Page 50 - Electronic Commerce

Introduction to Electronic Commerce

Many firms have had trouble recruiting and retaining employees with the
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technological, design, or business process skills needed to take their business online.
Larger firms often try to use existing personnel who are steeped in traditional ways of
doing business. These employees often have difficulty adapting what they have learned
about the business to an online environment in which the risks and benefits are often
very different. You will learn more about return-on-investment calculations and employee
recruitment and retention issues in Chapter 12.

Technology Integration Issues
Another problem facing firms that want to do business on the Internet is the
difficulty of integrating existing databases and transaction-processing software
designed for traditional commerce into the software that enables electronic commerce.
Although a number of companies offer software design and consulting services that
promise to tie existing systems into new online business systems, these services can
be expensive. The outcome of any systems integration effort can be highly uncertain
as well.
In the third wave, more companies are introducing tracking technologies that can
help them integrate operations more efficiently. You will learn more about how companies
are using tracking technologies in Chapter 5 and how they are beginning to deal with
software integration issues in Chapter 9.

Cultural and Legal Concerns
In addition to technology and software issues, many businesses face cultural and legal
obstacles to conducting all types of electronic commerce. B2C electronic commerce
must deal with the fact that many consumers are still fearful of sending their credit
card numbers over the Internet and having online merchants—merchants they have
never met—know so much about them. Other consumers are simply resistant to change
and are uncomfortable viewing merchandise on a computer screen rather than in
person.
B2B electronic commerce is also affected by cultural and legal considerations.
The details of business transactions are often not specified; businesses frequently
rely on a long history of doing business a particular way. These established business
practices can vary greatly from country to country, and making assumptions
when engaging in international commerce can be disastrous. You will learn more
about electronic commerce security, privacy issues, and payment systems later in
this book.
The legal environment in which electronic commerce is conducted is full of unclear
and conflicting laws. In many cases, government regulators have not kept up with
technologies. As you will learn in Chapter 7, laws that govern commerce were written
when signed documents were a reasonable expectation in any business transaction.
However, as more businesses and individuals find the benefits of electronic commerce to
be compelling, many of these technology- and culture-related disadvantages will be
resolved or seem less problematic.

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