Technology and E-Commerce in Perspective - Research Proposal Example

? Full Paper Technology and E-Commerce in Perspective E-commerce is now considered as a new and innovative technique while bearing in mind all the perspective. Initially, the technologies that have changed commerce field in the United States and worldwide include the Internet and websites. Moreover, these technologies support business models and strategies that are planned to control the technologies under commercial advantage and profit. Thousands of commercial start-up companies were accompanied by huge development and growth. Thus, information technology is generating a long term successfully planned explosion of technologies by large entrepreneurs (Laudon, 2011). In 1915, there were 250 automobile manufactures in the United State that were utilizing information technology on large bases. By the 1994, this figure had increased up till 500 automobiles. In the field of telecommunication, around 2000 radio stations across the United States were found (Laudon, 2011). In 1925, these radio stations were broadcasting to local neighborhoods and run by non-professionals. By the year 1990, only 500 independent stations were functioning. Therefore, it is clear that the e-commerce will follow the same pattern along with some noticeable difference that is discussed further (Laudon, 2011). The development in the field of e-commerce has been increased significantly, but it is also not obvious that this field will tend to grow on this rate forever. Moreover, its growth will be limited in future as it is confronting its own fundamental limitations. For example, the B2C e-commerce is still a small part around 3% of the net retail market. In fact, in 2008, all the B2C e-commerce will approximately equal to the annual revenue under recent projections. This research includes Wal-Mart, which is the world’s largest and most effective retailer. On the contrary, with the only 3% of the entire retail sales, it is now introducing online methods (Laudon, 2011). Early Years of E-Commerce E-Commerce Today Technology-driven Business-driven Revenue growth emphasis Earnings and profits emphasis Venture capital financing Traditional financing Ungoverned Stronger regulation and governance Entrepreneurial Large traditional firms Disintermediation Strengthening intermediaries Perfect markets Imperfect markets, brands, and network effects Pure online strategies Integrated, multi-channel bricks-and-clicks strategies First mover advantages Strategic follower strength; complimentary assets Figure 1.1 1.1 Emphasizing Privacy One more study shows that online companies emphasize and focus more on online privacy policy rather than any other aspect. Even online security is considered as the second option. Moreover, the study also concluded that online customers are more worried about their privacy rather than online threats as they are considered to be in control. In addition, the study also demonstrated a comparison between the two decades, i.e. 1999-2001 and 2005-2007, which highlighted the factors that are mentioned previously (Parayitam, Desai, & Desai, 2008). 1.2 Focusing on Customer Demands However, study concluded one interesting factor, i.e. the rankings and ratings of policies created for the Internet continues to focus on demands of the web users. Moreover, consumer privacy continues to be on top in both the decades (Parayitam, Desai, & Desai, 2008). The amplified awareness by the contributors, i.e. legislators and advocates, shows that the interest level is comparatively high. 2 Technology Infrastructure E-commerce is also described as the development and growth of digital computing, and communications technology is at the core of modern technology of global digital economy. In order to understand the future of the digital e-commerce, we need to understand the technological basics on which it is dependent. The e-commerce is, basically, a technological motivated phenomenon that depends on a cloud of information technologies. Moreover, the fundamental ideas from computer science have developed this over for a period of over fifty years. The fundamentals of e-commerce include the Internet and World Wide Web (www). These technologies are based on the host of complementary technologies, for instance, personal workstations, local area network (LAN), relational database, and client/server computing and fiber optic switches. In addition, these technologies are present in the nature of stylish business computing applications, for example, as enterprise wide computing systems, supply chain management systems, manufacturing resource planning systems and customer relationship management systems. The fundamental principle on which the technologies are based depends on e-commerce, not on the Internet. 3 Business: Basics Concepts The interest and enthusiasm in the field of e-commerce provides infrastructure, business management applications for the prospective investments. Modern technologies are employed in firms and organizations with new techniques of producing and managing business. Moreover, new methods help in changing the techniques and plans of existing firms. The previous techniques and methods are now outdated and, thus, became a reason for the invention of new techniques. 3.1 Approach From Corporate Organizations In a study conducted by Markel (2005), he concluded that corporate organizations gather personal information from their users on four core factors stated below: To provide value added services to special customers. For instance, history of customers reflects high profile of purchasing or selling products via the site. Moreover, these websites also provide forms in order to register a customer so that he or she can access ‘only members’ portion of the website that may include special discounts and offers. Organizations also customize website contents and design according to the type of customer, in order to modify web experience. The customization is carried out as per customer’s interest that is extracted from the past history of buying and selling products. Moreover, in order to buy any product from the website, corporate organizations require shipping and billing information in order to sell the product to the web user. Corporate organization also trade customer information to third parties. This business activity is carried out to strengthen business relationships. The information can only be used for online marketing and advertisement purposes. Moreover, corporate organizations can also sell personal information of their customers to other companies via intermediaries or directly to them. 4 Society: Taming the Juggernaut The Internet is utilized by approximately 175 million Americans in the United States. Many users are here for the e-commerce based websites and around 1 billion of consumers are present around the world. The impact of the Internet and e-commerce on the lives of consumers is significant. The global bodies and the laws of nations are increasingly helping e-commerce to grow. In order to conduct a successful e-commerce business or to understand the fundamentals of e-commerce, we have to first understand the compression of e-commerce globally on our societies. Initially, the issues present in our society are intellectual property, privacy, security and welfare policies. The e-commerce is now facing exceptional challenges regarding these issues. The digital copies of copyright intellectual property, music, books and videos must be present on the Internet. The identity and behavior can be easily tracked from internet sources; thus, it is difficult for the e-commerce organizations to preserve identities. 5 Academic Disciplines Concerned with E-Commerce A multidisciplinary and huge spectrum is needed in order to understand the phenomenon of e-commerce. There are two kinds of primary methods that can be used to describe technical and behavioral perspectives. 5.1 Technical Approaches Research has been done in the field of e-commerce as they want to make e-commerce an exemplary application of internet technology. Scientists are interested in the development of computer hardware, software and telecommunication systems. In addition, the basic standards, encryption and database designs and operations, are also included in this research. The mathematical models of business procedures and optimizing procedures are the initial interests of management scientist. A study has been conducted in order to understand e-commerce and its related opportunities that help in business firms through the Internet. This will help the firms to achieve more effective and successful business operations. 5.2 Behavioral Approaches The information system researchers are initially interested in the behavioral area of e-commerce. This is due to the implications of it for the organizations and industry chains, industry value stores, firm’s infrastructure and corporate methodologies. The technical and behavioral techniques are present in information technology systems discipline. For example, the emphasis from the technical group is based on the information systems, data mining, search engine designs, and artificial intelligence. Researchers have focused on users’ behavior related to the pricing of digital goods, web sites and digital electronic markets. Moreover, the marketing business is also interested in advertising brand development and, in addition, in users’ behavior on websites and ability of internet technologies to section and target consumer groups and other different goods. Marketing scholars and economist have focused on e-commerce consumer reactions related to the marketing and advertising promotions, achievability of organization to brand, section markets, audiences targeted and achievable products above-normal returns on investment. The entrepreneur behaviors are based on management and challenges that are faced by young firms that require progressing firm’s structures in small span of time. Organizations valuation and accounting observers are also focused on the finance and accounting scholars’ findings. Sociologist and psychologist are also concentrated on overall studies based on general usage of the Internet by population, the importance of social inequality, the benefits of the Internet, use of websites for personal and group communications. However, legal specialists have been engaged in resolving the issues related to the protection of intellectual property, privacy, security and content regulation through the Internet. This viewpoint does not dominate the research that is conducted for e-commerce. Here, the scholars have accepted a challenge in order to learn more regarding the variety of disciplines so that consumers can gain the significant knowledge of e-commerce. References Laudon, K. C. (2011). E-commerce: Business, technology, society, 4/e Pearson Education. Markel, M. (2005). The rhetoric of misdirection in corporate privacy-policy statements. Technical Communication Quarterly, 14(2), 197-214. doi: 10.1207/s15427625tcq1402_5 Parayitam, S., Desai, K. J., & Desai, M. J. (2008). E-commerce policies, customer privacy and customer confidence. Vilakshan: The XIMB Journal of Management, 5(2), 45-58. Read More