Transcript Electronic Commerce

Electronic Commerce
Semester 1 Term 1 Lecture 8
The Web & E-Commerce
• Companies use the Web to communicate
with customers and suppliers by publishing
content on their Web server for widespread
distribution
• Motivated by the potential for business-tobusiness as well as business-to-consumer
commerce, many firms are taking steps
toward selling their products on the Web
• The Web is also changing and reshaping
industries whose core business is information
transfer between the firms and the consumer
Usefulness of the Web for ECommerce
• The Web is used for four major tasks:
– Attracting new customer via marketing and
advertising
– Serving existing customers via customer
service and support function
– Developing new markets and distribution
channels for existing products
– Developing new information-based products
Marketing & Advertising
• Marketing-related uses of the Web include
brand-name management, disseminating
product catalogs and ales information, and
product announcements
• The significance of the Web’s ease of use
has not been lost on marketing departments,
many of whom believe that the Web
provides the friendly interface that will
open new channels for interacting with and
selling directly to customers
Customer Service & Support
• The Web is particularly useful in handling
information queries that otherwise would be
handled by a customer service
representative
• The Web can perform a variety of customeroriented tasks including:
– a new distribution channel for software and
information
– customer interaction and query capability
– new avenues for customer relationships
– access to government information
Developing New Markets &
Distribution Channels
• The Web will enable firms to build on the
assets that they already possess, like brand
name recognition, operational
infrastructure, information and customer
relationships in order to develop new
markets and distribution channels
• The beauty of the Web marketplace is that it
does not differentiate large and small
players
Developing New Online
Products/Services
• Education and entertainment are two areas
where new online products have the
potential to do well because of the
interactivity enabled by the Web
• In the case of education, students can do
research and receive instructional material
from anywhere without having to physically
go to a particular city or academic
institution
Managing the External Web
Interface
• Organisations need to realise that customers
come to site because it is there, but they will
come back if there is value
• Far too many organisations and vendors are
focusing on having flashy graphics, digital
video or 3-D graphics
• However, attractive content is about value
and the ability to deliver value at a
reasonable price
The Web & Intra-Business
Commerce
• Although external Web applications garner
the media coverage, Intranets are
revolutionising internal, corporate-wide
networks
• Intranets enable organisations to use the
Web as a convenient, low-cost channel for
intra-organisational information sharing and
distribution, and are the fastest growing
segment of the Web
Current Intranet Uses
• Intranets are currently being used for the
following purposes:
– Facilitate faster internal corporate
communications
– Facilitate more coordinated work activities
– Facilitate easier management of complex
operations with online transaction processing
– Facilitating better managerial decision support
with online analytical processing
– Facilitate better systems management by
enabling maintenance and distribution of
applications