Evaluating the Impact of Internet on Business - Term Paper Example

? Evaluating the Impact of Internet on Business Evaluating the Impact of Internet on Business Introduction One of the most influential changes experienced by the business world over the years has been the introduction of e-business and internet based business. Internet use has impacted almost every area of a particular organization, for example: internet used as a tool for conducting e-marketing, it is being used in the area of human resources to conduct e-recruitment and in the department of sales for online selling options. Internet alone has been able to change the marketing strategies of several businesses and social media is one internet outlet that has really contributed heavily towards the evolution of new marketing activities. Electronic business which is often titled as e-business is a term used to refer to the huge range of business operations that are conducted online and these activities take place between stakeholders of a business that are located within and outside the organization (Columbus, 2000, p.240). One of the first organizations to define the concept of e-business was IBM. They stated that e-business is the alteration of significant business operations with the utilization of internet (Garbade, 2011, p.20). The term is even used to refer to kind of exchange or transaction that may take place between different parties through the means of internet and is quite different as compared to the traditional way of performing business activities in which the physical presence of both the buyers and sellers used to be required. The success of e-business and the benefits of e-business to organizations can be realized through the e-commerce sales figure of $343 billion experienced by US businesses documented during the period of 2012 by Plunkett Research (Plunkettresearch.com, 2013). The importance of use of internet in marketing activities have been recognized as Plunkett Research figured out that during the period of 2012, 24% of all marketing activities conducted by US organizations was through online channels (Plunkettresearch.com, 2013). On the other hand are those who believe that internet has negatively impacted the world of business and measures should be taken to counter these negative impacts. This writing will argue that internet has more benefits to offer than disadvantages and if used in the appropriate manner, it can help business flourish. Body E-business has assisted businesses in reaching their target market in various methods and has even assisted businesses in increasing their market shares with limited amount of investments. According to Boone, the internet has made it possible to reach various customers in several ways that were unknown to businesses before it evolution and the main benefit that has been identified by Boone is that internet has made it possible for businesses to cater to the needs of customers throughout the world (Boone, 2012, p.105). This means that internet has eliminated boundaries that divided countries from countries and restricted businesses to cater the need of limited number of people. The opponents argue that although internet has helped businesses cross domestic boundaries and has allowed even small scale businesses to operate in the global world, this feature of internet has increased the competition for local businesses and local businesses are shutting down due to their failure to compete. In my opinion, this is not necessarily a disadvantage and is rather an advantage for local businesses and has helped them in realizing that they need to operate in a much effective and efficient manner if they have to survive the competition. Internet has even assisted organizations in decreasing their expenditure on advertisement and marketing and this feature has even lead to increase in the power of the multinational organizations. Internet based advertising and promotion is almost free of cost. Basic level internet marketing such as creation of blogs and creation of WebPages on Facebook does not cost organizations a dime. If organizations choose to conduct higher level of internet based marketing such as creating their own websites, they need to pay heavy costs. Similarly internet has even declined cost of conducting research regarding consumer needs and wants. Organizations do not need to purchase information from survey and research agencies as internet has allowed organization in directly contacting their customers and with this contact, businesses can easily identify the needs and wants of the consumers. Opponents believe that one of the main issues that businesses might face for being overly dependent on internet for business operations is that internet websites such as social media networks and comparison websites do not last forever and are always replaced by new internet tools (Liebsch, 2009, p.87). For example: before Facebook caught attention of businesses, businesses were using Orkut as means of promoting their product. Later Facebook gained significance among consumers and this led to the end of Orkut. I believe that opponents are right in believing that businesses should not heavily rely on technological advancements. But this does not mean that they should not explore this venue. Instead they should use as many tools as possible which are available both online and offline to conduct business so if one of the venue stops being profitable, other venues are still available to benefit the business. Those in the favour of internet based business even believe that Internet based marketing has provided organizations with the ability of obtaining important and reliable information and this information is then analyzed and used to generate relations with customers (Bryer, 2011, p.10). The use of this information is not limited to be used for the purpose of marketing; it can even be used throughout the strategy of the entire business. One reason due to which internet based marketing has become very successful is due to the ease such marketing activities provide to customers. For example: previously customers had to visit different outlets in order to compare between products with very little insight regarding the product. Now there are online websites that provide comparison between several products at the same time and along with this comparison, experts even provide insight regarding the differentiating factors of different product offerings that are homogenous in nature. Internet has even made it possible for businesses to conduct low cost research which has proven to be very successful when implemented within the business operations. Businesses are now in direct contact with the consumers through different internet channels and this enables them to obtain information regarding their likes and dislikes (Rana, 2009, p.255). Due to such options, businesses have been able to deal with customer issues in a timely manner. Customers have the ability directly inform the businesses regarding issues in the products being offered by them and businesses react to these issues. This means that businesses no longer have to wait for retailers to obtain information regarding customer grievances. Opponents state that although internet has assisted businesses in directly contacting customers, but internet is a free world and any individual or group can fake the identity of a business and can use this opportunity to disturb the image of the business. For example: similar fake company name pages can be created on social media networking websites on Facebook and Twitter and these fake pages might be used to destroy an organizations business (Jakobsson, 2012, p.31). Undoubtedly the opponents are right in believing that a business’ image can be decreased through activities such as making fake WebPages with the company’s name. In this case businesses can differentiate between their own WebPages and fake WebPages by promoting their WebPages on their own and informing others about the difference. Another major benefit offered by internet to businesses is increase in productivity and employee performance. Due to the advent of internet, distance learning has become possible and employee no longer needs to leave their work environments in order to get trained (Finkelstein, 2000, p.86). They gain obtain training online through online courses and online universities as well as online technical training material, which allows them to continue to produce and learn at the same time. Employees now have internet enabled Smartphone as well as laptops which helps them in working 24/7. They can work from their homes; they can work while travelling or even when they are on a vacation. This in turn adds to increase in the productivity levels of the employees and this finally results in an increase in the productivity level of business. Opponents state that distance learning is not as effective as physical learning as same course material is not used and the social environment of a classroom is not available. They even believe that this kind of learning opportunity and employee’s ability to work at all times is ruining their work/life balance (Moore, 2007, p.528). Conclusion Advent of internet has been very significant for businesses as it has offered various advantages to them. These advantages include: easier accessibility to a huge number of consumer, reaching consumers in a timely fashion, reduction of cost due to free promotional tools and information that assists businesses in developing goods and services to cater to individual consumer’s need. On the other end businesses should not be dependent on internet tools to conduct business and should explore all tools available and should use tools that are not associated with internet. References Boone, L. and Kurtz, D. 2012. Contemporary marketing. Mason, USA: South-Western Cengage Learning. Bryer, L., Lebson, S. and Asbell, M. 2011. Intellectual property operations and implementation in the 21st Century corporation. Hoboken, N.J.: J. Wiley. Columbus, L. 2000. Realizing E-business with application service providers. [Indianapolis, IN]: Sams Pub.. Garbade, M. 2011. Differences in venture capital financing of U.S., UK, German and French information technology start-ups. Mu?nchen: Grin-Verl. Liebsch, B. and Liebsch, J. 2009. It's a disaster! ... and what are you gonna do about it?. Tucson, AZ: Fedhealth. Plunkettresearch.com. 2013. ecommerce internet technology market research - E-Commerce and Internet Industry Market Research - Instant access to Complete Market Research for the Global Internet and E-Commerce Industry, Statistics, Forecasts, Technologies, Services, Revenues and Executive Mailing Lists.. [online] Available at: http://www.plunkettresearch.com/ecommerce-internet-technology-market-research/industry-and-business-data [Accessed: 12 Jul 2013]. Rana, N. and Noman, A. 2009. E-marketing intelligence. [Scarborough, ON]: Self-Help Publishers. Finkelstein, M. 2000. Dollars, distance, and online education. Phoenix, Ariz.: American Council on Education. Moore, M. 2007. Handbook of distance education. Mahwah, N.J.: L. Erlbaum Associates. Jakobsson, M. 2012. The death of the internet. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. Read More