A blog by a fellow classmate of mine, Andrew Coe, suggested social media is currently having the largest impact on business. Although I understand how social media is transforming current business, I believe the effects are minimal, in comparision to those of e-commerce. E-commerce is able to transform business, making it effective and efficient. In class, we discussed the power of Dell’s four day inventory and that having a large inventory can create issues: to me the most powerful tool e-commerce businesses have adapted is sourcing and then purchasing merchandise once it has been bought by the consumer, completely eliminating the inventory issue that every commercial business is faced with. Andrew suggested that through social media, businesses could improve marketing by “relating trending world-wide topics to their product”; however, I envision social media as an opportunity for the growth of e-commerce. Analysts and IT can gain advanced analytic information through social media that can then be used to target and market on e-commerce websites. This emphasizes the growing and emerging connection between IT and marketing.
However, e-commerce is coming at the cost of our community. Accoding to an article in Forbes, small sized businesses cannot compete with those that have adapted multi-channel integration as they lack the convenience and variety that e-commerce offers. How can you compete with the 365 day full-refund return policy of Zappos?
As businesses continue to grow and develop during the current technological revolution, social-media must be used to connect and help market products; however, the information learned through social media can be put towards something more valuable: e-commerce. With a young target audience and a rising m-commerce market, online business has only just begun.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ciocentral/2013/03/13/the-future-of-e-commerce-for-small-businesses/