What do we need to think about e business ?
Advantages of ebusiness :
The Internet is creating a new, completely electronic economy. New economy lead a new to commerce in B2B, B2C or C2C market. Any company that thinks it can possibly be "business as usual" in the e-business era will find itself sitting in a corner wearing a dunce's cap pondering the means of survival. In fact, trading online enables businesses to reach much wider audiences while cutting the costs of traditional retailing methods. Therefore, E business allow companies or even customer to sell or exchange products, services or ideas through different websites or platform. It is the fastest growing method of trading worldwide. However, this new environment cause positive and negative impacts.
The benefits of E business can be enormous. In fact, today's marketplace want quality products and information in a quick and easy manner. I would emphasis on the fact that the internet bring a huge benefit thanks to its speed and convenience. Therefore e-business, which uses the internet as the core for business dealings, can help make a company more customer-friendly in addition to many other things, such as creating a more efficient exchange of information and/or products and services.
First principal advantage would be about the location and absence of restrictions. In fact, e-business allow us to exchange information and effectuate transactions at any time, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week and from any location in the world with Internet access. Second advantage would be the reduction of the time to obtain a product or service and the benefit to save money thanks to the intensive and global competition online.
Thanks to e business, we can heightens the customer service. In fact, the customers receive highly customizable service, and communication is often more effective. There is far more flexibility, availability and faster response times with online support. There is also a faster delivery cycle with online sales, helping strengthen the customer/business relationship. The internet is a powerful channel for reaching new markets and communicating information to customers and partners. Having a better understanding of your customers will help to improve customer satisfaction.
To finish e business brings competitive advantage. The internet opens up a brand new marketplace to businesses moving online. Competition via the internet is growing as the internet itself grows and waiting too long to move online may cause you to lose your place in line entirely. Easy access to real time information is a primary benefit of the internet, enabling a company to give more efficient and valid information and helping to gain the competitive advantage over those that are not online.
As the book and the majority of the people emphasis on the advantage of E business, in this reflexion essay i will focus on the negative e business aspects.
E business risks :
Manipulation of the customer : this is happening to you everytime you are on the internet
According to the academic article Strategic Manipulation of Internet Opinion Forums: Implications for Consumers and Firms written by Chrysanthos Dellarocas, The Internet has enabled individuals all over the world to make their personal experiences, thoughts,and opinions easily accessible to the global community “at the click of a mouse”. This, in turn, has led to the creation of a diverse mosaic of online word-of-mouth communities (“online forums”) where individuals exchange experiences and opinions on a variety of topics ranging from products and services, to politics and world events.
In the past few years, online forums have been steadily growing in popularity and have become an indispensable component of portals (e.g. Yahoo! Movies), traditional news sites (e.g. BBC Talking Point), consumer report sites (e.g. CNET, Epinions, Citysearch, Moviefone), and online retailer websites (e.g. Amazon, Circuit City). Table 1 lists some common types of online forums in use today.
There is growing evidence that consumers are influenced by Internet-based opinion forums before making a variety of purchase decisions. Firms whose products are being discussed in such forums are, therefore, tempted to try to manipulate consumer perceptions by posting costly anonymous messages that praise their products or by offering incentives to consumers to do so.
Similar evidence suggests that forums play an increasingly important role in public opinion formation. Online forums are thus emerging as an alternative source of information to mainstream mass media, replacing our societies’ traditional reliance on the “wisdom of the specialist” by the “knowledge of the many”.
Internet is such a difficult medium to control directly, make it relatively easy for stakeholders to indirectly manipulate the probability distribution of information propagated through online forums by anonymously adding their own strategically biased messages to the total mix of posted opinions.
Issue of privacy : this can happen to you or already happened
Businesses engaging in e-commerce with their customers and other businesses must take precautions to ensure the privacy of their data, and the integrity of their communications. This includes securing communications over the Internet, as well as protecting internal data warehouses from outside attacks.
The lifeblood of every business is the circulation of crucial data, including customer orders, customer relationship management information and communications with outside vendors and other value chain providers. Each of these communications provides a potential vector for leaking private data to outside attackers.
Vodafone example : Vodafone faces compensation payments to up to 4 million customers after confirming it is investigating a security breach that has put billing and call records on a publicly accessible website protected only by passwords that change monthly.
Sony example :
At the beginning of the tear, Sony warn its millions of PlayStation Network (PSN) users to watch out for identity-theft scams after hackers breached its security and plundered the user names, passwords, addresses, birth dates, and other information used to register accounts.
The stolen information may also include payment-card data, purchase history, billing addresses, and security answers used to change passwords.
My example with Nokia :
I receive spam from Nokia : Got message " you have won 500,000 pounds in the Nokia worldwide mobile promo. Reply via SMS for more info or email webnokia@msn.com. Congratulations!!
I have deleted it as i think it was a hoax or spam which can damaged or hack my data.
I have deleted it as i think it was a hoax or spam which can damaged or hack my data.
Facebook example :
E-procurement : particularity in B2B
I will emphasis on the relationship between suppliers and buyers. In fact, e procurement is basically replacing employees by computer in the supply chain to be more effective, efficient and save money. As the book definition says : e procurement to perform at the right price, delivered at the right time, of the right quality, of the right quantity and from the right source. It is almost utopian. If any of the criteria happened wrong, don’t you think it will probably cost more at the end?
According to the academic article Contingency Effects in Digitized Supply Chain Relationships by J Dedrick , The potential productivity and cost-effectiveness of e-procurement are completely irrelevant if suppliers or customers do not accept this distribution channel or if products are unsuitable for this distribution channel. There is much to suggest that the frequently voiced expectations for e-procurement are currently no more than e-commerce illusions. So far, neither the elimination of the intermediate and retail stages nor the transfer of brokerage operations to electronic platforms has led to the expected high cost savings. The hope that online traders could get by without their own inventory has also proved largely illusory.
· Negative impacts on the relationship buyers and suppliers
1. The growth of e-procurement is rapid. The capital investment of developing e-procurement is high. But the supplier needs to upgrade their system to facilitate the cost and time saving in the e-procurement process for increasing the customer satisfaction. For seller’s view, e-procurement creates more pressure on them.
2. Sometimes the system will have technical failure, so the process of e-procurement cannot run smoothly and the communication channel will be broken down. So neither buyer can place his order nor seller confirms the order. So we can see, here, the importance of the employees in the traditional process.
In direct website ordering, the terms and conditions are fixed at the site set by the supplier. The
negotiation does not exist in the transaction. It is risky for buyer to make the contract in the direct website
ordering, especially in purchasing services where the requirements and specifications cannot be made
clear before the contract.
Since the terms and conditions are always favorable to the site owner, the buyer has little bargaining
power in the contract. This is unfavorable to buyers.
There are no personal meetings. Moreover, if the transaction is about the technical complexity, it is difficult
for buyers and sellers to communicate and exchange ideas via Internet compared with fact to face
contact. This restriction on the communication will cause the performance beyond the customer
expectation.
However...
Future of e business :
Good or Bad, everyone is their own judge.
www.globalfuture.com: http://www.youtube.com/user/jamescanton1?feature=pyv&ad=5025503903&kw=future#p/u/0/Cslpth-rwJo
What’s your choice ?
We cannot avoid new technology or new business envrionment. We just need to be aware and protect oursleves against the risks. Here, i outline you fews risks you can encounter. Be aware that we cannot live in our world without technology, however, risks are everywhere, even where it is not expected.
Keep in mind that change is inevitable in today's marketplace!
Stetelle ;)
