E-environment

Identify the different elements of an organization macro-environment that impact on an organizations e-business ande-marketing strategy

Assess the impact of legal, privacy and ethical constraints or opportunities on a company

Assess the role of macro-economic factors such as governmental e-business policies, economics, taxation and legal constraints.

What are the constraints placed on developing and implementing an e-business strategy by the e-environment?

How can trust and privacy be assured for the customer while seeking to achieve marketing objectives of customer acquisition and retention?

Assessment of the business relevance of technological innovation.

List all the social, legal and ethical issues that the manager of a sell-side e-commerce web site needs to consider to avoid damaging relationships with users of his or her site or which may leave the company facing prosecution.

You can base your answer on issues which may concern you, your friends or family when you access a web site.

Social-influence consumer perception of Internet use for e-commerce

Legal & Ethical-determine what can be promoted and sold online

Economic-affect spending patterns Political-Determine the adoption and the

future of Internet Technological-offer new opportunities

E-Commerce Manager has to monitor the changes of the Macro-environment (also called environment scan)

Among the 5 factor type, Legal factor is one of the most important.

P.195, Table 4.2 Lists the Key legal issues that have direct impact on e-commerce

Cost of Access Value proposition Ease of use Security and trust Fear of the unknown Skills

Usage location Access device Connection speed ISP Experience level Usage type-work, social, entertainment, etc. Usage level-hours or minutes / month

Figure 4.2 Variation in broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants, by technology, December 2007Source: OECD (www.oecd.org/sti/ict/broadband)

Finding products and services online is a popular web activity

Online research occurs at every phase of purchase, even for offline purchases

Figure 4.3 Percentage by category who bought offline after researching onlineSource: BrandNewWorld: AOL UK / Anne Molen (Cranfield School of Management) /Henley Centre, 2004

Community Survey

Entertainment Download

Product trial Search

Information Interaction

Make purchases Exploration

Games News

The role of social media and friends in influencing sales was highlighted by this research http://eiaa.net/ftp/casestudiesppt/EIAA_Online_Shoppers_Report.pdf

Price comparison web sites (61%) Web sites of well-known brands (59%) Newspapers/magazines (58%) Customer web site reviews (58%) Expert web site reviews (57%) Retailer web sites (57%) Sales people in shops (50%) Content provided by ISPs (38%).

Figure 4.4 Development of experience in Internet usage

Figure 4.5 Variation in purchase rates of online products and services in EuropeSource: European Interactive Advertising Association (www.eiaa.net), Mediascope Eupore 2008

Why localize a website? Is it important?

What to be considered for localization?

Singh and Pereira (2005) provide an evaluation framework for the level of localization:

Standardized web sites (not localized). A single site serves all customer segments (domestic and international) Many sites, especially small business sites fall into this category

Semi-localized web sites. A single site serves all customers; however, there will be contact information about foreign subsidiaries available for international customers. Many sites fall into this category http://scotiabank.com/

Localized web sites. Country-specific web sites with language translation for international customers, wherever relevant. 3M (www.3m.com) has adapted the web sites for many countries to local language versions.

• Highly localized web sites. Country-specific web sites with language translation; they also include other localization efforts in terms of time, date, postcode, currency formats, etc. Dell (www.dell.com) provides highly localized web sites

• Culturally customized web sites.Web sites reflecting complete ‘immersion’ in the culture of target customer segments; as such, targeting a particular country may mean providing multiple web sites for that country depending on the dominant cultures present.

What are ethical standards? Why is it so important for e-commerce? What’s privacy? Why privacy a big deal for e-commerce? Identity fraud in Canada-

http://www.safecanada.ca/identitytheft_e.asp

Online businesses and e-marketer typical need these data

Contact info Profile info—segmentation Access platform Behavioural info on a single site Behavioural Info on multiple sites

Anything else?

Table 4.6 Types of information collected online and related technologies

Table 4.6 Types of information collected online and related technologies (Continued)

Ethical issues concerned with personal information ownership have been usefully summarized into four areas:

1. Privacy – what information is held about the individual?

2. Accuracy – is it correct?3. Property – who owns it and how can

ownership be transferred?4. Accessibility – who is allowed to access this

information, and under which conditions?

Fletcher (2001) provides an alternative perspective, raising these issues of concern for both the individual and the marketer:

1. Transparency – who is collecting what information?

2. Security – how is information protected once collected by a company?

3. Liability – who is responsible if data is abused?

Fairly and lawfully processed processed for limited purposes adequate, relevant and not excessive accurate not kept longer than necessary processed in accordance with the data

subject's rights secure not transferred to countries without

adequate protection

Table 4.2 Significant laws which control digital marketing

Table 4.2 Significant laws which control digital marketing (Continued)

Figure 4.7 Standard information collected about web site visitors from the DaveChaffey.com siteSource: Feedjit

Figure 4.8 Information flows that need to be understood for compliance with data protection legislation

• Market e-commerce businesso Domain name and brand/trademark

protectiono Using competitor name in meta-tag and

pay-per-click advertisingo Accessibility law

• Forming Electronic Contracts• Country of origin principle Distance selling law Making and accepting payment Others—ref. pp. 226-227

Do you think e-commerce have positive effect on environment?

Read the Box 4.6 on page 228

Figure 4.10 HSBC virtual forestSource: www.hsbc.co.uk

What do you know about the e-commerce taxes?

Tax Jurisdiction In general, taxes are collected in the

jurisdiction where consumption take place This applies to EU and Canada The US federal government doesn’t collect

taxes for online purchases States may have different legislations

The e-commerce potential would be determined by the economic health and competitive environment of the country.

How can governments improve the health of their e-economies ?

Political action enacted through government agencies to console the adoption of the internet can include:

Promoting the benefits of adopting the internet for consumers and business to improve a country’s economic prosperity;

Enacting legislation to protect privacy or control taxation, as described in previous sections;

Providing organization with guidelines and assistance for compliance with legislation

Setting up international bodies to coordinate the internet such as ICANN (the internet corporation for Assigned names and numbers, www.icann.com) and other independent organizations controlling internet technology.

Internet governance:

Internet governance describes the control put in place to manage the growth of the internet and its usage. Governance is traditionally undertaken by government, but the global nature of the internet makes it less practical for a government to control cyberspace.

E-Government

E-government is distinct from internet governance.

E-Government (short for electronic government, also known as e-gov, digital government, online government, or connected government) is digital interactions between a government and citizens

The-Government delivery models can be briefly summed up as:

G2C (Government to Citizens) G2B (Government to Businesses) G2E (Government to Employees) G2G (Government to Governments) C2G (Citizens to Governments)

Rate of change Which new technologies should we adopt?

Monitoring for new techniques Evaluation – are we early adopters? Re-skilling and training

Figure 4.12 Diffusion–adoption curve

Technology networking—monitoring, scouting, and sharing

Crowd-sourcing—facilitate access to ideas from customers, partners, inventors, etc. e.g., innocentive.com

Technology hunting—structured review of start-up companies for new tech capability

Technology mining—search the published documentations. E.g., googlealert

What are the SLEPT factors? How could they affect e-commerce? What’s a strategy to adopt in coping with

the SLEPT factors?