Page 267 - Introduction to Electronic Commerce and Social Commerce

252 8 Social Enterprise and Other Social Commerce Topics

are easily shared across the enterprise, and teams collaborate • Language translator. In EC we sometimes need lan-
across geographical and organizational boundaries. guage translation for introducing websites to people who
WebEx Meetings is a universal app available for all major understand other languages, in order to exploit global
smartphones and tablets. For other WebEx social features, opportunities. We need it also for translating a natural
see webex.com/products/web-conferencing.html#pricing. human language to a language that a computer can under-
stand. Today’s automatic machine translation is not opti-
For a list of vendors, the tools they use, and the type of
collaboration/communication supported in the context of mal, but it is improving. Computer systems, such as
IBM’s Watson, have powerful natural language proces-
general use cases. For the benefits of social collaboration, sors that are getting even better with time, and thus pro-
see Buckley (2015).
vide better machine translation.
• Customer service. Providing technical support is critical
for success (e.g., see the iRobot case in Chapter 7). Watson’s
The Future of Social Commerce
intelligence will enable automatic guides for people who
need help, taking them through all the necessary steps.
In determining justification and strategy of social commerce, The service will be consistent, top quality, and available
we need to look into the future. Many researchers and con-
sultants are speculating on the future (e.g., slideshare.net/ in real time.
YairCarmel1/e-commerce-trendsesenglish?related=3). • Q&A service. Watson will provide the best answers to any
business, medical, legal, or personal question you have. It
The predictions are diverse, ranging from “SC will dominate can answer any question and subsequent subquestions.
EC” to “it is a buzz word and will disappear soon.” See
• Matchmaking. Watson can match sellers and buyers,
Gebauer (2015) for 132 case studies, both successes and fail- products and markets, job seekers and job offers, partners
ures. Given the popularity of Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest,
to bartering, P2P lending participants or any other match
YouTube, social games, social shopping, and social advertis- you can think of. For example, Watson will be able to find
ing, it is difficult to side with the pessimistic predictions. It
you a partner who will fit your stated goals. IBM’s Watson
looks as if mobile social commerce will be a major area of is related to IBM’s Smarter plant activities (see ibm.com/
EC growth. Also, several of the social shopping and social
smarterplanet/us/en/ibmwatson).
collaboration models could be very successful. In the enter-
prise area, there is a trend to have a “social as a service”
rather than as an application approach (due to the influence
of cloud computing). SECTION 8.8 REVIEW QUESTIONS
The future of social commerce depends largely on social
media trends. For some 2016 trends, see Levy (2016). 1. Define social collaboration.
2. List and describe the major benefits of social collabora-
Conclusion: IBM’s Watson and Social Commerce tion briefly.
3. List social collaboration tools.
There are many opinions on what the future of SC will be. 4. What are the major points related to the future of social
Instead of presenting them, we decided to end this chapter by commerce?
looking at IBM’s Watson supercomputer. In February 2011,
IBM’s Watson won a Jeopardy 8-day tournament against two
world champions. This was a great achievement for what MANAGERIAL ISSUES
IBM calls Social Business and Smart Computing. Aided by
intelligent systems such as IBM’s Pure Systems, Watson will 1. What are some of the ethical issues that may be
be able to do much more. According to ibm.com/smarter- involved in deploying social commerce? Using social
planet/us/en/ibm, Watson may assist people in the follow- commerce can lead to several ethical issues such as pri-
ing social commerce-related tasks. vacy and accountability. In addition, mistakes can cause
harm to users as well as to the company. Another impor-
• Personal investment advisor. There is no need to con- tant ethical issue is human judgment, which is frequently
duct research any longer. All you have to do is to state a key factor in social commerce. Human judgment may
your investment goals and Watson will make recommen- be subjective or corrupt, and therefore, it may lead to
dations after checking all the needed input data. Given unethical consequences. Companies should provide an
what goals you have, Watson can figure out what you ethical code for system builders and users. There are ethi-
need, recommending what stocks to buy or sell. Upon cal issues related to the implementation of idea generation
your approval, Watson can complete the deal for you. and other problem-solving-related considerations. One