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E-business is reshaping industry landscape for the coming decades. Currently, e-business is in its infant stage as it is mainly treated as a secondary channel for business activities. And most importantly, Internet nowadays is most used for posting information and it becomes a collection of information and media for advertising.

To put internet into full play, this situation must be changed as soon as possible! The real value of Internet lies in its powerful communication, information exchange and processing functions.

E-marketing

The most fundamental change internet could bring about is to change the traditional way of marketing. At present, typical marketers are manufacturers or suppliers. Though marketing concept starts from customer need, most of marketing practices in real world apply “push” strategy by supply side, i.e., suppliers by all means to persuade their potential customers to buy their products. In marketing courses, ads aired by manufacturers are usually seen as “pull” which attract consumers to flood into their selling outlets to buy their heavily advertised goods. But if you scrutinize it, you will find it is still a “push” imposed on consumers by goods makers.

Why manufacturers adopt “push” strategy? “Profit” from getting an order is the driving force, which makes customer satisfaction an empty promise. With profit in mind, manufacturers are rare really volunteer to serve their clients wholehearted.

So if we don’t eliminate “push” behavior, marketing concept will never be realized! To achieve it, there are two important premises:

-           The development of social productivity makes oversupply an economic reality. If supply does not meet social demand, consumers do not have full freedom to shop for the best goods to meet their needs, so producers are in a stronger position to impose their offers to their clients. In an oversupply economy, buyers are endowed with the power to look for the best supplier, or problem-solver to meet their need and demand. The power shift from supplier to buyer lays the foundation for the change in marketing practice.

-           But only with the advent of Internet, such change could really happen. Traditionally, buyers are scattered geographically and each buyer’s purchase make up a meager part of a supplier’s total output. While powerful Internet could bring all geographically scattered buyers together which make the power scale favorable to the buyer side.

These two premises are ready in current economic condition. It implies that only those who represent demand side will prevail. But who may represent demand side and become qualified marketer? As individual buyer, esp. consumer is weak compared with suppliers, suppliers play the role of marketer wield their power to manipulate consumers, which goes against the spirit of marketing concept. The answer hinges on who can carry out marketing spirit which reflects the economic reality of new economic condition. This task is likely to be fulfilled by independent e-procurement consulting firms who collect individual buyer’s opinion and work for demand side to search for qualified suppliers for them.

E-business

Derived of and apart from power shift, Internet could lead to revolutionary change in goods distribution way which result in substantial cost cutting for goods circulation. Currently, the mark-ups when goods undergo different level of distribution system could range from 50%-1000% or even higher. With e-business, we estimate to pull it down to 10-100%, depends on types of goods. This is a huge saving for the whole economy. Esp. when human being are facing environmental protection pressure, the saving in logistics cost and reduced waste of resources save our future.

In e-business, buyers find their representatives to seek advice on qualified suppliers or brands. For important and business purchase, sales professionals from suppliers as well as the buyer are informed of by e-procurement consulting firm about the purchase plan.  Well informed buyer-seller relationship saves much effort as well as money on grueling and unwelcome sales prospecting work in traditional sales career. When the transaction process finished, goods delivered from plant to buyer’s site directly. For simple and consumer purchase, after receiving advised bid list from consultant, buyer may contact suppliers and ink the deal online, depends on what type of goods, consumer may receive product at home or pick up goods at the nearest supermarket (play the role of logistic center here) by showing the order.

Future economy

On the threshold of e-business, future business world will be real market-oriented because most of production is based on orders from clients. R&D and new product development are conducted via cooperation among all participants from manufacturer, consulting firm, and utmost customer or account. Goods are no longer being rerouted again and again from manufacturer to users. So social efficiency is greatly improved and energy consumption reduced, so is the total cost of goods reduced.

Written by intcitizen: http://intcitizen.bokee.com/tb.b?diaryId=15708345