In the third wave of electronic commerce, businesses no longer ...

[wrbasek0]

In the third wave of electronic commerce, businesses no longer limit their vision of online activity to Web sites. In two or three paragraphs, outline at least two online business implementations that would not be accomplished by building or improving a Web site.

Question 2

List and briefly describe four activities that a company might undertake in the formation of an online business initiative.

[l.stuut]

Answer to Question 1

In the third wave, companies are moving beyond a conceptualization of online business as a Web site that communicates to individual users running Web browser software on their computers. The pervasiveness of smartphones and tablet devices puts the power of a Web browser into many more hands in many more locations. It also changes the nature of online communication. Messaging between a Web client running on a fixed location computer and a Web browser is a communication from one point to another, much like a land-line telephone. Web clients running on multiple devices (some of which might be used simultaneously by a single user) make the types of communication and interaction richer and able to accomplish a wider array of tasks.
The ease of acquiring the benefits of a technology is also increasing. For example, a company might never own its own micro blogging-based social media tool (such as Twitter), but it can certainly use the tool Twitter provides to participate in a virtual community in ways that cement its relationships with customers, suppliers, and even its own employees. The most profound change in the third wave, however, is likely to be the increase in electronic commerce activities by smaller businesses. These firms can use the existing communication infrastructure of the worlds Facebooks, Twitters, and similar social media tools to get information out to potential customers very effectively without investing large amounts of money in their own Web infrastructures. Some experts even suggest that small businesses might be better off investing their promotional resources in social media than in traditional Web sites.

Answer to Question 2

A key part of creating a business plan for electronic commerce initiatives is the process of identifying potential benefits (including intangibles such as employee satisfaction and company reputation), identifying the total costs required to generate those benefits, and evaluating whether the value of the benefits exceeds the total of the costs. Companies should evaluate each element of their electronic commerce strategies using this cost/benefit approach.

[wrbasek0]

Thank you

[l.stuut]

Happy to help you