How the Internet Developed within a Period of 20 Years - Case Study Example

The Development of the Internet and their Impact on Business The Development of the Internet and their Impact on Business The Internet came into existence when the USA launched an artificial earth satellite known as ARPA. It was mainly launched for the sole purpose of transferring military information from one base to another so that the army could react to immediate threats coming from the enemies. It was also launched in an attempt to make interaction between the military and the US Government agency so that a proper control over bombs and missiles could be maintained and matters relating to nuclear technology can be easily communicated. However, its use soon spread to universities and the University of California became the first university to adopt Internet so that information from other universities regarding courses and teaching syllabus could be exchanged. Internet first became available for the use of public in 1989. It was not until the mid nineties that businesses started using the Internet to make communications with other business associates. This essay aims to look how Internet developed within a period of 20 years and helped business develop with it. Electronic mails were one of the earliest Internet tools that made interaction between local and international businesses possible. With the invention of electronic mail technology it was, for the first time, possible to make contact with the manufacturers, retailers, partners or even customers and send them messages that they could instantly receive. Rose & Hair (2011) are of the opinion that when the Internet was fully introduced for the public, it was the business sector that benefited the most because of the speed through which the mails could be sent and received. About 30% of all the businesses in the USA relied on electronic mails as their primary source of communication soon after its popularity in the mid 1990s (Hoonakker, 2014). Hoonakker (2014) analyses the situation of electronic mails from the mid 1990s till the current period. In the mid 1990s, there were only about 2 million electronic mail users belonging to the business sector in the USA and about 17 million belonging to the business sector in the whole world. At the end of 2013, there were about 930 million registered business users who were actively using electronic mails worldwide in their diurnal life. Hoonakker (2014) says that the development of the Internet can be seen by the increase in a number of people actively using electronic mails to conduct business. Hoonakker (2014) believes that it is now impossible to replace this technology from the business sector. Many businesses would collapse as there is no decent alternate to electronic mails. Businesses are accustomed of sending e-mails to their clients and also internally to the staff members. In 2013, the business professionals belonging to the business industry sent the majority of the e-mails. Nearly 100 billion e-mails were sent every day all across the world in the business community. It is expected that by the end of 2017, the figures would rise to 132 billion e-mails sent every day. About 60% of all the businesses in the world use e-mails, in some way or the other, to make communications. As the Internet became more and more popular people, businesses, consumers, government and all other types of stakeholders started to make their websites, blogs and discussion forums. It helped the business community to market their products. Chandra (2014) analyses the evolution of Internet and business marketing. In the early 1990s television, magazines and billboards were still the major marketing tools used for advertising. It was mainly because people had more exposure towards these tools. It was the era of television with more than 70% of the households owning and regularly watching it worldwide. Internet was still growing in the early 1990s and the business community on placing advertisements online spent not even $100 million. In 2013, business community online spent more than 100 billion on advertising products and services. Chandra (2014) believes that the Internet has come a long way compared to the early struggles of the 1990s. It became mandatory for business to show their presence online as 39% of the total population of the world used Internet in 2013 that is about 2.8 billion people. In the current era, no other platform gives so much exposure to people. Syuhaidi & Bakar (2014) believe advertising on the Internet is a make or break deal for people in the modern era. They analyse the case of Blackberry to elucidate their point. The company that launched its smartphones in 2003 became the global market leader of smartphones by 2007 leaving their rivals Nokia far behind to fight with other companies for market shares. Blackberry alone had 25% of the market worldwide and spent over $300 million in advertising its products online. These advertisements were not just restricted in America and Europe but also in Asia. Blackberry had existence until it continued to advertise. Just after the global recession, the company decided to reduce costs by reducing the number of advertisements online. By the end of 2013, it had a total market of 0.3% shares in the global market. Syuhaidi & Bakar (2014) believe that through lack of innovation played a huge role for the decline of Blackberry, the number of reduced advertisements was the major cause for the decline of the company. Apple, Samsung and HTC made full use of this. When Blackberry decided to follow their marketing cutting cost strategy, those companies even invested more during the global recession to make their brands known and so they came out on top. People see what they buy. No matter how good a product is if it in not shown to the masses it would always have a low possibility to success. In 2013, Blackberry spent even less than $25 million on advertising online. The year before they had launched the Z30 that is still regarded the best smartphone launched by the company. Spending less on advertisements online has been the main problem for them. When hundreds and thousands of companies are spending millions and billions of dollars towards Internet marketing there are also some that has used the development of Internet in a more cost effective manner. Mollah (2014) elucidates the example of Tesco. Tesco is an example of a company that has taken good advantage of Internet marketing to boost its reputation and sales. The directors of the company dedicate all their success to Internet marketing. Aral (2013) analyses how the development of social media has helped business users in time. Tesco has employed customer service representatives whose sole task is to gather information from blogs, websites and forums. Tesco encourages its existing and potential customers to participate in games, quizzes, online cooking programs, discussions and a lot of other things that they organize so that they could collect opinions about their customers. Once they gather all the information then that information is screened and moved to various other departments of the company. The R&D department learns about the taste of people and puts all their focus on producing something that is more desirable to the customers. If some product needs improvement then more value is added. Similarly, a voting poll could indicate that some product might not be desirable or beneficial for the customers, and Tesco does not take much time to remove it from its shelves. Only those products are included and added on the shelves that are demanded by the people. It is how Tesco runs its superstore through the use of Internet. Social media are one other tool that shows the development and success of Internet for business users. Kane (2014) explains that there were 1.8 billion people using social media through platforms like Facebook and Twitter. That is 67% of the total Internet users. Kane (2014) describes social media as the most modern, advanced and successful tool of the Internet. When the Internet was first launched for the public, there was no such form of services. The only form of social media was Internet Relay Chat (IRC), which had no more than 100,000 users worldwide. Social media were very limited in use compared to modern day. Businesses could not market their products and services nor could they spread the news about their upcoming products and services. However, social media are one of the most important platforms to promote, hire and share business information. Social media are totally free of cost. A simple Tweet or a message on Facebook could be seen by hundreds of followers or friends in minutes and on request could be sent to even more. It is how products and services are marketed and catch the eyes of others especially when they are creative. The presence of millions of users makes the sharing process convenient. Wong (2012) penetrated in his research that Facebook had more than 100,000 business pages that were frequently used by people to conduct business. About 20% belonged to people that had no business before and were mainly students and unemployed people. 29% of the users were females. The females had a better success rate than males. About 30% of the people or organizations continued to run successfully and manage their business through Facebook. These are very promising figures. The success of Internet in the modern world is connected to the success of students, unemployed people and women. These three categories have looked to benefit the most among various other business users. Social media allow a business to create its own distinct personality. Profiles could be made using different pictures, templates, colour background, quotes and many other things to make it look different. An apple has become a universal symbol for luxurious electronic products among smartphones and laptops. Such is the power of social media that has enhanced the reputation of companies like Apple that were not even well known before the existence of social media. Kane (2014) explains that Apple will continue to make sales in the same manner only if they continue to market their products on social media. Social media are also the top provider of jobs in this era. Kane (2014) discovers in his research that social media websites provide quick access to the job applicants compared to the traditional style of giving advertisements on newspaper. Applicants can respond immediately, and interviews or tests could also be held at the same day. A company has a chance to hire as soon as possible without waiting for days. Moreover, Internet helps to describe just the right type of job for the right kind of people. Social media can help to find a target market based on demographics like gender, age, location etcetera and help to find the most suitable candidate in a given locality. It is very helpful to avoid hundreds of unwanted applications. Moving from social media, Internet also provides people with an effortless shopping experience. Online shopping has grown into one of the biggest and most successful markets on the Internet. Malviya & Sawant (2014) believe that the best way to analyse the development of Internet and business is to analyse the online shopping market through websites like EBay and Amazon. Amazon, for example, started selling books online since 1995. It did not have any physical existence in any city or town in the USA and started small as much other online businesses in the present era do. However, with the success of selling books they also entered into different departments like electronic products, food products and toys. The journey of online business that started with Amazon in 1995 has grown into a much bigger industry. Worldwide sales for all online products totalled to less than $500 million in 1995 and in the year 2012 those sales accounted for more than $320 billion. Online shopping has made small and medium sized businesses more competitive with the larger ones. It has given them a platform that never existed before its invention. Previously bigger organizations could market their products and make it visible in the market. People had fewer choices and they normally chose what they saw on newspaper and television and felt comfortable with. This outlook has changed forever. Online shopping gives small and medium sized businesses the same amount of chance to grow like it gives to the large corporations. All products are displayed and auctioned in the same manner. Small businesses have tended to benefit the most. Independent persons selling from home or small shops have participated more making 30% of the online shopping market in the past five years. They have generated in excess of $125 billion in the past five years. They have also been able to make huge profits and earn a decent living. Bigger companies have managed to sell their stocked items for the cheap. Bigger companies have managed to sell those items that were not wanted on the retail stores any more. Plus, the online shopping business has seen many international partnerships being formed. These partnerships have been formed among the most remote countries like the USA and India. Business has to offer and receive a lot through such types of partnerships. There is a huge demand of Indian cosmetic products in the US market especially the raw materials that are required to make some cosmetic. The desire to cater this need has made it possible for businesses to come together and form partnerships all across the globe. Lastly, the Internet calling technology cannot be ignored. This technology goes one step ahead of electronic mails as it makes communication at a different and more personal level possible. Programs like Skype can be utilized for free and for a very low cost if business professionals are to acquire some of the features like voice mail or phone to computer calling. Pearlman & Guglielmetti (2014) explain the evolution of business communication. When the Internet was launched, businesses first adopted e-mail services. It was good for a while but then companies started facing security issues with e-mails being hacked from their accounts. Then the messenger arrived through which professionals could privately chat. A few years later a better video option was added where video calls could be made. However, despite this it was not perfect until Skype came and changed everything. Skype offers everything for the modern business users. It can help business professionals share the computer screens, hold meetings through it and even conduct a whole seminar. Many schools in Europe are now running these programs to teach students. Mostly, more than 50% of all the businesses in Japan use Skype. More than 30% of all businesses in the USA use it and about 19% of all the business worldwide use Skype technology to conduct business. Pearlman & Guglielmetti (2014) believes that by 2020 nearly 69% of all the users will use Skype from their smartphones and computers to conduct business. In conclusion, Internet has changed the way businesses run and conduct their diurnal activities. Research and statistics show that Internet has dramatically developed in the past 20 years and so has business with it. Each and every tool that has developed has somehow shaped the way people carry out business. From electronic mails to Skype, businesses have found better techniques to communicate and make life easier. It is now possible to communicate and guide a team through video conferencing rather than making a personal trip. E-mails could not do such things but programs like Skype have made it possible. Internet marketing has brought a much larger audience to businesses. Now they have a better chance to make even more profits as there is a much larger audience available to serve. Internet will continue to evolve and as it does it will continue to make businesses more globalized and reachable. List of References Aral, S., 2013. Introduction to the Special Issue—Social Media and Business Transformation: A Framework for Research. Information System Research, 24(1), pp. 3-13. Chandra, A., 2014. Targeted Advertising in Magazine Markets and the Advent of the Internet. Management Science , 60(7), pp. 35-69. Hoonakker, P., 2014. Information and Communication Technology and Quality of Working Life: Backgrounds, Facts, and Figures. Journal of Compuper Science , 21(3), pp. 9-23 . Kane, G. C., 2014. What’s Different About Social Media Networks? A Framework and Research Agenda. Social Science Research Network , 13(3), pp. 21-39. Malviya, S. & Sawant, C., 2014. Perception of Youth Towards Online Shopping. Social Science Research Network , 9(2), pp. 432-436. Mollah, A. S., 2014. The Impact of Relationship Marketing On Customer Loyalty At Tesco Plc, UK. European Journal of Business Management , 6(3), pp. 11-34. Pearlman, S. & Guglielmetti, N., 2014. Ten rules for effective branded content: Experience from Skype. Journal of Brand Strategy, 3(1), pp. 12-17. Rose, S. & Hair, N. &. C. M., 2011. A Review of the Business-to-Consumer Online Purchase Context. International Journal of Management Reviews, 13(1), pp. 24-39. Syuhaidi, M. & Bakar, A. &. B. R., 2014. Engaging Users Using Movie Mobile Advertising: Technology Acceptance and Purchase Intention. Asian Social Science, 10(7), p. 129. Wong, C. B., 2012. Facebook Usage by Small and Medium-sized Enterprise: The Role of Domain-Specific Innovativeness. Global Journal of Computer Science and Technology, 12(4), pp. 39-56. Read More