This paper deals with a critical aspect of limitations of EC and how it could impinge upon business progression and development. It is seen that there are fundamentally two types of limitations, non-technological and technological.
Non-technological could be more easily remedied, since it could be in terms of market focus, demand analysis and being more customer oriented. However, technological limitations would be more obdurate and difficult to manage, especially if it occurs in areas over which managers do not have much control or jurisdiction.
However, keeping costs and margins in mind, it is necessary for businesses to evolve a best fit EC policy on long term perspective, also taking care to forecast and obviate potential threats and challenges to the EC system.
Finally, the business needs to adopt strategies that have stood the test of time and changing technology and needs to find ways and means of redefining business opportunities and seek new and better avenues for business growth and development over a period of time.
Which of the EC limitations that you read about in your textbook this week do you think will be more easily overcome − the technological or the non-technological limitations, and why? Use business examples from your experience, literature or the Internet to justify your answer.
It is seen that the non-technological limitations, in terms of search costs, privacy of contents, in certain cases, incomplete information that is found in e-commerce sites and other kinds of non-technological limitations could be more easily overcome or eliminated. All these factors may be due to market limitations, or lack of commercial sense on the part of the vendors and buyers, which could be overcome over a period of time and with greater exposure to the technology.
However, one of the major areas would be that non-standardization of some protocols could cause distortions in “the reliability for certain processes.” (Bhageerathi, Fong and Yuen 2008). Again, there are other inherent limitations in the use of EC, in terms of marketing inabilities or failures of the companies themselves or the lack of technological abilities, or inputs necessary to deal with EC itself, which are serious deficiencies and are not amenable to easy remedial measures. Again, it may also happen that many companies may have the technology but do not have access to inventory and distribution infra-structures to deal with customers and ensure their satisfaction. Thus, it is not only the marketing aspects, but also technology, that needs to be regularly upgraded and kept up to date. By far the most important factor that impacts upon EC is customer orientation, and in most cases the limitation of EC could be found in not being able to meet market demands and being customer directed:
- Prohibitive cost factors.
- Reliability and operationability may be sometimes an issue.
- Access constraints with regard to bandwidth, cable ISDN, etc.
- Harmonious integration of EC with present company information technology structure.
- Telecommunication bandwidth. (Richardson 2006).
The technical aspects are more complex and critical and need to be constantly kept in mind by the EC entrepreneurs, especially in the context of fast changing markets. “Constantly changing technology may leave slow businesses behind.” (What are the Benefits and Limitations of E Commerce).
Another aspect which could be seen in terms of being a limitation is the internet laws that may differ from one country to another. “For example, copyright clearance centres for EC transactions do not exist, and high-quality evaluators, or qualified EC tax experts, are rare.” (Benefits and Limitations of E Commerce: The Limitations of EC, p.6).
Thus, it is necessary that EC software developers make concerted efforts to understand the contextual problems evolving through the use of EC and make honest attempts to eliminate or even downplay the issues that may arise from time to time. It is necessary to keep the top management informed about recent developments in the field of EC and thus seek better and more progressive approaches to redefine business opportunities and seek new and better avenues for business growth and development over a period of time.
Bibliography
Benefits and Limitations of E Commerce: The Limitations of EC. Rai University. P.6. Web.
BHAGEERATHI, S., FONG, Tan Swee., and YUEN, Chong Yei. (2008). Benefits & Limitations of E-Commerce. Welcome to Our Blog. Technical Limitations. Web.
RICHARDSON, W T G. (2006). Benefits and Limitations of E Business. Web.
What are the Benefits and Limitations of E Commerce. AplusnetKB. Web.