E-Commerce: A Contemporary Issue in Management

In modern day, management teams are faced with numerous innovations and challenges in ensuring proper coordination of personnel, production processes, managing customer relations and profit maximization. These issues come about as a combination of several factors such as technological advancements, diversity in the workforce and the age of informed customers. So, in essence, a contemporary issue in management is an idea in administration that has its consequences, applicability, implications outcome in present time. Some of these issues include globalization, project management, human resource management, e-commerce amongst others. The exciting element about most of these factors is that they have existed over time but in every few years they modify due to changes in other aspects of a business. For example, human resource management is something that has existed ever since the ancient civilization of man because royal and noble classes used to hire people to work for them. However, since most monarchical regimes have been done away within the 21st century, it is essential to revisit the issue and evaluate how better to improve the sector. Social scientists have tried to develop theories over time on how to deal with some of these complex issues, but they still keep changing with time. As a matter of fact, technology has played a crucial role in revolutionizing management. That is the reason e-commerce will be fertile topic to assess as a significant contemporary issue in management

History of E-commerce

In the last two decades, the advancement of technology amongst the global population has completely changed the way people do business. Before the internet, people would have to go to a particular store to purchase products and use traditional methods of payment such as cash and cheques. That is all forgotten now, and if you find a millennial and tell them that was the way things worked, they would consider you to be incredibly archaic. In the late 1990s, the internet bug exploded with the establishment of companies like Google which enabled one to search to access information online. Soon after the invention of the internet, computers experienced an upgrade to allow them to accommodate these new capabilities (Hussung, 2016). Mobile phones were the next gadgets to be developed to improve communication. The initial hand devices were basic and only allowed mainstream functions like sending text messages, calling and voicemails. Fast forward, two decades later, everything transformed in the blink of an eye and individuals can access information about anything from any point around the globe as long as they have an internet connection. As technology improved so did business, and that is when the concept of e-commerce came about (Hussung, 2016)). E-commerce refers to the trading goods and services over electronic platforms powered by the internet. The most successful e-commerce platforms combine a myriad of functions such as electronic funds transfer, internet marketing, electronic data interchange, inventory management systems and online transaction processing (Santosh, 2015). The role of this trend in commerce is portrayed by the billion-dollar businesses that have emerged as a result of providing these utilities for example Amazon, eBay, Alibaba amongst others (Hussung, 2016).

E-commerce as a Contemporary Management Issue

E-commerce has significantly transformed the business industry by introducing new dynamics. It provides for the conducting of business in two main ways, that is Business to Business(B2B) and Business to Consumer(B2C) (Nanehkaran, 2013). Business to Business transactions involve activities between manufacturers and wholesalers while Business to Consumers is the traditional commercial activities of enterprises and their customers and potential clients. The implications of e-commerce have been felt globally in all sectors of the economy because people can now make transactions comfortably from the homes and receive the desired products (Nanehkaran, 2013). For management, the dilemma has been to ensure satisfaction of customer needs even without the constant interaction. Another aspect of e-commerce that is of interest to management is the proper administration, use, and maintenance of these systems to ensure they are always running smoothly. Since most e-commerce platforms are computer systems powered by the internet, there is constant need to monitor and check their functions to avoid breakdown which leads to unnecessary delays (Santosh, 2015).  Another managerial concern about e-commerce is marketing of products. Since most of the business is conducted online, people have to be aware of the specific places to visit to find the goods and services. Creating traffic for a business’s e-commerce site is one of the most significant challenges since it requires intense advertising strategies especially when the site is new (Khan, 2016). Besides all these, the most prominent problem is converting the visitors into customers. Most people browse on these sites but rarely get to purchase any of the products which can be quite frustrating for the business (Khan, 2016).

Conclusion

    Evidently, E-commerce remains to be one of the most stimulating contemporary management issues of this millennium since it has pushed businesses out of their traditional business methods and force them to adapt to the age of technological transformation. That is the reason is quite a modern issue because the improvement in technology is one of the major characteristics of the 21st century. For businesses to prosper, they have to accommodate these new trends as well as learn how to use them to their advantage. Ultimately, the proper use of technology gives most firms a competitive edge over their rivals since it automates most of their processes. In addition, most of the current customers and the potential ones in their near future are millennials who appreciate convenience and simplified transactions more than anything else in their business transactions. To appeal to this market segment, the application of e-commerce is more of a necessity than an option.

References

Hussung, T. (2016). From Storefronts to Search Engines: A History of E-Commerce. Concordia University St. Paul. https://online.csp.edu/blog/business/history-of-ecommerce

Khan, A. (2016). Electronic Commerce: A Study on Benefits and Challenges in an Emerging Economy. Global Journal of Management and Business Research. 16(1)

Nanehkaran, Y. (2013). An Introduction to Electronic Commerce. International Journal of Scientific and Technological Research, 2(4), 190-193

Santosh, K. (2015). Contemporary Issue of E-Commerce and its Implications in Indian Economy. Golden Research Thoughts, 4(8)