Lesson 1 - Questions Flashcards
Define e-commerce and describe how it differs from e-business
- E-commerce involves digitally enabled commercial transactions between and among organizations and individuals. Digitally enabled transactions include all those mediated by digital technology, meaning, for the most part, transatctions that occur over the internet, the Web, and/or via mobile devices. Commercial transactions involve the exchange of value(e.g.money) across organizational or individual boundaries in return for products or services.
- E-business refers primarily to the digital enabling of transactions and processes within a firm, involving information systems under the control of the firm. For the most part, e-business does not involve commercial transactions across organizational boundaries where value is exchanged.
Understand the evolution of e-commerce from its early years to today
The early years of e-commerce were a technological success, with the digital infrastructure created during the period solid enough to sustain significant growth in e-commerce during the next decade, and a mixed business success, with significant revenue growth and customer usage, but low profit margins.
E-commerce entered a period of consolidation beginning in 2001 and extending into 2006
E-commerce entered a period of reinvention in 2007 with the emergence of the mobile digital platform, social networks, and Web 2.0 applications that attracted huge audiences in a very short time span.
Describe the major themes underlying the study of e-commerce
Technology - To understand e-commerce, you need a basic understanding of the information technologies upon which it is built, including the internet, the Web, and mobile platform, and a host of complementaru technologies - cloud computing, desktop computers, smartphones, tablet computers, local area networks, client/server computing, packet-switched communications, protocols such as TCP/IP, Web Servers, HTML, and relational and non-relational databases, among others.
Business - While technology provided the infrastructure, it is the business aplications - the potential for extraordinary returns on investment - that create the interest and excitment in e-commerce. Therefore, you also need to understand some key business concepts such as electronic markets, information goods, business models, firm and industry value chains, industry structure, and consumer behaviour in digital markets.
Society - Understanding the pressures that global e-commerce places on contemporary society is critical to being successful in the e-commerce marketplace. The primary societal issues are intellectual property, individual privacy, and public policy.
Identify the major academic disciplines contributing to e-commerce
There are two primary approaches to e-commerce: technical and behavioural. Each othe these approaches is represented by several academic disciplines. Ont he technical side, this includes computer science, operations management, and information systems. on the behavioural side, it includes information systems as well as sociology, economics, finance and accounting, management and marketing.
Lesson Note 1
Note 1: e-Commerce Benefits
E-commerce offers many opportunities and benefits for companies, organizations, consumers, and society in general. For example, new technologies facilitate the ways we communicate, shop, collaborate and interact, socialize, learn, pay, play, and so forth. As well, they help us save money, time, and resources. Moreover, e-commerce enables us to be more efficient and productive, while offering easy access to a huge selection of products and services, many of which are customized to our individual needs and circumstances.
From an organizational perspective, e-commerce technologies help businesses be more productive, increase sales, reduce costs, improve customer service and support, respond to competitive pressure, and most important, expand their market reach and foster innovation.
Finally, e-commerce is a social driver supporting nations’ growth and advancement. e-Commerce technologies facilitate global connections, support more public services, while improving security and quality of life.
Lesson Note 2
Note 2: Technological and Non-Technological Limitations and Risks of e-Commerce
e-Commerce is associated with some limitations and risks that could have negative effects. The e-commerce literature distinguishes two types of limitations and risks—technological and non-technological. Technological limitations and risks are related to the technology that supports e-commerce systems, including lack of security standards, insufficient bandwidth, and the complexity and difficulty of integrating with legacy systems.
In contrast, non-technological limitations are related to managerial issues such as justifying cost, ensuring privacy and security, building trust, overcoming resistance to change, unresolved legal issues, and lack of support from government regulations.
Question 1: Compare e-commerce and e-business. How are they similar and how are they different?
e-Commerce involves digitally-enabled commercial transactions between and among organizations and individuals—buying and selling goods and services through the use of technology. e-Commerce differs from e-business in that no commercial transaction (an exchange of value across organizational or individual boundaries) takes place in e-business.
e-Business is the strategic deployment of technology to integrate and streamline business process enterprise applications and the organizational structure of the business, in order to create a high performance business model within the company. e-Commerce and e-business intersect at the business firm boundary, at the point where internal business systems link up with suppliers—e-business turns into e-commerce when an exchange of value occurs across firm boundaries. For example, selling products/services through the Internet, Web, and mobile apps are within the scope of e-commerce because there is a digital commercial transaction. However, in order for this commercial transaction to be fulfilled, the company must ensure they have the proper internal processes and activities, such as online inventory control, scheduling, pricing, and so on.
For the purposes of this course, we will be using the term e-commerce in its broadest sense, which includes both e-business and e-commerce systems, as well as firms’ technology infrastructure associated with the intersection between the two.
Question 2: What are the unique features of e-commerce technology?
The following are the unique features of e-commerce technology.
Ubiquity: It is available just about everywhere and at all times.
Global reach: The potential market size is roughly equal to the size of the online population of the world.
Universal standards: The technical standards of the Internet, and therefore of conducting e-commerce, are shared by all the nations in the world.
Richness: Information that is complex and content-rich can be delivered without sacrificing reach.
Interactivity: e-Commerce technologies allow two-way communication between the merchant and the consumer.
Information density: The total amount and quality of information available to all market participants is vastly increased and is cheaper to deliver.
Personalization/Customization: e-Commerce technologies enable merchants to target their marketing messages to a person’s name, interests, and past purchases. They allow a merchant to change the product or service to suit a consumer’s purchasing behaviour and preferences.
Social technology: Users can create and distribute content, and social networks are supported.
Question 3: Describe the evolution of e-commerce and explain how it has changed over time.
e-Commerce has evolved from an invention phase, through consolidation, and then to a reinvention stage. From its beginnings in early 1995, e-commerce was characterized by idealistic visions of markets in which quality information was equally available to both buyers and merchants. At that time, e-commerce was mainly serving as an informational model and was primarily technology driven. Companies focused on revenue growth and market share.
With the advancement of technologies in 2000, e-commerce entered a consolidation phase in which more traditional firms began to use the Web to enhance their existing businesses. In 2006, though, e-commerce entered its current stage—reinvention—as social networking and Web 2.0 applications reinvigorated e-commerce and encouraged the development of new business models. Now, e-commerce is more business- than technology-driven, with focus shifting to the social network. Today there is extensive government regulation and surveillance. The market is primary dominated by purely web-based firms such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook playing a major role. Other key factors include the proliferation of small online intermediaries renting the business processes of larger firms.
Question 4: What are the major business factors for e-commerce adoption?
The major factors for e-commerce adoption include increasing sales, reducing costs, enhancing customer support, streamlining processes, facilitating collaboration, responding to competitive pressure, expanding market reach, and so forth.
Question 5: What is Web 2.0? Explain its relationship with e-commerce, and give three examples of Web 2.0 applications.
Web 2.0 is a set of applications and technologies that allow users to
create, edit, and distribute content
share preferences, bookmarks, and online personas
participate in virtual lives
build online communities.
Web 2.0 is interactive and dynamic, thus enabling many social functionalities, features, and applications. A partial list of examples of Web 2.0 applications include the following.
Facebook (social network enabling users to connect, share, and communicate with family, friends, and other users).
LinkedIn (a professional network designed for members to share, interact, and communicate their expertise, skills, and interests).
WhatsApp (similar to Instagram and other social applications, it enables users to exchange text, images, video, and audio messages for free through their mobile device).
Question 6: What is the relationship between social commerce and e-commerce?
Social commerce is a sub-set of e-commerce, and consists of activities conducted in social networks and/or using social software and social media. Companies embrace social commerce to expand market reach, increase marketing, and break sales records by leveraging social networks.
