Importance and Benefits of E-commerce for K&T LTD. Essay Example.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

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The purpose of this report is to explain to K&T LTD the importance and benefits of the use of Electronic commerce in line with their future expansion plans, a survey of the companies that have successfully integrated Electronic Commerce was carried out, the results or findings of the study show that the majority of this companies have seen their profit margins rise through the reduction of running costs of the u companies. The report concludes that the use of Electronic commerce and Information Technology is good for any business because the business world is revolutionizing. It is recommended that K& TLTD should develop and adopt the electronic Commerce system so as to realize profits and to enable them expand beyond any geographical limits.

INTRODUCTION

E-commerce is the way in which organizations or companies use computer networks and the developing technology to develop. Consumers expect faster and better services from service or product providers, and organizations try to meet this consumer demands through the use of strategies in E-commerce. The main goals of these organizations are normally to increase their profits, satisfying the needs of the consumer or customers and to gain or retain share in the market (Watson et al, 2008). The use of E-commerce involves all the activities that a company does online that directly affect stakeholders, suppliers, customers, stakeholders and its distributors. Thus one is at liberty to summaries that E-commerce as the use of transactions and information technology between organizations, competitors and stakeholders.

Types of E-commerce

Business to business (B2B) This is the situation where a business or an organization makes a commercial transaction with another company or organization; there are instances where this may take place for example where, a business needs to outsource raw materials for the production processes or in cases where a business would like to secure the services of another business or organization for instance for services like accountancy, legal representation or audit services or in cases where a business sells the finished products of another. On the other hand Business to consumer (B2C) This is the kind of platform where transactions occur directly between the consumers and the company, this are in cases where the consumer is the final product user of the companys service or products the third form of commerce model include Business to Government (B2G), This is in many ways similar to the B2B but it is most commonly known as Public sector Marketing, which involves the company marketing directly to the different branches of the government through the different channels of marketing i.e., branding, strategic public relations and communications that are web based. When formulating the E-commerce strategy the company has to factor in the following factors in their models

Revenue model refers to the way an organization intends to get its revenues to help it run the organization, it helps the organization to identify which revenue source to follow and helps them focus on that.

Value proposition is defined as the making of a promise to only deliver goods and services of the highest quality, and it can apply to the product or services or to the entire organization. During the formation or customization of the E-commerce platform the management must ensure that it is must be able to incorporate and maintain these standards.

Market strategy, this is the either long term or short term goal or plan of attaining sustainable competitive advantage over the competitors and increasing the sales of the company, the use of Electronic Commerce will help the company to increase its sales

Competitive advantage is an attribute or way that allows an organization to outperform competition, this attribute vary from high skilled labor to access to natural resource, access to Information technology and e-commerce is definitely going to improve K&T LTDs competitive advantage

Competitive environment, it is also known as the structure of the market, it simply means the active systems in which the organization competes. Different economic conditions affect the business E-commerce should be able to limit these kinds of effects so as to help the business to maintain its flexibility.

Team management means a group of people brought together to accomplish a set task it normally involves setting up policies and rules for this groups so as to be able to meet the task.

Market opportunity is any opportunity that the business or organization can take advantage of that has not yet been discovered by its the other competing organizations. E-commerce system should be able to help the management teams of K&T LTD to foresee future trends and the market opportunities way before others take notice.

Organizational development, this is how an organization successfully perfume and change

An effective E-commerce strategy has 7 very important dimensions (E-commerce Strategy, 2013). This report is aimed at helping K&T Ltd Company understand the seven basic dimensions of E-commerce, the advantages of E-commerce and the challenges that would be faced during the implementation of the E-Commerce model. This report can also be used by any other traditional company in their journey to formulate an E-commerce Strategy. The following are the seven dimensions listed and explained.

Technology

By adopting technology an organization can easily achieve growth by their presence online, and by offering technological advancements and organization builds a stronger bond and relationship with its outside publics. This makes all this companies successful.

Infrastructure

When an organization is planning for an online business they also need to plan for the online infrastructure of the business.

Brand

The organization has to evaluate the kinds of brands they want to market and the e-commerce model that they will use to reach the target audience

Service

One of the most important strategies in E-commerce is service, when an organization builds a strong relationship with their existing clientele, the satisfied clients spreads word of this, and this makes the organization a service leader. E-Commerce is adopted to make the service provision of an organization efficient and faster.

Physical

In this level before implementation an organization has to ensure that both the hardware and the soft ware of the online business are in line requirements of telecommunication networks.

Strategic

This is the level where an organization evaluates the future influence of the use of E-commerce and E-commerce Business in the market and in the organization. The main aim of this level is to support and evaluate technology and to anticipate future challenges and their possible solutions.

Organizational in this level, the major task is to make sure that all the processes (wok practices, infrastructure and work flow) in an organization are interlinked together to ensure a very smooth flow and to help the organization realize its strategic long term goals.

The Advantages of E-Commerce.

There are several ways that the implementation of e-commerce is going o help K & T LTD to grow and expand their organization to the other states, some of this ways are listed below:

Better Management of Resources,

E-commerce filters customers and the type of goods or services they want to buy because they have to request for that particular item or service before making an order for it, this will help the company to save on money and time. Many companies go wrong because they spend so much time and money advertising and selling to the wrong audience, it is the role of e-commerce relay only the relevant information to the customers of the organization

Wider Customer

Reachuse of e-commerce will allow K & T LTD to reach any target audience anywhere in the world and take advantage of new opportunities the moment they avail themselves, the company does not have to be confined anymore by the boundaries of local vicinity when this happens K & T LTD will be able to increase their visibility and their sales automatically more money too. This can only mean one thing; K & T LTD now has the ability to expand past any geographical limit.

Remain Open 24/7

Somebody once said that the world never stops and so is e-commerce, one of its abilities is that it can run all the time, from my point of view, K & T LTD can sell its products any time of the day and this means that Mr. David Andrew Smith can stop worrying about delivering services to customers who are consistent in this areas of expansion, this customers can finally buy whatever toys they want anytime they wantLimitless Informationwhen it comes to information, a company can be limited because of their physical location, when a company goes online this physical locations are erased, K & T LTD can easily keep their clients abreast by just writing or posting this new information through e-commerce and its also cheap to run because it does not require any money to maintain and when an information is readily available it also reduces the questions that customers may have, this would give K & t LTD enough time and space to sell their merchandise while at the same time spending less time answering client questions.

Endless Features

A final way that ecommerce can help K & T LTD grow is by giving the clients or customers various features to make their shopping experiences fun and exciting, because instead of the customers going up and down looking for the goods the toys or dolls they want they can easily find whatever they want using the e-commerce search tolls, best of all they can cross reference with the K & T LTD on which of their branches is nearest to them. The can also compare the best products and their prices and hopefully they will come to K & T LTD.

Its use allows the clients of an organization to electronically exchange services and goods without any distance, time or language barriers in between them. With the speed at which information technology is expanding and changing the world the boundaries between electronic and conventional commerce is growing thinner as every business is moving their operations to the internet or online. This is will help K & T LTD to expand because more clientele are based on the internet than anywhere else. Secondly, the concept of Business to Business commerce or commonly known as B2B is a form of electronic commerce that takes place one business and another business instead of a customer or a consumer. This is a very easy platform for an organization to deal with hundreds and thousands of other businesses as either a supplier or a client, and by carrying out these activities electronically K & T LTD gets competitive advantages over other companies that that uses traditional methods in the same field. When it is properly implemented, electronic commerce provides an advantage to the company, because it is convenient, cheaper and a faster way of offering goods and services to clients. EDI or rather Electronic Data Interchange is an electronic commerce surface that requires organizations and their clients to set up or create data link that connects the two parties Rafay Ali (2004). K & T LTD stands to benefit and expand in several ways; first electronic commerce is a very cheap way for companies to set up numerous ad hoc links, this could enable the company to operate anywhere in the world because commerce allows company and its potential clients to conduct a beneficial trade online.

Challenges of E-commerce Implementation

In as much as there are several advantages to having e-commerce in an organization there are several challenges that if not handled professionally would make the implementation of e-commerce...