The cost on the process change so insignificant, it is easily superseded by increase in efficiency, effectiveness and conformance to regulations.

Merging BPM with Compliance

jComply BPM is a compliance application based on a Business Process Management Suite. jComply has all the features of an enterprise compliance application such as policy and procedure management, version control, reusable question library, eLearning, audit trail, scheduling, escalation and reporting. Combining the compliance features with BPM Suite, has powered jComply with workflow based task management and real time notifications to produce solutions such as the following:

• Accident and Incident Management

• Know Your Customer forms including Client Fact Find and Customer Due Diligence

• Health and Safety checklist and reporting

• Risk Assessment form

• Supply chain procedure management

To learn more about jComply, visit http://www.jcomply.com/ or email sales@tabaqsoftware.com or call +44 1344 668400.