The field of information technology has continued to witness new innovations and is probably the most innovative industry today. The business world has taken advantage of these innovations in form of e-commerce whose impact today is not only in the creation of web-based businesses but also in building of a new industrial order. Any contemporary business that has not embraced e-commerce remains at a risk of facing stiff competition from those in the same industry who have integrated e-commerce in their businesses. The future of such a business is also at stake because the number of customers that find e-commerce to be the most convenient way to purchase goods and services is escalating at an alarmingly rate (Bray, 1992). Due to the important role that e-commerce is playing in the business world and the impact it has brought to many businesses, this paper will be a research on how e-commerce is being conducted and managed as well as assess its major opportunities, limitations, issues and risks.
Hypothesis testing
The hypothesis test will be e-commerce offers potential business opportunities for business organisations.
Objectives
The objective of this research will be mainly to establish a research based evidence on the extent to which various business organisations have embraced the use of e-commerce and the potential present in e-commerce that has not yet been tapped by the businesses. The other objective will be to identify the obstacles faced by business organisations as they make use of e-commerce and the possible solutions that can be implemented to make the use of e-commerce more efficient and accessible to many business organisations.
Using the above objectives, the research findings will be an eye opener to those business organisations that have not embraced e-commerce to realize the potential of e-commerce in terms of the business opportunities it brings with it. It is also expected that this research will help to determine possible ways through which those businesses utilizing e-commerce can gain more.
Literature Review
According to Guttmann and Maes, (1998) in 2004 there were an estimated 800 million internet users in the world and this number were projected to reach three billion by 2010. This shows that through the use of e-commerce businesses can reach a large number of customers. It is therefore important that the management of every business reorganise the existence of this unexploited potential for their business and device ways of reaching the numerous number of customers visiting the internet every day. However, Guttmann and Maes in their study noted that while some countries have advanced in the use of internet and application of information technology, some other countries are just beginning to embrace this new technology. This research study will therefore determine areas where the use of e-commerce presents a good opportunity for business expansion.
This research paper will build on the premise that consumer e-commerce has been observed to be the most reliable and permanent sector of e-commerce in both short term and long term. Other sectors of e-commerce like government electronic businesses are also in the proving stage and there are signs that they too could become reliable in the long term. Research has shown that 70 percent of international trade taking place today involves e-commerce in one way or another during the transactions (Parfett, 1992). Electronic data interchange which is also part of e-commerce has also been observed to play a very significant role in the international trade. Today more than 20 million businesses use e-commerce for supply and demand chain and this number is expected to project upwards with time (Nissanoff, 2006).
According to Chaudhur and Kuilboer (2002) lack of information technology skills among workers in organisations has been determined as the contributory factor for business organisations to shy away from the use of e-commerce. The cost of acquiring information technology systems and skills in the business may proof to be enormous in the short run but in the long run its benefits goes beyond the costs incurred.
Methodology
The research will be conducted on different business organisations which have adopted ecommerce. Both large firms and the small firms will form part of the business organisations on which the research will be carried out so that more comprehensive information on the use of e-commerce will be obtained. The research shall also explore the impact of e-commerce in administrating services. A cross sectional survey research will be used so that the research can be done within a specified time frame.
Data for the research study will be collected from both primary and secondary sources. This research will utilize secondary data especially from research studies which have already been conducted as stated above. Secondary data will also be collected from academic journals, newspapers, government journals, textbooks and company magazines. Secondary sources will be utilized in this research to enable enhance the understanding of the factors influencing the rapid growth of e-commerce and its effects to the economies as well as the opportunities it avails to businesses.
During primary data collection semi-structured questionnaires will be constructed and administered to the sampled respondents from the population of study. The questionnaires will use simple and direct questions and scaling where appropriate. The population of the study will comprise of the management of the business organisation and their members of staff. Where a business organisation has several departments, one staff member will be picked from each department. The research will also target other stakeholders who are not members of individual businesses but are actively engaged in the operations of the business organisations such as suppliers and the customers.
A non-probability sampling method will be used to come up with the sample that will be used in the research. This will help the researcher to sample members at random which is a controlled procedure that ensures that each element in the population is given a non- zero chance of selection. The selected respondents from each sampled individual will be given a questionnaire to fill and prior arrangements made with the researcher as to when the duly filled questionnaire will be e-mailed to the collection canters.
Result Presentations
Collected data will be summarized, coded and analysis done using descriptive statistics. Computer data analysis package will be used for analysis of the data. Results obtained from this research study will be presented in table form. The reason is that this form of data presentation offers an opportunity to present large volumes of data in a more detailed manner. However, where need for comparison will arise, graphs will be used to present the results because this will make it easier to note where differences exists and also the magnitude of such differences.
Hypothesis testing
The hypothesis test will be e-commerce offers potential business opportunities for business organisations.
Objectives
The objective of this research will be mainly to establish a research based evidence on the extent to which various business organisations have embraced the use of e-commerce and the potential present in e-commerce that has not yet been tapped by the businesses. The other objective will be to identify the obstacles faced by business organisations as they make use of e-commerce and the possible solutions that can be implemented to make the use of e-commerce more efficient and accessible to many business organisations.
Using the above objectives, the research findings will be an eye opener to those business organisations that have not embraced e-commerce to realize the potential of e-commerce in terms of the business opportunities it brings with it. It is also expected that this research will help to determine possible ways through which those businesses utilizing e-commerce can gain more.
Literature Review
According to Guttmann and Maes, (1998) in 2004 there were an estimated 800 million internet users in the world and this number were projected to reach three billion by 2010. This shows that through the use of e-commerce businesses can reach a large number of customers. It is therefore important that the management of every business reorganise the existence of this unexploited potential for their business and device ways of reaching the numerous number of customers visiting the internet every day. However, Guttmann and Maes in their study noted that while some countries have advanced in the use of internet and application of information technology, some other countries are just beginning to embrace this new technology. This research study will therefore determine areas where the use of e-commerce presents a good opportunity for business expansion.
This research paper will build on the premise that consumer e-commerce has been observed to be the most reliable and permanent sector of e-commerce in both short term and long term. Other sectors of e-commerce like government electronic businesses are also in the proving stage and there are signs that they too could become reliable in the long term. Research has shown that 70 percent of international trade taking place today involves e-commerce in one way or another during the transactions (Parfett, 1992). Electronic data interchange which is also part of e-commerce has also been observed to play a very significant role in the international trade. Today more than 20 million businesses use e-commerce for supply and demand chain and this number is expected to project upwards with time (Nissanoff, 2006).
According to Chaudhur and Kuilboer (2002) lack of information technology skills among workers in organisations has been determined as the contributory factor for business organisations to shy away from the use of e-commerce. The cost of acquiring information technology systems and skills in the business may proof to be enormous in the short run but in the long run its benefits goes beyond the costs incurred.
Methodology
The research will be conducted on different business organisations which have adopted ecommerce. Both large firms and the small firms will form part of the business organisations on which the research will be carried out so that more comprehensive information on the use of e-commerce will be obtained. The research shall also explore the impact of e-commerce in administrating services. A cross sectional survey research will be used so that the research can be done within a specified time frame.
Data for the research study will be collected from both primary and secondary sources. This research will utilize secondary data especially from research studies which have already been conducted as stated above. Secondary data will also be collected from academic journals, newspapers, government journals, textbooks and company magazines. Secondary sources will be utilized in this research to enable enhance the understanding of the factors influencing the rapid growth of e-commerce and its effects to the economies as well as the opportunities it avails to businesses.
During primary data collection semi-structured questionnaires will be constructed and administered to the sampled respondents from the population of study. The questionnaires will use simple and direct questions and scaling where appropriate. The population of the study will comprise of the management of the business organisation and their members of staff. Where a business organisation has several departments, one staff member will be picked from each department. The research will also target other stakeholders who are not members of individual businesses but are actively engaged in the operations of the business organisations such as suppliers and the customers.
A non-probability sampling method will be used to come up with the sample that will be used in the research. This will help the researcher to sample members at random which is a controlled procedure that ensures that each element in the population is given a non- zero chance of selection. The selected respondents from each sampled individual will be given a questionnaire to fill and prior arrangements made with the researcher as to when the duly filled questionnaire will be e-mailed to the collection canters.
Result Presentations
Collected data will be summarized, coded and analysis done using descriptive statistics. Computer data analysis package will be used for analysis of the data. Results obtained from this research study will be presented in table form. The reason is that this form of data presentation offers an opportunity to present large volumes of data in a more detailed manner. However, where need for comparison will arise, graphs will be used to present the results because this will make it easier to note where differences exists and also the magnitude of such differences.
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