How Does Emerging Technologies Supporting Economic, Social Development in Emerging Markets and Sustainability - Coursework Example

Module MKM12 Module MSc Marketing Critical Developments in Marketing Theory and Practice Assessment Individual Assignment Assignment title: How does emerging technologies supporting economic, social development in emerging markets and sustainability Tutor Name Student ID Number Date of Submission 1.0 Introduction In a world where competition between businesses operating within the same industries has continued to intensify, managers have concentrated significant resources in terms of finance, human resources and time to develop strategies that would enable their business organizations edge ahead of their competitors. Among the result of this investment is that mangers have increasingly discovered the potential existing within the area of technological and scientific developments, which can be prove the difference between marketing strategies employed by different business organizations. Consequently, investment of resources in science and technology has resulted in the development of concepts and applications to support economic and social development in emerging markets while also contributing to sustainable development in areas of relevance (Kotler and Achrol, 2012). 2.0 Background As a result of continued investment in scientific and technological research, the internet has taken centre stage in the way business organizations market their products leading to the development of E-business as one of the major achievements in this area. According to Li (2009, p. 96) e-business should be perceived “as commodity trade that happens on the Internet between enterprises and enterprises, and between enterprises and consumers, including forms of text, audio and video images”. It started in developed markets such as the US market and was spread in emerging markets but it has been adopted and it is reforming the structure of economy and society in the emerging markets. As Chinese market is the biggest market among the emerging countries, it could be a typical sample to explain the influence of e-business. Therefore, this article will explore and discuss the influences of e-business to Chinese economy and society. At the same time, it will discuss the sustainability of e-business in the Chinese market. In order to explain point more concretely, article will combine with a special sample, which is Alibaba group to explain. In northern China, the National Planning Committee built the Chinese Goods Order System for online trading while in the south, the Chinese Yellow Pages built for providing the internet application to business (Liang, 2010). During 1997 to 2002, the speed of e-business development was very slow. However, during 2003 to 2006, this speed observably grew fast. At the same time, the applications of e-business were spread to C2C and B2C areas. The year 2008 is a milestone year for online retailing industry. Firstly, the amount of online retailing consumers reached 100 million and secondly, the total trading volumes reached RMB100 billion. Thirdly, the amount of online retailing occupied 1% of the gross trade in consumer goods (Liang, 2010). In 2009, the Chinese e-commerce treading volume has reached 3800 billion RMB, occupied about 11.1% of China’s GDP in that year (Ministry of Commerce of China, 2010). The trading volume of Chinese market has increased with 37.6% for average between 2007 and 2010 (Li, Zhang & Gao, 2012). According to China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) by May 2013, the amount of Internet populace in china had reached the 591 million mark while the percentage of internet access was at around 44.1 percent with the huge amount of internet populace supports e-business in china will keep a high speed development. 3.0 Technologies Driving E-Business Successful implementation of e-business requires application of concepts that goes further than enabling the buying and selling of goods and service. Emerging technologies in this area is currently being applied in more areas that also include customer-servicing, formation of closer ties with business partners as well as enabling internal business transactions to be undertaken via established telecommunication networks. Bearing the range of usefulness that businesses can apply the concept of e-business, there are widespread development of technologies with research being conducted based on a multidisciplinary approach that includes areas such as marketing, accounting, computer science, psychology and information systems. As seen from the above trends about development of e-business, this is one of the areas that have experienced active research with the result being transformations in the way business is conducted (Chen, Zhang, Zhou, 2007). A significant area that has contributed to increased business is the increased use of collaborative business, which has been facilitated, by the use of information communication technology (ICT) (Chen & Hsu, 2001; Chen, Zhang, Zhou, 2007). There are a number of technologies that have been developed to enable communication between the businesses to ensure delivery of important services to customers through collaborative efforts. Business organizations have taken advantage of the presence of Web Services to establish communication on a global basis. Along with Web Services, mobile technology has also undergone significant developments to enable businesses market their products. For these areas to be a success in driving biasness marketing concepts there have been development in different areas that includes development of software applications to facilitate the process of communication and transactions between businesses and their customers (Unhelkar, Ghanbary and Younessi, 2010). Through use of Web Services and mobile technology, business organizations have increased their presence online that are aimed at increasing market access for their products (Michael and McCathie, 2005). An avenue for this type of business owners to reach more markets includes advertisement in social media such as Facebook, twitter, MySpace among others (Murdough, 2009). Such methods further cuts costs of operation for the business and therefore results in higher profits for the owners. Therefore, the business headquarters serves all the markets and customers adequately without requiring physical presence of the business in these areas. These tools by enabling visible texts, provides a discursive space where individuals can post opinions and engage in public deliberations (Treem and Leonardi, 2012). Such a platform gives clients and potential customers the avenue to express their ideas on what they expect from the organization and how best to serve them. Another aspect of incorporating ICT in the e-business practices is through the use of teleconferencing which involves having two people who are in two or more different geographical areas engage with each other through an interactive electronic communication facility with important technologies in this model include audio-conferencing, video-conferencing, Web-dependent conferencing and audio-graphic conferencing. Audio-conferencing, which is about live communication thorough voice messages, conducted over a telephone network. Video-conferencing involves communication that exploits technology that sends voice, graphics and moving images in real time though satellite link or television network. Audio graphic conferencing is about the use of low-bandwidth text and motionless images that includes diagrams and pictures in addition to transmitting voice messages (Chen, Farley, & Ye, 2004). As the development in technology continues, there have been efforts to link all existing organization or customer information under one database to increase ease at which relevant information is access when there is need. One such effort is the development of the application of ubiquitous computing that transforms technology application through concepts such as the radio frequency identification (RFID) and sensor networks (Lyytinen et al., 2004). These systems enable easy access to information by creating a system where networks, applications, data and computing devices are all incorporated and merged for access at any time and place (Junglas & Watson, 2006). The result of this technological development is that organizations arable to operate in a nomadic manner, as managers will access any relevant information from any location in the world. Such technological development will have profound implication on the lifestyle of the people as it affects the way they live and work especially since it contributes to lead time reduction, improvement in productivity, reduction in costs of production, customer satisfaction and increased revenue for the organization (Michael and McCathie, 2005; Angeles, 2007; Veeramani et al., 2008). However, since the technology is new in the business sector, majority of the stakeholders are apprehensive about the benefit it has versus the risks involved with special concerns being in the area of security or organizational information and customer privacy. 4.0 E-Business Supports Economic Development 4.1 The influence of e-business The influence of e-business in economy is a quiet wide concept. In order to make this point more specific, the article will classify different subjects to discuss such as enterprise, customer. The reason of choosing these two subjects to analyse is that both subjects are important parts in the economic activities. Therefore, to analyse their changes might reflect the influence of e-business in economy. The influences of e-business to enterprise in Chinese market are mainly focused on two areas, which are the enterprise business model and structure of organization. Liang (2010) states that in recent years more firms have been adopting e-business in a number of their operations including procurement, marketing, sales and human resource management. This change will promote e-commerce into the deeper levels of organizations in firms. Meanwhile, as the production, circulation, and consumption will base on e-business, it might change patterns and organizations of business with Wu, Zhong and Mei (2011) suggesting e-business system must have the ability to offer IT service for production or service for it to create value. However, although some firms might fail with e-business methods, it really improves the efficiency of resource allocations, management levels, and innovation capabilities. 4.1.1. The influence of e-business to enterprises Firstly, e-business offers a new business model for enterprise. Moreover, firm just needs to sell their products or services on the third party platform, and consumers will search the productions information and buy them. Then firm sends products to customers through express company in a process of trading where the third party platform plays a market role. According to Liang (2010, p. 78), the Internet performs a number of important functions in helping improve efficiency in organizing information acquisition, processing, storage and transfers in e-business with organizations having to introduce changes operations such as payment systems and logistic in order to promote innovations. In Chinese market, many firms do e-business on Taobao mall, which is the biggest the third party e-commerce platform in China and a member of Alibaba group. It focuses on business-to-customer market (B2C) and customer-to-customer market (C2C). Before Taobao coming, many small firms were very hard to find terminal market, as they lack of resources such as funds, important information and marketing. However, Taobao supports them an opportunity to find the market for free. According to Reuters (2013), Alibaba group will invest about 361 million dollars on developing the Chinese logistics system, in order to improve the speed of delivering. Businesses just need to open an account and upload their products or services information on the Taobao. Taobao will do marketing for attracting more consumers to do shopping on it. Achroland Kotler (2012) point that in the post-information economy, vertical integration is receding with marketing functions and values-added are moving forward in the network and closer to the consumer. In the other words, the distance between small firms and terminal market becomes shorter. E-business is also changing the organization structure of firms as they adapt to the new business environment that requires new ways of operating. The impact of technological development on the business organization has been restructuring of previously useful components that are no longer needed for successful business transactions. As businesses can make a deal on online platforms such as Taobao without having their own distribution channel and marketing department, this departments might be cut as they do not add value to the organization. To ensure the concept of e-business is successful, organizations are adopting a range of measures especially in ensuring consumers access a range of goods and services while reducing unnecessary expenditure in other areas. What is important in businesses that have adopted the concept of e-business is to ease the process of consumer decision making through expansion of Web site features. What is important is to create consumer preferences through directly or indirectly eliciting preferences and recommendation of specific products through development of a computer-assisted program under the Web-based decision support system (WebDSS) (Bhargava and Power, 2001). The increased use of mobile technology in business has also led to research on the role of such technological developments in supply chain integration and management (Michael and McCathie, 2005). The use of mobile technology in business and access of goods and services has greatly contributed to the development and continued growth of business-to-consumer (B2C) Internet auctions. Through such technological developments, merchants earn price premiums in these auctions as they cut expenses from the elimination of the intermediaries who are no longer needed to facilitate the exchange of goods and services between owners and the customers. Therefore, what is important in e-business is to establish a functional customer service department, which focuses on answering customers’ questions. As in the process of trading, customers might confuse with products or services, firm needs an independent department to explain for them (Michael and McCathie, 2005). Additionally, another important department to be established by a firm with emphasis on e-business is warehousing department. Firm, that conduct business on Taobao needs a warehousing to store products. When they need to send products to customers, they have to arrange staff to give the products to express company. However, for most traditional firms who do B2C business, they need to set up a marketing system and manage it. Although some e-business firms also need to manage their customers, it more based on customers’ information. Overall, the e-business firms have more simplified organization structure compare with traditional firms. Finally, enterprise has to pay more attentions on showing positive information to consumers. In the e-business activity, the information will be shared by horizontal method that means not only the enterprise can easily obtain the information from consumers, but also the consumers will access the information from enterprise. For example, Taobao’s buyer normally might focus on whether product has a good quality, or whether seller is an honest firm with the buyer using this information in decision-making. This ensures e-business firm, especially for B2C firm, supports a good quality of product with right price by using a ebullient and thoughtful service will be the its competitive advantage. 4.1.2. The influence of e-business on consumers E-business makes consumers’ opinions become more important in the process of economic activities. Firm-driven vertical consumer networks might be instead by a network, which is a bottom-up and horizontal consumer network (Achrol& Kotler, 2012). E-business market will tend to be a buyer-cantered market. Achrol and Kotler (2012) also state that nowadays, consumers from everywhere have a dedicated chat group or blog to share their opinions as motivated by a generation of consumers that depends on the internet facilitate everything they want to do or have and are therefore always connected to the internet wherever they are for there needs to be satisfied. This trend has made it mandatory for manufacturers to always include online shoppers in their production for them to increase sales. Online shopping has led to a change in consumer behaviour due to internet technology as they are now able to compare prices in addition to checking product reviews on-line before buying (Zinkan, 2012). These information has now been important when making purchase decision that ranges from buying from another trader whose product is cheaper, requesting assistant to match another offer, to deciding not to buy the product altogether. These features of accessing goods and services has given customers more control over what they purchase due to the opportunity to check product features, performance and ratings. Consumers are now able to generate content in addition to being in a position to network with other buyers on-line to give their opinion of products available in the online store (Michael and McCathie, 2005). Social forums that have been formed over the internet are essential entry points for potential customers looking for information about what they want to purchase. Customers are now able to use online services for all purchases that they intend to make where information about such things as new neighbourhood before buying a home, how electronic devices work and which restaurant offers the best service are available to them. That situation leads to consumers have more power in economic activities. It is good for both consumers and enterprises, because in order to attract more potential customers, enterprises will constantly promote including quality of products, on-purchase service, and after-sales service. Online businesses have also been able to use the increased level of customer traceability and connectedness to improve personalization of the products available for different market niches. Consequently, it has become easier for the producers to customize their products according to the needs of particular market segments (Pride & Ferrell, 2011). For example, most high sales of e-business firms in the Taobao mall have good quality of products and services. 5.0 The Influence of Internet Development in Society 5.1 Positive Influence of Internet Development in Society The introduction of science and technology especially in computer use has influence the society in a number of ways. One area that has experienced major transformation is in communication which has been made faster and easier (Ess and Sudweeks 2001). Internet use has provided people with an avenue to communicate therefore resulting in creation of networks. People in society are now able to communicate with others present in far away locations almost in real time. The traditional communications such as those using the postal services were affected with boundary issues relating to sovereignty and other regulations. However the internet as a new form of communication channel has been able to overcome such challenges with the result being the ability of people in society to communicate with the rest in the world regardless of the barriers presented by these geographical boundaries. Using the internet has provided a platform for formation of online communities that enable users to form social contacts all over the world. This aspect of life has resulted in formation of social relations among people who might not have met physically before. Face to face communication has therefore taken a back stage in communication as it is not a must for people to meet in person for them to have real time communication. The importance of internet in formation of online communities is therefore important for the process of identity formation and psychological development in the society. This is based on the research indicating the internet has positive effects people’s identity formation and psychological development especially since it provides users with a basis to experiment with alternative identities. This acts as protection against social disapprovals they might be experiencing within their society which makes the internet a suitable pace to hide real aspects of their identity (Rheingold 2000). This new alternative forms of communication implies the society has become more open as information travels faster. Things that are happening in one area are easily accessed by those in other location. Consequently, controlling of information has become difficult as consumers will find it easy to conduct research on different products presented to them in the market. Organizations have been forced to provide official information on different aspects of their products as lack of such initiatives means that the consumer will access such information from alternative sources over the internet even when it is correct or false (Ess and Sudweeks 2001). The society has been able to easily access information due to provision of online reference books and dictionaries that have made traditional methods such brick and mortar libraries and bookshops less important for society access to information. On the financial side, access information from the internet is cheaper than buying a book or visiting the library while also making access to information very convenient. The other advantage of the information retrieved from the internet is that such information is updated regularly therefore ensuring consumers access latest information. Digital information access from the internet is therefore an important resource in developing the knowledge capacity of a society based on the fact that information is easily updated to reflect latest happenings in a given area. This is also important in creating knowledge banks for the society as digital information is easily stored compared to information in physical form such as books, magazines and newspaper. 5.2 Negative Influences of the Internet to Society Even as the introduction of the internet to society has a number of positive influences on how the society operates, there are also some negative impacts that must be considered. Reliance on the internet as the main source of information in society might have some harmful impact to people accessing such information. There is a possibility of accessing harmful information over the internet especially since there is low levels of selection mechanisms and effective regulation on the amount and accuracy of information that should be made available to the people. The internet has attracted different group of users including those with information to develop society while others post information that has the potential of destroying the same society. Consequently, the internet may be used to spread extremist ideology, methods and recipes for bombs making and pornography. Therefore, when compared to other sources of information, the internet increases the risk that people in society will be exposed to information that might be harmful. These harmful effects of the internet lead to the propagation of antisocial behaviours which impacts the psychological development of the society (Dreyfus, 2001; McCormick, 2001). The harmful nature of information found over the internet can also be assessed based on the level of conversations and language use that can be propagated. Since in most cases the people involved in this form of transaction are from different locations and might not have met before, there have been reports of disrespectful, hurtful and inflammatory speech, and that conversations that border on triviality and vulgarity. Harassment of the other party is also a common phenomenon in internet use as people usually take advantage of their anonymity to attack others. Of greater concern in the way internet affects the society is its alienating effect that hurts offline and face to face communication in society. Given that people spent most of their time on the internet, social relationships are damaged as people choose to communicate with others present on the internet instead of those who are around them. The disadvantage of relationships formed over the internet is that such social relationships are in most cases less durable, profound and valuable compared to those established in an offline situations (Dreyfus, 2001). 6.0 Sustainability Development Based on the works provided by Kotler and Achrol (2012) and Kotler, Kartajaya and Setiawan (2010) on marketing, there are three areas of importance that future markers need to pay attention to: consumer experiences, marketing networks and sustainable development. Focussing on sustainability is therefore important aspect especially for emerging markets where the level of development in terms of infrastructure and enabling environment is still low. Investment in science and technology becomes critical, as it is part of the efforts to develop a sustainable business model. The current business environment where competition is based on adoption of superior approaches than that of the competitor implies business organizations must be innovative to gain significant market share. Achrol and Kotler (2012) notes growth model used to by business organizations in the past to gain long-term dominance over competitors especially in first maturing markets have in recent years indicated signs of slowdown. Based on the definition provided by Fuller (1999, p. 4),sustainability in marketing should involve three criteria in the process of planning, implementing, and controlling the development, pricing, promotion, and distribution of products with the three areas of importance being meeting customer needs, organizational objectives and ensuring the procedure followed is compatible with ecosystems. Therefore, Fuller (1999, p. 12) emphasizes the importance of focusing on nature as an important resource in sustainable marketing. It is a nature cantered marketing comparing with human cantered marketing. There are two main types of carrying capacities need to be considered, which are market capacity and resource capacity. For sustainability to be guaranteed, it is necessary to ensure the present consumption level suits the present need while also protecting the resource from overexploitation that will deny future generations a livelihood (Bansal, 2002). It has to ensure that the next generation also has the same consumption level. As this point is more considering the nature resource capacity and next generation, it is more sustainable (Kotler, 2011). 7.0 Conclusion In conclusion, application of scientific and technological innovations in the business sector has proven an important milestone in improving how goods and services are marketed to consumers. E-business as an important application of science and technology plays an important role in the economy and the society as a whole as discussed in the essay. This development has had benefits to the Chinese economy through promotion and facilitation of various activities carried out in different industries and for the development of the regional economy. The effect of this is that there is an increase in foreign trade and creation of more jobs for the populations. Introduction of the internet technology has a number of important benefits to the society as it leads to improved access to information while also making it easy for the people to communicate with each other. However, these benefits also come with a number of negative impacts on society since there is a risk users accessing harmful information such as those relating to pornography while also destroying the offline social relations. The article also discusses the e-business on sustainability development area given that world’s industries consume high volumes of resources to support economic development. 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