I am reli confuse about this case study I got on my subject.It is related to IT and management.so I decided to post the question here.

Here's my problem:

You have a small loan from your bank that you have used to set up a small business that buys and sells antiques.
Ninety percent of your business is done online, ten percent takes place at car boot sales and auction houses.
You have made many useful contacts in the antiques trade and you have a long list of their names, phone numbers and addresses written in a diary.
Your inventory is stored in a small warehouse that you rent.

Identify the informatic needs of your business and how they could be achieved.
Discuss how such a system could be kept secure.

Help me.cuz I am sooo clueless...
Thanks!

I'll make the assumption that what you refer to as on line business means through a website. Since 90% of your business is done on line, it's critical that the information management system be tied into the web site. This will centralize all the operations of the business.

A web based data management system for business will have as its central element a database. There will be two classes of user interfaces: customer and employee

The customer interface is the outward facing element. You promote your business, and provide a efficient interface to allow customers to choose product, order and pay. They should be able to view what you have in inventory (either text or text and pictures).

What a customer sees as being available is controlled by one of the employee components. An interface accessed only internally, by users with permission, is used to enter into the system items in inventory and available for sale. A entry does two things: makes appropriate entries into the database, as well as uploading information to the customer web page.

When a customer places an order, the system produces an order fulfillment request that is viewed on another internal interface. This interface shows what was ordered, that payment was successful, shipping information (should print the shipping labels) etc. After an order is filled, it is marked as such, and inventory adjustment occurs in the database.

All those records in the diary can be kept in the database - again entered through an internal interface - and able to be viewed and queried through an internal interface.

An advantage to a web based system is that you don't need to be in the office to enter or view data - could be done from your laptop from the road, or even your iPhone.

Security is a matter of a few basics:
- need a login ID and password to access internal pages
- internal pages can have permission levels - so if there is more than one employee, they only see the pages they need to
- secure hosting
- ssl

On the customer side, a commercial web based payment system

That's a quick overview with the basics.

Thanks!