Information Technology in Developed Countries
The Americans and Japanese have capitalized the most of this knowledge called Information Technology (IT) and communication economy which has a market worth of over US$ four trillion. These two countries have led the way in developing hardware, software and enabled communication technologies for system integration. The IT industry ahs a growth rate of over 18% annually and has grown four times to its present size of US$ 4 trillion since 1980. At present, the IT industry has more than 800,000 jobs world which are yet to be filled up. The success in the IT industry is rated as the largest single factor in America today which is the world’s top economic power as IT and communication contribute over 40% to its total revenue earnings.
The newly industrialized countries have been quick to jump on the IT success bandwagon. The IT products and services contribute over 25% of the GDP in Singapore, 15% in South Korea and over 14% in Malaysia. India has revitalized its economy around the IT only US$ 281 million in 1985-86 to its IT industry grew form billion reflecting an increase of over 1500%.
due to the tremendous development in the field of IT the world has become a global village. After achieving significant growth levels through computer usage in the last 20 years, the world economic leaders have opened up a New World, the Internet in which everybody has a right to publicise an ideology, a product or a service.
The 2.3 billion pages on the Internet have information and technology for all segments of society. Students in far off lands can link up with the best of the universities in USA or other First World Countries through Internet bases distance learning programs or consultation on the most fatal disease can be done on the Internet.
Growth rate in other industries is 3-4% on average while in IT it’s 15-20%.
The combination of telephone, mobile phones, computers and Internet is going to dominate the world scene in next 5-10 years as the single largest medium of communication.
The electronic commerce activities on the Internet are estimated at about US$ 45 billion are likely to cross US &1.5 trillion market in the next three years. Thus future will be dominated by Internet revolution particularly in the field of E-Commerce.
Let’s discuss in detail what’s E-Commerce?
Electric commerce (E-Commerce) deals with the commercial exchange of goods, services, information of ideas between two or more parties enabled by inter active digital net works. It has two braches B2B (Business to Business) and B2C (Business to consumer). The first one does not directly involve consumer while the second one is the process of conducting business on internet with the consumer by skipping the traditional middleman.
The B2B transactions are generally conducted between suppliers and manufactures, manufacturers and distributors and between manufacturers and retailers directly. The buyer and seller have authorized access to each other’s information systems and orders are placed of services, which are provided either through Internet or through a virtual private network. The physical transaction is conducted between the two parties directly while the financial aspect or the transaction is conducted between the two parties directly while the financial aspect of the transaction is facilitated by on intermediary which in most cases will be a bank.
Business, organizations and even governments are switching to Electronic Commerce to generate higher profits, cut costs and build intangible assets such as customer loyalty, brand equity and public convenience. Some of the most successful adopters of Electric Commerce are achieving all the benefits. Electric Commerce generates revenues through advertising, subscriptions an d the scale of products and services, which heavily depends on contents and technology.
In the age of E-Commerce most firms and governments are on the web. Web based databases and directories are becoming exceedingly popular and useful. The leading web-based directly service providers are becoming exceedingly popular and useful. The advertising is likely to yield much of the revenues on web pages. Most of the governments are convinced that E-Commerce is quickly penetrating the small and medium business markets. Industry players have changed their focus, so now they have staged building joint ventures, partnerships with different players.
E-Commerce and Business
As for every business for E-Commerce, one needs to establish first as to what is to be sold, who are the target customers, how to market, what means of promotions to be used for publicizing products and services, financial cost and benefits analysis and so on. Those who failed to assign the top most reason for failure to inadequate business planning and lack of proper marketing.
It should be kept in mind that customers on the web have greater access to choice moving form one shop to another may be a matter of minutes or hours but on the net, it’s matter of seconds. While products are being sold on the net offer lower prices than the traditional market outlet, customers buy from web site, (Web Shops) which render better services. From the customer side the rejection of web shopping sited induced reasons of poor customer service followed by no credit card acceptance, non-acceptance of payment through bank account, inadequate goods return policy and so on.
Thus to be successful in sphere of E-Commerce every company has to be very competitive in terms of costs as well as in provision of customized service.