Digital Business: Key Trends, Business Models, Collaborative Relationships, and Crypto Currency Impact

This report discusses the impact of digital technology on managing virtual business in the global environment, new and emerging digital business models, impact of new collaborative relationships and strategic alliances through digital technology, and the impact of crypto currency on Amazon. It also covers the advantages and disadvantages of these trends and models, and the benefits of collaborative relationships and strategic alliances.

Digital Business

INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
Key trends and advantages of digital technology and implications for managing virtual
business in the global environment........................................................................................3
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................5
New and emerging digital business models...........................................................................5
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................7
Impact of new collaborative relationships and strategic alliances through digital technology.
................................................................................................................................................7
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................8
Discuss the impact of crypto currency...................................................................................8
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES:.............................................................................................................................12
Books and Journals...............................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Digitalisation of business means to carried out all the activities of the business in a digital
way. It means the applicability of the digital techniques of production and technology in the
business to create more valuable products for the customers in the market. This focuses on to
provide the best customer experience (Luz Martín‐Peña, Díaz‐Garrido and Sánchez‐López,
2018). It also helps the business to keep on innovate new products in the market which can
satisfy the new wants of the customers. Digitalisation is important in business as it creates and
added new values to the customer experience, business models and helps to support core
activities of the business. In this report, Amazon company has been taken into account. Amazon
is a multinational technology company that is based in U.S. It is an e-commerce platform. It was
founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994. It is one of the well established brand and have operations across
the world. Amazon deals in the variety of products like baby products, grocery, healthcare etc.
This report will contain various trends and advantages of digital technology. There will be the
discussion of new digital business models of the company. In this report there will be the
discussion on the collaborative relationship and strategic alliance. Advantages and disadvantage
of these through digital technology will also be discussed. This report contains the explanation of
the crypto currency and its impacts on the company.
MAIN BODY
TASK 1
Key trends and advantages of digital technology and implications for managing virtual business
in the global environment
Digital or virtual businesses are those who uses technology to commence their
operations. There external and internal infrastructure is based on information technology which
help them to utilise the technological advancements in effective manner. Amazon uses digital
platform to serve the people with products and services according to their needs and wants. They
have their particular website and application which help them to acquire large market area by
offering services 24*7. Technological advancements helps Amazon in creating up graded and
innovative ideas which help in further development and growth. There are various advantages of
digital businesses which are as follows:

 Increased productivity and efficiency: Digital technology helps businesses in
operating on higher level with increased speed. This reduces extra time and excessive
cost which contributes in revenue generation (Sandkuhl and Stirna, eds., 2018). It
reduces the labour efforts which have direct relation with mental stress of the employees
working in Amazon. Digital businesses offer services with reduces errors because of up
graded tools and techniques.
 Better resource management: With the help of technology, businesses can utilize their
resources in effective manner so that each and every department can work according to
the requirements. Amazon prioritize their all the tasks according to their deadlines so
that they complete them without any difficulties.
 Improved customers engagement: Companies attract more customers because they
identify their needs and wants in better manner. Amazon involve particular area for the
reviews and feedbacks of customers so that they know the actual position of market
trend. This helps in improving the products in desired manner which generates more
profitability.
 Greater innovation: Digital businesses offer improved products with various innovative
and creative ideas. They develop products which are better then their competitors and
gain competitive advantages. Innovative products increase the living standard of people
by up grading their lifestyle.
Digital technology help businesses in communicating relevant information with their
customers and other businesses in effective manner. It saves lot of time and cost with improved
efficiency of employees in Amazon. There are various key trends in digital businesses which are
as follows:
 Artificial intelligence: It is the ability to control all the tasks by computers and robots by
replacing human efforts. It includes various options like search engines, understanding
human speech like Alexa and Siri, automated decision makings, self driving cars like
Tesla and recommendation systems like amazon, YouTube and Netflix (Hinterhuber and
Nilles, 2021). All these assist human beings in higher level operations and provides
uniformity in operations. Amazon uses artificial intelligence in their operations so that
they can provide faster services with quality products. It also helps Amazon in evaluating
the market trends by identifying the changes in tastes and preferences of customers.

 Robotic process automation: This helps businesses in error free operations because
software is used on the place of manual efforts. Software robots can do several operations
including extraction of data, navigation of system and identify the data on screen.
Robotic process automation is used by Amazon because it is very faster and easier which
provide flexibility to users. It is more convenient as most of the operations in business are
done by this software including interpreting applications, replying to emails and handling
large data.
 Zero trust security: This key trend helps in maintain the security of various factors
including data, applications, endpoints, identity, infrastructure and networks. It helps
digital businesses in control the cyber-attacks, crimes and frauds. Amazon uses this
software as it manages all the confidential data and restricts external users from the
access. It minimizes risk and increase efficiency which help employees of Amazon to
work in smarter way.
There are various advantages of key trends of digital business as it increases the capacity of
data collection. Due to high storage data capacity with the help of software and tools, Amazon
can store relevant information for longer period of time. It provides customer insight which helps
them in identification of customer demands and current market trends. Digital businesses attract
large customer base because of the up graded and quality products which satisfy the needs of
customers. It controls the risk factor and encourages more digital culture which directly improve
the productivity of workforce.
TASK 2
New and emerging digital business models
Digital business models are the forms of generating and creating values for the customers
by using various types of technologies in the business. Business models focuses on to show the
advantages of the products and services which attract the customers towards the business. There
are various different types of business models that are discussed below:
 Freemium Model:- This business model is a attractive model as it focus on to provide
some parts of digital services free of cost to the customers. In this model only the basic
function of the digital services are offered to the customers (eill and Woerner, 2018). It
helps the business to make a huge customer base as they firstly attracts the customer by

providing free services and after then they will charge for the premium services that they
offered to their customers. In case of the Amazon they use this model which helps them
to gain more and more customers for their platform. They firstly attract the customers by
giving them discounts on the various products and when they continuously visits their
websites and apps they slowly becomes the regular customer of their platform. This
model facilitates the Amazon to perform their ethical duty towards the society as they sell
and promote only nature friendly and genuine products which dost not cause any negative
impact on the lives of their customers.
 E-commerce Model:- This digital business model refers to the buying and selling of the
products or the services over the internet. For the very first time Amazon introduced and
adopt this model. This model turns out to be very successful for the company and helps
them to sale their products through online mode. (Aagaard, Aagaard and Harrison, 2019).
Through using this mode they become able to serve to the huge section of the market and
also facilitate the customers to buy the products online. There are large number of
competitors that Amazon have are present in the market. Sometimes they face issue in the
disclosure of their company information to their competitors through which they finds
difficulty in carry out of their business operations.
 On-demand model:- This model can be defined as transferring of the products and
services virtually and not in a physical form. In this the company or the platforms
provides a customer experience for a short specific period of time. Amazon uses this
model by providing various virtual experiences to their customers (Tesch and Brillinger,
2019). They have their own ott platform that is known as Amazon prime in which they
provide movies and web series facility to their customers. Amazon provides this facility
for a specific period of time and in return they charge a significant amount from their
customers.
 Marketplace model: Nowadays various buyers and sellers involvers 3rd party for the
transaction of products from one place to another. There are different platforms in
international market like Upwork, Uber, Etsy and eBay. Amazon also acts as a third-party
medium which helps various companies to deliver products and services securely on
time. Amazon focus on the safety and security factor and involves various passwords that
helps in control of unauthorised access. It reduces unethical activities and ensure

completion of activities in effective manner. Customers build trust and loyalty towards
Amazon due to higher security level.
 Ecosystem model: It is one of the most promising and powerful models which help
digital businesses in binding the customers. Businesses nowadays create their own
ecosystem which involve all the individuals like partners, customers, businesses and
competitors (Dornberger, ed., 2018). Amazon also uses this model to centralize and
control the activities and people at one place. Amazon uses their own web services which
build strong infrastructure and provides services like prime music, video and studios.
With the involvement of different companies, Amazon have created huge ecosystem
which includes gaming, healthcare, entertainment, payments, logistics and many more.
 Subscription model: In this model, businesses offer services in different split and
customers can re-use the services with renew of payment and subscription. Amazon also
offers subscription to their customers so that customers can ethically avail the services on
regular intervals. This helps in profit generation without any difficulty because it is very
easy process. Users of Amazon are retained for longer period of time because they
indulge the habit of utilisation of services for longer time. On time purchase of services
results in continuous profit generation and improvement of services.
TASK 3
Impact of new collaborative relationships and strategic alliances through digital technology.
Collaborative relationship
Collaborative relationship can be defined as the working of the two and more people
together in order to accomplish the goal. It facilitate to working with the different point of views
and ideas which helps in achieving the target in an effective way. This type of relationship
focuses on value of each of the member that are in the collaboration and each have the power to
make a decision regarding to the goal. This focuses on to develop trust among the team members
who are working to achieve the desired goal and objective. Amazon made various collaborations
with the suppliers in order to increase their sales which helps them to get more and more
customers for their websites. Amazon are using latest technology in order to satisfy the needs of
the customers. They have collaborated with the new technological firms to enhance their
technical department. Through this they have provide various platforms to their customers like
Amazon fresh, Amazon prime, Amazon fire TV etc to provide better experience to their

customers. There are many advantages of collaborative relationship as it divides the work which
facilitates the partnership to carried out work in a easy way. It also helps in the generation of
more output which result in the more generation of the profits. There are number of
disadvantages too of the collaborative relationship (Weill, and Woerner, 2018). This type of
relationship sometimes require high tech data communications as most of the business
collaboration takes place through online. They face the issue of latest technology to connect
with each other. This type of relationship also causes conflicts in the business because the
persons that have come in the partnership have different personalities and nature.
Strategic Alliance
A strategic alliance can be defined as an declaration or agreement between two or more
companies to come up with a common goal and achieve it. This process includes sharing its
strength and resources. Companies who are involved in this strategic alliances share their
resources and technology for the same purpose. There are lot of advantages for strategic alliance
some of them are like speeding up in the entry in the market as it will help in reaching to
customers and can avoid hardships with the market, enhance sales as companies with alliance
will expand largely and capture large market than single companies. The brands will get
introduced to new skills and technology as they will share each other resources. It will minimize
the cost for the companies because the dividing fixed cost will result in financial efficiency.
Enhanced distribution channels and share their resources which will allow the company to
increase reliability and availability. Disadvantages in strategic alliance are poor management of
business alliance, lack of responsibility will result in this. Poor communication will result in less
engagement, loss of the company credibility will be resulted. There are huge chances of conflict
as the interest can vary from other company and will result in dividing the company.
TASK 4
Discuss the impact of crypto currency
Crypto currency is a digital currency that is secured by a tool called cryptography. Which
makes it secure from copying or generating new tokens without authorization. Most of the
currencies are privately owned and used block chain technology. While amazon is a internet
based enterprise that sell books, music, movies, housewares, toys etc. amazon as a world largest
company sees crypto as an opportunity for the organisation and planning to make a move
towards crypto market. Amazon has showed attraction towards cryptocurrency and as per

consumer demand the company want to introduce buying and selling of goods through crypto but
after designing an own vision and strategy for amazon digital currency and making secure block
chain strategy. Amazon officials has seen that there is building momentum toward using
cryptocurrencies as an transaction currency (Thies, et.al 2021). Consumer would no longer have
to use paper receipts and block chain will solve this problem. The banking issues will be reduced
through it as no mid level engagement is required.
Define crypto currency and provide examples
Crypto currencies are digital currency or asset that can be bought, traded and can be used
to purchase some allowed goods. A feature of cryptocurrency is it not controlled by any
government or central authority which allows the currency to be immune from interference and
manipulation. It is also not issued or generated by any central authority. It does not have any
physical involvement or designing, it used the tool for producing is cryptography. Crypto
currency saves cost as compared to traditional use of currency. The transactions can be placed
any time day or night with no restrictions on limits of purchase and withdrawals. Anyone can be
able to use crypto currency with access of it with right amount of technology. It is not like setting
a bank account which requires documentation and other long procedures (Siu, Collier, and
Hutchings, 2021). Another benefit of this currency is the faster transaction, regular banking
transfer takes at least half a day to transfer where as this method takes matter of seconds or
minutes. Examples of some crypto currency and crypto acceptances are: Bitcoin, ethereum,
litecoin, doge coin, stellar, chain link, matic etc. and companies like Tesla have regularized the
use of Bitcoin for transactions.
Discuss the impact of crypto currency on digital businesses
Crypto currency is a growing trend in today generation and keep moving in rise. People
tend to shift toward culture where major audience is using and people are changing their
perspective towards digital currency. Major group of people from various country have invested
in the crypto market. Business should also adapt as the impact can be beneficial for the digital
business like crypto may introduce to new consumer groups. As business with more method of
accepting payment will get more customers of the company. Introducing crypto will help in raise
awareness about new trends of technology. It will help users and business to access new capital
for their personal benefits (Majid, et.al 2021). It will help business to enhance new treasury
knowledge and interact with them like enabling businesses in simple and real time money

transfer which will be secure. Managing opportunities as well as risk by entering into digital
investments. The negative impact that will effect the cryptocurrency are it is highly volatile, it is
currently less accepted worldwide, it can be complex to understand for new business and
business who are function properly with traditional style, data protection will be limited to the
user as there is no interaction of government or third party.
Critically comment on Bit coin adoption by El Salvador
On the year 2021 date of June 5 president of El Salvador legalised bitcoin as first
cryptocurrency of the country. And after few days in September 7 all the payments for bitcoin
was accepted. It was very tough decision to take for a country and accepting a market with such
volatility will result in bad impact still the country chose to stay with the decision. It came with
many benefits and support of user as well as nation for this decision. By this decision country
will have positive result like easy transactions, more forign users to trade in the country. But
many nations refused and considered high risk in investing and giving funds to EL Salvador
(Dutra, Tumasjan, and Welpe, 2018). The banking and financial stability are in risk for the
country as there is no involvement of government in the transactions.

CONCLUSION
From the above report it has been concluded that, there are four major topic which has been
discussed in the report beginning with the key trends and advantages of digital technology on
business and the impacts in global environment with advantages were discussed. Further new
emerging business model is explained with ethics and cyber security taken in consideration.
Evaluation of the impact of new collaborative relationships and strategic alliances through digital
technology of company was done. And at last Discussion of the impact of crypto currency on
organisation with its impact on digital business and legalisation of cryptocurrency in country
effects were briefly explained.

REFERENCES:
Books and Journals
Aagaard, A., Aagaard, A. and Harrison, 2019. Digital business models. Cham: Springer
International Publishing.
Dornberger, R. ed., 2018. Business information systems and technology 4.0: New trends in the
age of digital change (Vol. 141). Springer.
Dutra, Tumasjan, and Welpe, 2018. Blockchain is changing how media and entertainment
companies compete. MIT Sloan Management Review, 60(1), pp.39-45.
Hinterhuber, A. and Nilles, M., 2021. Digital transformation, the holy grail and the disruption of
business models. Business Horizons.
Luz Martín‐Peña, M., Díaz‐Garrido, E. and Sánchez‐López, J.M., 2018. The digitalization and
servitization of manufacturing: A review on digital business models. Strategic Change,
27(2), pp.91-99.
Majid, et.al 2021. A STUDY OF LITERATURE: CRYPTOCURRENCY OF SYARIAH
PERSPECTIVE. International Journal of Economic, Business, Accounting, Agriculture
Management and Sharia Administration (IJEBAS), 1(2), pp.417-428.
Sandkuhl, K. and Stirna, J. eds., 2018. Capability Management in Digital Enterprises (No. 1).
Cham: Springer.
Siu, Collier, and Hutchings, 2021, September. Follow the money: The relationship between
currency exchange and illicit behaviour in an underground forum. In 2021 IEEE European
Symposium on Security and Privacy Workshops (EuroS&PW) (pp. 191-201). IEEE.
Tesch, J.F. and Brillinger, A.S., 2019. The evaluation aspect of digital business model
innovation. Business Model Innovation in the Era of the Internet of Things, pp.67-86.
Thies, et.al 2021. Initial coin offerings and the cryptocurrency hype-the moderating role of
exogenous and endogenous signals. Electronic Markets, pp.1-15.
Weill, P. and Woerner, S., 2018. What's your digital business model?: six questions to help you
build the next-generation enterprise. Harvard Business Press.
Weill, P. and Woerner, S.L., 2018. Is your company ready for a digital future?. MIT Sloan
Management Review, 59(2), pp.21-25.