Strategic Business System: Critique of a - Research Paper Example

? Strategic Business System: Critique of a Research Paper Introduction The internet has been an effective channel in buying and selling products since the emergence of internet commerce in the mid 1980s. E-commerce innovation has greatly influenced consumer behaviours as customers seek for platforms that would meet their needs at an affordable cost. As such, this paper seeks to analyse a research conducted by Lee and Joshi (2007) that sought to investigate customer satisfaction with technological services with bias towards online shopping. The definition of online store adopted by this research refers to a store which offers promotion, sales and after sales services which becomes important in differentiation of online shopping stores from brokers like e-Bay. Three hundred and five students, 60% male and 40% female were sampled randomly from a metropolitan university in America with two hundred and fifty one responding. In as much as the analysis revolves around this research study, various sources will be used to critique the findings and propositions from this research. The choice of this particular journal for analysis was based on the need to understand the impact of online shopping to customers as compared to their experience with traditional marketing approaches. Innovations are known to have the end user’s experience in mind and therefore, it would be more appropriate to consider whether online shopping satisfies customer needs as expected. This is in line with the argument that albeit enterprises apply innovation for increased competitiveness, it becomes more important to identify the innovation strategies that would enhance growth in performance and innovative actions that effectively propagate the competitive advantage of an organisation. User satisfaction has been a key factor in the conceptual framework that measures and explains the success of innovations in information systems. In their study, Lee and Joshi (2007) considered the factors that influence customer satisfaction including information quality, service quality and system quality. Further, the scales for dependent variables and overall customer satisfaction have been borrowed from a wide array of credible scholars from their past research studies on similar topics. The instrument used in the research had to be screened by 6 Management Information Science researchers and a pre-test carried out on 20 graduate and undergraduate students. Service encounters have been considered as critical to the life of business enterprises because they develop indelible impressions of the firm to customers. Indeed, other researchers have affirmed the importance of maintaining satisfactory service so as to attain sustainable competitiveness. Thus, seeking to maintain effective service delivery, business enterprises have adopted emerging technologies and moved from the traditional face-to-face encounters to online services. Lee and Joshi (2007) categorise these service encounters into two in their quest to study customer satisfaction with online shopping technology. These two categories are operational antecedents which include pricing, website performance, order tracking, internet expertise and product variety; and attitudes including satisfaction with information content, price, ordering process and ease of use. This differentiation provides practitioners with a clear picture of how issues intertwine to influence customer satisfaction. As such, solving these issues would be appropriately approached from technical and traditional marketing perspectives. Lee and Joshi (2007) found out that most frequent users of online shopping services were aged between 20 and 25 with a considerable number shopping between 1 and 3 times monthly. This research relied on the ability of the respondents to recall past experience with online shopping so as to give data. Among the experiences in this context include consumer advertisement and brand attitude. The popular age group could explain the reason why online shoppers would look for websites offering fun and fantasies. These persons are open to experience and would be willing to adopt new opportunities and technologies offered in the market. New technological innovations have been largely attributed to the younger generation just as this research reveals. Such persons tend to exhibit more imagination and curiosity and would therefore be more willing to consider different viewpoints, accept emerging experiences and look for opportunities to learn new technologies. Strategic business enterprises will use this knowledge of the majority online shopping consumers to make their websites more attractive and engaging as they seek to incorporate more functionality so as to lock in their customers and avoid losing them to competitors. Functionality was found to be an important aspect of online shopping. Lee and Joshi (2007) propose that websites supporting online shopping should be constantly subjected to field tests to determine customer usability. Online stores should seek to provide not only product information but also all relevant information in a sales transaction from searching to delivery. This platform could be used to educate customers on important issues, advertise other services and products and interact with customers to have feedback and provide after sales services. There should be an efficient way of handling errors and returned goods even with the acknowledgement of cost factor. The essence of this research could basically be said to be the determination of whether online shopping had caused business enterprises to engage in innovation which has been considered as the way in which organisations align themselves to changes in the environment so as to meet its customers’ needs and remain competitive. Among the key functionalities commonly observed in online shopping sites include personalisation of services, loyalty programs, ease of switching supplier, information provision to customers and customisation, all aimed at enhancing customer satisfaction. This research borrowed the variables from various researchers which makes it reliable. The researchers used variables applied by other varied research studies and thus, the following factors were measured to determine customer satisfaction: price saved, internet familiarity, website functional properties, time saved and delivery performance. Lee and Joshi (2007) considered product variety, customer support, website aesthetic properties and risk as less significant in their research. Nonetheless, other scholars have proved the importance of these factors. Online shopping has been particularly considered as immature due to the perceived risks. There has been great development in online shopping innovations but the risks involved – online fraud, leakage of personal information and discrepancy in the actual product against that advertised on the website - have limited its full potential and therefore need for risk reduction strategies so as to meet the need of sceptical customers and tap into this market. It is also common to find customers attracted to platforms offering various products which makes comparison of prices easy and guarantees best price purchase. E-tailers refer to businesses which trade on online shopping platforms. Recent studies still acknowledge that online shoppers look for fantasies, feelings, and fun while in the process of finding a solution to their purchasing need or conducting search for various goods or services to satisfy their needs. As such, Lee and Joshi (2007) had no valid argument in considering some of these factors as insignificant, even though they incorporated findings on the same in their study. Limiting the research to university students could lock out significant feedback from critical online shoppers. There are various organisations using online shopping in their operations other than students. IBM for instance has millions of daily transactions via their website and that of other supply chain players. The company receives orders from various customers and orders for various supplies from its suppliers. More so, the company engages FedEx among other delivery firms online to ship its orders. Hence, this research locks out such critical feedback by sampling university students alone. In spite of the significance of this research study in informing practitioners on the best practices to satisfy their customers’ needs, there are propositions in consumer behaviour that largely attribute the decision to consume particular products to intrinsic factors as opposed to the external controllable factors. It has been argued that the greatest influence to customer’s satisfaction with online shopping lies with personality traits. Personality traits reflect one’s values and preferences, and together with psychological state, they influence motivation to purchase. The rational side of humans would motivate them to search for particular products and purchase from an online trader but the emotional aspect would not. As such, the study by Lee and Joshi (2007) could be said to be looking at the emotional factors that determine consumers’ online shopping. Conclusion In spite of its limitations, this research study provides critical information to business enterprises seeking to attain sustainable competitive advantage in the wake of more technological advancements in the modern business environment. The researchers acknowledge that online shopping encompasses both website browsing as well as traditional shopping. Entrepreneurs would utilise such findings to align their online shopping platforms to the current customer needs. After all, business organisations across the globe have been keen to see that their customers are satisfied with, customer feedback being key driver in understanding their needs. This research categorises these needs as operational or attitudinal and considers key factors that determine online shoppers as price saved, internet familiarity, website functional properties, time saved and delivery performance. The researchers identified product variety, customer support, website aesthetic properties and risk as factors of less impact on customer satisfaction. Nonetheless, the study seemed not to confidently hold on to this argument as it gave findings on the same, supporting research studies by other scholars who hold the factors as important components when studying customer online shopping satisfaction. Reference Lee, K & Joshi, K 2007, ‘An Empirical Investigation of Customer Satisfaction with Technology Mediated Service Encounters in the Context of Online Shopping’, Journal of Information Technology Management, vol. XVIII, no. 2, pp. 18 – 37. Read More