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Augmented reality 

(AR)

Blends   real-  world 

digital data captured 

typically with a digital 

camera in a webcam 

or mobile phone to 

create  a   browser-  based 

digital representation or 

experience mimicking 

that of the real world.

Mini Case Study 3.2

In South Korea, Tesco Home plus has significantly fewer stores than the market leader E-mart. Based on 

research which showed that many Koreans tend to shop in stores near their homes for convenience, Tesco 

trialled a virtual store to reach these shoppers.

Virtual displays were implemented in a similar way to actual stores – from the display to merchandise, 

but with smartphone QR code readers used to shop and after checkout the goods are delivered to the cus-

tomer’s home (Figure 3.2).

Tesco Homeplus opens subway virtual store in South Korea

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Part 1  Introduction

  Digital business infrastructure components 

  Figure   3.3    summarises how the different components of digital business architecture relate 

to each other. The different components can be conceived of as layers with defined inter-

faces between each layer. The different layers can best be understood in relation to a typical 

task performed by a user of a digital business system. For example, an employee who needs 

to book a holiday will access a specific human resources application or program that has 

been created to enable the holiday to be booked (Level I in  Figure   3.3   ). This application will 

enable a holiday request to be entered and will forward the application to the employee’s 

manager and the human resources department for approval. To access the application, the 

employee will use a web browser such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox or 

Google Chrome using an operating system such as Microsoft Windows or Apple OS X 

(Level II). This systems software will then request transfer of the information about the 

holiday request across a network or transport layer (Level III). The information will then 

be stored in computer memory (RAM) or in  long-  term magnetic storage on a web server 

(Level IV). The information itself, which makes up the web pages or content viewed by the 

employee, and the data about their holiday request are shown as a separate layer (Level V in 

 Figure   3.3   ), although it could be argued that this is the first or second level in an e-business 

architecture.  

  Digital business infrastructure components

 Figure 3.2 

 Tesco  virtual  store       

  Source : adapted from South Korea subway virtual store, http://www.tescoplc.com/index.

asp?pageid=69&mediacategory=27, Tesco PLC. 

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Chapter 3  Managing digital business infrastructure

 Kampas (2000) describes an alternative  five-  level infrastructure model of what he refers to 

as ‘the information system function chain’: