Assignment on E-Commerce

Introduction

In the current business environment, behaviour of the customers is rapidly changing with the change in the marketing trends. The buying decisions of the customers have been altered from visiting the shops to online or internet purchasing. E-commerce plays an active role in expanding the managerial functions of the companies and making it successful in the dynamic business environment. The e-commerce has emerged with the introduction of advanced smart phones and tablets, which has created a significant impact over the purchasing decision of the customers (Chen et al., 2014). The technological development assists in creating the demand of online store for providing convenient and quick services to the customers.

In addition, this report discusses the success parameters of e-commerce for S&H Ltd. as well as highlights the effect of online shopping process over the potential users and their purchasing decisions. At the same time, digital innovation issues through E-commerce is also outlined for developing in-depth understanding about the subject matter. Multiple solutions of E-commerce are provided to S&H Ltd. to assist the company in its future expansion plans and strategies. But, on the other hand, the report also discusses the major challenges and issues that will be encountered by S&H Ltd. during the process of E-commerce strategy.

Discussion

The e- commerce or electronic commerce means using electronic devices for carrying out the activities associated with commercial transactions. It assists the companies to operate their business electronic for purchasing and selling multiple products or services through online mechanism (Brunton et al., 2014). It is an effective medium for trading the goods and services from one place to another with the support of computer network.

Adoption of E-commerce for expansion of business

For future expansion of business, there is a need to adopt e-commerce application which helps the companies to develop their business online domestically and internationally. E-commerce is an emerging factor in developing countries as e-commerce is only source through which companies can target the large market segment effectively. For adopting the E-commerce, the company is required to use the new technologies which helps in trading online i.e., conducting business transactions online with the help of internet (Hannak et al., 2014). Through e-commerce, it becomes easier for company to connect with their client and exchange the information in relation to goods and services. But at the same time, E-commerce application provides online payment facility between and among the organizations and clients. The benefits of e-commerce are classified on the basis of tangible benefit (transformation of market chain, increase in business efficiency) and intangible benefit (customer loyalty, gaining competitive advantage and enhancing the customer well-being). However, adoption of E-commerce provides company with various offers in wide range of opportunities and services in trading business at the international market.

The cyber transformation theory is a theory which is well suitable for the adoption of e-commerce in the organization efficiently and effectively. The cyber transformation theory was developed by E-business research at Texas University in year 2001by Dutta and Segev. This transformation theory is unique and interesting as it helps in significant development of understanding related to E-commerce adoption (Huang and  Benyoucef, 2013). The significance of cyber transformation theory is that this theory helps in emphasizing on business transformation and E-strategy in order to expand the business and develop customer relationship. At the same time, cyber transformation model consists of two-dimensional which involves:

• Technology capabilities (connectivity and interactivity)
• Strategic business dimensions (4 P’s and customer relation)

For proper adoption of E-commerce, S&H Ltd. Company is suggested to use model as a framework and for that market-space model is used as a framework for adoption of E-commerce. The market-space model is described as a business decision domain for cyber work space. In addition, e-commerce adoption in company will provide the valuable outcomes in terms of establishing and using these above stated theory and model (Gomez-Herrera et al., 2014). The market-space model helps in setting the transformation criteria for the business development on the basis of scale which is applied to firm sample (Singh and Singh, 2015). In addition, it is determined that for successful adoption of the E-commerce, there is significant need of E-strategy. In business, transformation theory is developed as a descriptive study framework for adoption of e-commerce in which it helps in company to think of getting value creation outcomes.

Market-space Model

For future expansion plan, S & H Ltd. can easily adopt the e-commerce application with the help of market-space model and cyber transformation theory. These model and theory framework will help the company in making E-strategy for targeting the customers with the help of social network and internet facility (Baroni et al., 2014). In general, both cyber transformation theory and market-space model can be used as a tool by S&H Ltd. for evaluating the value creation outcome in regards to E-commerce adoption.

Issues and Challenges in E-commerce

There are various advantages of e-commence for S&H Ltd. to expand its business internationally and to increase the efficiency level of managerial functions in the competitive environment. The e-commerce creates various opportunities for the business and helps in maintaining long term relationship with the customers. It assists in making quick delivery of products and helps in increasing the sales of the company. At the same time, it will also help S&H Ltd. to satisfy the needs of the customers at their convince level, within limited time frame.  E-commerce will create the opportunity to adopt new technology and process due to globalization (Akillioglu, 2015). The S&H Ltd. will able to carter the needs and requirements of international customers, within economic budget. The company will wider its market and will be able to tap the needs of diverse customers’ needs. The e-commerce creates the opportunity to deliver high quality products to the customers due to increase in the competition level for creating distinctive identity in the minds of target audience.

The current business environment of e-commerce is flourishing globally but, at the same time, S&H Ltd. while catering the needs of the ever changing customers will encounter with diverse issues and challenges. S&H Ltd. if decided to adopt an e-commerce strategy then it will face the problems related with ethical standards and framework. The ethical issues in association with e-commerce are concerned with privacy, security concern and other ethical issues (Einav et al., 2014). The interaction with web leads in privacy issues because it hinders the moral standards. Sometimes in online transactions the hackers obtains the personal information of the customers for maximizing the profit margin in a shorter time span. The unethical practices or illegal transactions are executed by unauthentic users for collecting and storing the private data of the person. Moreover, S&H Ltd. also encounters the issues related with security concern. It is because internet is very easy to be accessed by the people with the help of click and mortar. It increases breach of data and affects the security of the users. Other ethical issues including disintermediation and dinosaurs increase the chances of risk in the online services for the people. Thus, the rate of security breach is one of the major problems that will be witnessed by S&H Ltd. in the current situation, while satisfying the needs of the people with the help of e-commerce (Ramuhalli et al., 2013).

At the same time, S&H Ltd. while dealing with e –commerce will also face several issues related with digital advertising. It is because there are multiple fake advertisements run by the companies for attracting the attention of the customers and makes it difficult for the ethical brands to maximize the profit margin and sustain in the market for a longer duration (Li et al., 2015). The customers are easily manipulated with the fake brands and thus, make it difficult of them to recognize the correct brand and make effective relationship with the company.

In addition, some people do not prefer to make purchase decision with the assistance of e-commerce due to lack of physical touch, which acts as a major challenge for the company. Similarly, S&H Ltd. with the support of e-commerce will be unable to maintain personal interaction with the customers. It will be difficult for the company to influence and convince the target audience through online transactions (Mikolov et al., 2013). On the other hand, S&H Ltd. will face issue in e-commerce due to change in the culture, systems and capabilities to facilitate adoption of modern technology and informational system. The technological, integration as well as implementation issue will be associated with be e-commerce.

Moreover, S&H Ltd. will also encounter major challenges in respect with management for driving and motivating the customers and other stakeholders. The culture of the organization acts as a major barrier for the company to adopt innovative and advanced technological mechanism. The customer will also face difficulties to interface and experience mobile applications as well as its non-functioning parameters (Galliers and Leidner, 2014). The upgraded mobiles and technologies of latest android version will create difficulty in operating the system in an effective manner. Similarly, S&H Ltd. will also leads into certain technology-driven challenges such as customer innovation, information architecture and management of data across different branches. The change in the marketing trends will affect the networking of the company across different geographical areas to attract more customers and sustain in the market for a longer period. The other challenge that will be faced by S&H Ltd. in expanding its business to other large cities such as London and Manchester will be associated with financial innovations. The lack of capital and consistency in multi-regional operational affects the customer experience as well as the ability of the company to meet the ever changing demands of the potential users.

At the same time, strategically challenges will also be encounter by S&H Ltd. in the mechanical framework of e-commerce (Awa et al., 2015). Lack of appreciation of B2B e-commence acts as a strategic issue for the company to expand its operations into different geographical regions. The companies also fails in communicate its objective of B2B adoption of e-commerce to the associated stakeholders, which effects the image in the competitive market. The lacks of support from the top management will also be an obstacle for S&H Ltd. The managers are able to understand the importance of e-commerce but if the top management is not ready to expand the business through online mechanism than it is a major concern for the company (Chaffey, 2015). Lack of support from the senior’s management in form of financial and human will affects the performance level of the company in the dynamic environment.

In like manner, other organizations who adopt an e-commerce business model face operational challenges in order to accomplish the objective on time by making effective use of available resource. It is due to lack of effective change management processes at the work place to ascertain quick goals (Savelsbergh and Van Woensel, 2016). The organization who adopts B2B ecommerce activities completely affects the day to day business operations due to change in the technological aspects. It is because the employees are trained in accordance with the new technology and process, which is highly neglected by the staff members. Thus, it increases the resistance among the employees due to frequent change in the technological methods and process. In addition, lack of communication among the employees and senior management makes the change management process ineffective (Chiu et al., 2014). Moreover, other reasons such as lack of employee’s consultation program, training and development sections, system usability issues etc acts as a primary challenge for the companies executing e-commerce as a managerial practices. At the same time, human resource challenge is also faced by the organization who has adopted e-commerce practices (Sila, 2013). It is difficult for the companies to manage the needs of the internal stakeholders such as employees and staff members. In addition, difficulty also arises in motivating, involving and assisting in voluntary participation of the employees in the group decision making process. The organizational policies and culture also acts as a big challenge for the organization to make it clear to the workforce. The different agendas of the stakeholders and the management create big impact on the managerial framework of the company to sustain in the market for a longer duration.

At the same time, knowledge and resource challenges are also faced by the organization who is adopting the mechanism of e-commerce for satisfying the needs of the customers. The organizations fail in retaining the knowledge of professional member’s because of different managerial stages (Sheikholeslami et al., 2015). The different stages are involved in planning and execution the process of B2B e-commerce system, which makes it difficult for the company to retain the employee for a longer period of time. It leads into employee turnover due to reduction in the experience and professional experts.

The challenges associated with supply chain are also concerned as a foremost problem for the companies, who have adopted e-commerce practices in the managerial framework. Most of the time channel conflict arises due to change in the technical aspects as well as managerial process. Complaints are recorded with late delivering of the products due to lack of training and interpersonal skills associated with vendors, suppliers, customers etc (Socher et al., 2013). In addition, interoperability and integration problems also appear for the organizations, who adopt e-commerce business model. It is due to multiple activities involves in e-commerce such as ERP, CRM etc which increases the problems for the companies to accomplish the work on time.

Conclusion

From the above discussion, it can be summarized that e-commerce helps will help S&H Ltd. to expand its market in other geographical region. The company with the support of e-commerce will be satisfying the needs of the customers in an effective manner by making optimum utilization of available resources. In addition, the cyber transformational theory will be helpful for the company to adopt advanced technological aspects for changing the business aspects and making quick delivery of products or services.  The online services will assist S&H Ltd. to purchase and sale the products or services to the end users by maintaining convince level. Moreover, market space model will facilitate S&H Ltd. to adopt the process of e-commerce in an effective manner. There are various opportunities of e-commerce but, at the same time, S&H Ltd will also encounter multiple challenges and issues in the conceptual framework.

References

Akillioglu, H. (2015) Demand Responsive Planning: A dynamic and responsive planning framework based on workload control theory for cyber-physical production systems (Doctoral dissertation, KTH Royal Institute of Technology).

Awa, H. O., Ojiabo, O. U. and Emecheta, B. C. (2015) Integrating TAM, TPB and TOE frameworks and expanding their characteristic constructs for e-commerce adoption by SMEs. Journal of Science & Technology Policy Management, 6(1), pp. 76-94.

Baroni, M., Dinu, G. and  Kruszewski, G. (2014) Don’t count, predict! A systematic comparison of context-counting vs. context-predicting semantic vectors. In ACL (1) (pp. 238-247).

Brunton, S. L., Dawson, S. T. and Rowley, C. W. (2014) State-space model identification and feedback control of unsteady aerodynamic forces. Journal of Fluids and Structures, 50, pp. 253-270.

Chaffey, D. (2015) Digital business and E-commerce management. USA: Pearson Education Limited.

Chen, J. E., Pan, S. L. and  Ouyang, T. H. (2014) Routine reconfiguration in traditional companies’e-commerce strategy implementation: A trajectory perspective. Information & Management, 51(2), pp. 270-282.

Chiu, C. M., Wang, E. T., Fang, Y. H. and Huang, H. Y. (2014) Understanding customers’ repeat purchase intentions in B2C e‐commerce: the roles of utilitarian value, hedonic value and perceived risk. Information Systems Journal, 24(1), pp. 85-114.

Einav, L., Levin, J., Popov, I. and  Sundaresan, N. (2014) Growth, adoption, and use of mobile E-commerce. The American economic review, 104(5), pp. 489-494.

Galliers, R. D. and  Leidner, D. E. (2014) Strategic information management: challenges and strategies in managing information systems. UK: Routledge.

Gomez-Herrera, E., Martens, B. and Turlea, G. (2014) The drivers and impediments for cross-border e-commerce in the EU. Information Economics and Policy, 28, pp. 83-96.

Hannak, A., Soeller, G., Lazer, D., Mislove, A. and Wilson, C. (2014) Measuring price discrimination and steering on e-commerce web sites. In Proceedings of the 2014 conference on internet measurement conference (pp. 305-318). ACM.

Huang, Z. and  Benyoucef, M. (2013) From e-commerce to social commerce: A close look at design features. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, 12(4), pp. 246-259.

Li, Y., Voos, H., Darouach, M. and Hua, C. (2015) An application of linear algebra theory in networked control systems: stochastic cyber-attacks detection approach. IMA Journal of Mathematical Control and Information, 33(4), pp. 1081-1102.

Mikolov, T., Chen, K., Corrado, G. and Dean, J. (2013) Efficient estimation of word representations in vector space. arXiv preprint arXiv:1301.3781.

Ramuhalli, P., Halappanavar, M., Coble, J. and  Dixit, M. (2013) Towards a theory of autonomous reconstitution of compromised cyber-systems. In Technologies for Homeland Security (HST), 2013 IEEE International Conference on (pp. 577-583). IEEE.

Savelsbergh, M. and Van Woensel, T. (2016) 50th Anniversary Invited Article—City Logistics: Challenges and Opportunities. Transportation Science, 50(2), pp. 579-590.

Sheikholeslami, M., Ganji, D. D., Javed, M. Y. and Ellahi, R. (2015) Effect of thermal radiation on magnetohydrodynamics nanofluid flow and heat transfer by means of two phase model. Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials, 374, pp. 36-43.

Sila, I. (2013) Factors affecting the adoption of B2B e-commerce technologies. Electronic commerce research, 13(2), pp. 199-236.

Singh, S. and Singh, N. (2015). Internet of Things (IoT): Security challenges, business opportunities & reference architecture for E-commerce. In Green Computing and Internet of Things (ICGCIoT), 2015 International Conference on (pp. 1577-1581). IEEE.

Socher, R., Perelygin, A., Wu, J. Y., Chuang, J., Manning, C. D., Ng, A. Y. and Potts, C. (2013). Recursive deep models for semantic compositionality over a sentiment treebank. In Proceedings of the conference on empirical methods in natural language processing (EMNLP) (Vol. 1631, p. 1642).