E-commerce innovation Essay Example for Free

E-commerce innovation Essay Abstract The 21st century has been an era of technological development. Life has been a huge success it is possible to get almost anything that you want. Business done through the aid of an internet is called electronic commerce. This kind of business has boomed in the 21st century with the massive availability of personal computers and laptops. Anyone who has been into shopping online will not miss e-bay. E-bay is one shopping center online that has recently been a favorite of those who loves to do shopping without a hassle. E-bay has been in the business for twelve years. This study embark upon the organizational framework of e-bay that aid them in generating more than they have imagined and the organizational strategies of e-bay. Anyone who gets into business has only one thing in mind, success. Success for one business depends on a lot of factors. Apart from its product, the management and the team behind it matters most. This holds true especially for the e-commerce business because this needs a lot of effort on the part of the management to make it appealing to online customers and to make it worthy of trust of many to believe and give their credit card numbers and trust it with money matters. eBay offers more than just a place for auction; they have numerous programs that cater to the need of its client. E-bay has not only conquered North America but also Asia and Europe. The analysis of the organizational strategies of e-bay was done by doing a content analysis of the documents released regarding their system of management. Introduction The 21st century has been an era of technological development. Life has been a huge success it is possible to get almost anything that you want. Development has been continuous and this is not going to stop. Each tries to adapt to the changes that happens in his life and he has to deal with it. Everything happens in the internet, anything that one could think of. There is internet shopping, online education and internet banking and so many more. Since the time internet came into being; information gathering has never been easy. Nowadays, we can get all information that we need with just one snap of the finger. Name the service that you want and the internet has it. You need to study? The web has a site for online education. Need help on money matters? There’s online banking. You would like to shop but have no time to stand up from your work? Even shopping can be done online. Doing business online is termed as e-commerce or e-business. Examples of internet websites that cater to e-commerce business would be commercial sites like Amazon.com, Buy.com, and eBay (Sharpened, 2002). Within these sites, one could do online shopping. Business done through the aid of an internet is called electronic commerce. This kind of business has boomed in the 21st century with the massive availability of personal computers and laptops. Forrester research has recorded total of $12.2 billion sales in 2003 contributed by e-commerce industry (Wikipedia). E-commerce was introduce in the seventies and has evolved in its use since. In the seventies it was only use for transferring of funds and data electronically to aid companies. Then in the eighties the growth of automated teller machines and online banking was because of e-commerce as well. In the nineties, shopping online was the other kind of e-commerce that was introduced in the business (Wikipedia). Anyone who has been into shopping online will not miss e-bay. E-bay is one shopping center online that has recently been a favorite of those who loves to do shopping without a hassle. E-bay has been in the business for twelve years. This company has been a fruit of a trial and error of three prominent people in the business now. The three icons of e-bay are Pierre Omidyar, Meg Whitman and Jim Griffith. These three have made a beautiful outcome of a trial business that has been a very good decision. If to be compared to its contemporary e-commerce websites that were born the same time that they were, their capitalization is twenty five percent more than that of its counterpart (Maney, 2005). What is the secret behind e-bay’s success? What is the organizational framework of e-bay that aid them in generating more than they have imagined in a business that some has notes as skeptical? What could be the organizational strategies of e-bay? Literature Review Anyone who gets into business has only one thing in mind, success. Success for one business depends on a lot of factors. Apart from its product, the management and the team behind it matters most. This holds true especially for the e-commerce business because this needs a lot of effort on the part of the management to make it appealing to online customers and to make it worthy of trust of many to believe and give their credit card numbers and trust it with money matters. Companies try to always to check their management system is helping flourish their business. Business strategies are needed to make sure that one stays in the market long. To make sure that everything is in order, one needs to check if its employees are able to meet up the standards set by the company. The development of the use of corporate code of conducts to govern the behavior of employees has flourished since the passage of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) in 1977. Back then this code of conducts or corporate social responsibility (CSR) was seen as explicit directives for the employees but today employers were able to understand that these are helpful tools in handling their employees and making their work advantageous for the company. Culture set the business behavior that surrounds a corporations code of conduct. Factors that are included are the way we comprehend the environment, how we use time and power, how we perceive space and structures. Also included is our perception of collective and individual task or relationships. If manage properly, CSR can help in fulfilling economic, social and environmental ambitions. Vital part of corporate governance will include the way codes of conduct are integrated in their operations. To make sure that a global company is competing ethically and effectively, one needs to make sure that the company’s code of conduct are made known to their employees so that they could incorporate it in their way of working (Wozniak, 1997). HSBC is one organization that provides banking and financial services that is doing its best to make up for all the losses and is giving a promising return to its consumers. They might not be the largest company but they have been awarded a couple of excellence award because of their great customer relation and promising return of investments. HSBC has now what a strategic plan they named Managing for Growth. HSBC has lay down their ways for achieving their objective of having an accelerated their rate of revenue. They still have to develop their brand strategy and improve their productivity at the same time maintaining strong position regarding management risk and financial aspect. Employees are also part of those that needs enhancing to make sure that they will be successful in achieving their goals. Part of the company’s plan is giving good rewards to those employees who will achieve the criteria that they have set (HSBC fact sheet, 2006). Every company has their own strategy but the burden lies in properly executing this strategies. Chapman (2004) has concluded that almost ninety percent of companies fail in properly executing their strategies. Studies show that when CEO’s who have failed have been interviewed said that the thing that led them to downfall was the bad execution of strategies that they have formulated. Only fourteen percent of those included in Times 1000 companies have commented that they are implementing good strategies. (Chapman, 2004) Proper management of business and financial risk is needed in order to ensure that an industry like the online shopping and any traditional company associated with it is here to stay. It is easy to acquire a debt but maintaining its positive impact in one company needs a lot of effort and planning. Business risk should be managed well and risk should be realigned in a way to cut costs; Optimized firm’s operating and financing costs; Trade off fixed charge and variable charge costs; Risk management; and when to increase and decrease risk. (Brackers, 2004) Methodology Analysis of the organizational strategies of e-bay by doing a content analysis of the documents released regarding their system of management. Findings / Results E-bay is a phenomenal hit when it comes to online shopping. Their organizational structure is just the same with other big companies. Reports shows that executives of this big company has still the traditional job titles but with a little modification with their job descriptions. To make an organizational structure of an online shopping business advantageous one needs to put more emphasis on its account management and customer relationship manpower (Keen and Qureshiï€ ª, 2006). Most of e-bays top ranking officials are graduates of good international universities and they have satisfactory working experiences as well. Most of them have taken a degree from Stanford University. E-bay has not only conquered North America but also Asia and Europe. There were twelve countries included in the Asian region, thirteen in the European region, greater part of Canada and United States (http://pages.ebay.com/aboutebay/thecompany/companyoverview.html). eBay offers more than just a place for auction; they have numerous programs that cater to the need of its client. These services include The eBay Marketplace, this is where customers could buy and sell their products; PayPal, aids in online monetary transactions of companies and individuals; Skype, is the program of e-bay that is focus on internet communication; Shopping.com, as name implies this is a site for shopping and more shopping that is; Rent.com, is the online apartment listing of eBay in the United States; and Online Classifieds, is a part of the eBay program that is an aid on the communication on a local level. (http://pages.ebay.com/aboutebay/thecompany/companyoverview.html). As recorded, the total number of eBay users worldwide has reach one hundred eighty one million. This total number of users has given eBay total revenue of $44.3 billion in 2005. The good quality of the developer of eBay is that they never loose hope despite all the adversities that they had. They wee also well in choosing in whom to put in specific spots that they needed. Pierre Omidyar, the chairman of eBay, has made a good choice when he chose Meg Whitman to handle his company. Advertisements play a major role in the success of one company as they help in creating public awareness. The first PR Manager of eBay has shown her passion for her work by creating a very good â€Å"myth† about the company. She has used every advertisement techniques to make a good reputation for the company. This good reputation of the company has been a collaboration of good advertisement techniques and good feedback of the services that they provide (Maney, 2005). Customer relationship is an important aspect in retaining customers; this could be achieved by providing a fast and reliable service. Omidyar has commented that aside from carefully managing their employees, the success of e-bay could be attributed to the right decision prowess of its CEO, Whitman. She was able to understand well that an online auction web also needs guiding and understanding the growing community of eBay sellers. Whitman’s strategy in managing the organization was being flexible and keeping in phase with the fast movement of the business (Maney, 2005). The total crash of the eBay sites that happened last June 10, 1999 has humbled the company and has teach the company on some pints regarding taking care of their system and clients as well. The system has crashed for a total of twenty-two hours. They had contacted all those affected by the system crash and this has made a direct impact on the customers, making them feel like they were really an important element of the organization. eBay has let the customers help themselves by providing a framework of a self-serve site. eBay has been an icon in the online business that even school try to use the site to teach students about e-commerce (Johnston, 2002). Conclusions/ Recommendations Any business needs an amount of risk and determination to succeed. The capital is one important factor that determines the future of one industry that is why it is important that the amount invested in any given company or business is carefully monitored if it is being use to the fullest and if it will augment to all the needs needed to make it. The capital of one company could be handled well if they have the right organizational strategies. In electronic business the common problems that may arise will be rejection of service attacks, viruses, obliteration, and theft of their intellectual property. These problems could be prevented if the organization has good managerial considerations and technical options. There should be a balance between internal and external security management (Greiger and Wegman., 2002). Each component contributes to the behavior of the system. No component has an independent effect on the system. The behavior of the system is changed if any component is removed or changed. The system has an outside an environment which provides inputs into the system and receives outputs from the system. All customers want a company that would work to their advantage without any surprises regarding deals made between him and the financial company. They would love someone who could provide them and first-rate service and a bank that has security that they could provide service for a long time. Money matter is one issue among the working citizens that requires them to think a hundred times before getting the service of any financial company. There are a lot of companies that tries to persuade them to invest in their company and that they will be getting their money’s value. Assessing one program’s effectiveness is crucial to its success. Evaluations of the advertisements and marketing strategy could guide the company if there adjustments are needed. Evaluation of the trend of existing customers would be one way of checking if objectives are being met. This could be on the form of surveys and questionnaires regarding how they foresee the services being provided. The key to a successful partnership is inter-dependency. In choosing an e-commerce site that would provide the services needed by one person, they must make sure that they are dealing with the best in the field. A customer must make sure that they are entrusting their money with the correct organization, whenever it is the traditional way or online. Reference Brackers, Kevin. (2004). Chapter 13: Capital Restructure. Pittsburg State University. Retrieved September 18, 2006 from http://www.pittstate.edu/econ/ch12326.html Chapman, Alan. (2004). Strategy Implementation and Realization. Farsight Leadership Ltd. Businessball.com. Retrieved September 18, 2006 from http://www.businessballs.com/businessstrategyimplementation.htm Greiger, Joseph and Jerry Wegman. (2002). Small Business and E-Commerce: Strategic and Legal Concerns. University of Idaho. Retrieved September 17, 2006 from http://www.cbe.uidaho.edu/wegman/geiger-wegman%202002%20website.htm HSBC fact sheet. 2006. HSBC Global Site. Retrieved September 17, 2006 from http://www.hsbc.com/hsbc/investor_centre/fast-facts Johnston, Timothy C. (2002). Using E-bay to teach E-commerce. The University of Tennessee at Martin. Retrieved September 18, 2006 from http://www.utm.edu/staff/johnston/papers/ebayteachec.doc Keen, Peter and Sajda Qureshiï€ ª. (2006). Organizational Transformation through Business Models: A Framework for Business Model Design. Proceedings of the 39th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. Retrieved September 18, 2006 from http://www.hicss.hawaii.edu/HICSS39/Best%20Papers/OS/08-14 05.pdf#search=organizational%20framework%20of%20ebay Maney, Kevin. (2005). 10 years ago, eBay changed the world. USA Today. Retrieved September 18, 2006 from http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2005-03-21-ebay-cover_x.htm Miner, John B. (2005) Organizational Behavior I: Essential Theories of Motivation and Leadership. HF5549 2005-003746 0-7656-1523-1 Sharpe, Inc. Reference Research Book News. Retrieved September 18, 2006 from http://www.findarticles.com/p/search?tb=artqt=Organizational+behavior+/+Analysis Sharpened Productions. (2006). Definition of E-commerce. Retrieved September 18, 2006 from http://www.sharpened.net/glossary/definition.php?ecommerce The Ebay company. Retrieved September 18, 2006 from http://pages.ebay.com/aboutebay/thecompany/companyoverview.html Wikipedia. (2006) E-commerce. Retrieved September 17, 2006 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_commerce Wozniak, Lynne. (1997) International Business Ethics: When a Corporate Code of Conduct is Not Enough.. Relocation Journal Real Estate News. Retrieved September 17, 2006 from http://www.relojournal.com/july97/ethics.htm