Challenges and Opportunities of E-Commerce Technology

This article explores the challenges and opportunities of e-commerce technology. It discusses the security risks, confidentiality, authenticity, data integrity, and availability challenges faced by e-businesses. It also highlights the opportunities of using e-business, such as selling products and services online, acquiring wholesale products, and using electronic chat for customer support.

Running head: E-COMMERCE TECHNOLOGY
E-Commerce Technology
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Introduction:
E-Business generally refers to the processes which are associated with the usage of
internet along with the technologies associated with it for the purpose of transforming of any
kind of business processes so as to E-enable all sections of the value chain of a business which
involves the acquiring, retaining customers, and serving and many more (Soto-Acosta, Popa &
Palacios-Marqués, 2016). This is done so as to have an interaction with the employees along
with the customers and the rest of the world. E-Commerce might be considered to a small section
of an E-Business but is one of the vital section of the entire E-Business architecture. E-Business
is associated with representing the major trend that has occurred in the management, which is
comparable with the important business trend that includes the management of the supply chain,
leasing and many more. E-Business can be defined as the business which is enabled by making
use of the internet (Baarslag et al., 2017). This process is associated with the application of the
various internet technologies and the standards which might be including the HTTP, COBRA,
XML, HTML and many more. The figure provided below depicts the several level of the E-
Business.

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Fig 1: Several levels of Internet enabled business or E-Business
Discussion:
Challenges faced by E-Business:
Along with the advantages various kind of challenges are faced by the E-Business and
some of the common challenges faced by E-Business has been listed below:
1. Security challenges: the security risks associated with the e-business is much more than
the traditional business system so it is very important to secure the e-business systems.
The access to the e-business is more as the users are associated with the usage of the
internet which increases the access to the e-business more than the traditional e-business
(Lilian 2014). Hackers often act as a great threat for the e-business and some of the
common security concern for e-business includes the keeping of the information of the
business and the customers confidential and private along with the authenticity of the
data and the data integrity.
2. Confidentiality and Privacy: This is generally considered to be the extent to which the
access of the personal and the business information is provided to the other business or
individual. It is very import to secure the confidential information of any kind of business
and access should only be provided to the intended receivers (Markides, 2015). But
dealing with the confidentiality become more difficult while dealing with the e-business.
In order to secure such information it is very important to protect the information from
any kind of unauthorized access. It is also important to ensure the safe transmission and
storage of the data.

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3. Authenticity: a great amount of challenge is put forward by the e-business transaction
while establishing authenticity. This mainly happens because the electronic information
can be altered and copied very easily. Besides this both the parties who are involved in
the e-business demands for the assurance regarding the fact that the other party is the
person as they claim to be, and this happens specially when an order is placed by a
customer and the customer proceeds toward the electronic payment procedure(Gottwald,
Laatikainen, & Kyttä, 2016). The authenticity would be achieved at an much greater rate
if combination of various techniques are used.
4. Data integrity: Data integrity is associated with asking the answers for the following
question that is "Can the information be changed or corrupted in any way?". This asking
of the question is initially associated with providing the assurance that the message which
has been received is similar to the message which has been sent. It is very important to
look into the matter that the information of the e-business is kept confident and also look
into the matter that the data is not changed during the transmission.
5. Availability: This is one of the major concerns which are specifically pertinent to the
business' customers and this is mainly due to the reason that certain information is made
available for the customers when they need it. It is also very important to look into the
matter that the Messages are being delivered in a reliable and timely fashion, and besides
this it is also very important to see that the information is being stored and retrieved as
required (Chen et al., 2018).
6. Borderless economies: Along with the increased rate of mobile technology usage the
consumers have been empowered in various ways. This in turn has also been associated
with opening the doors for the digital economy which has made globalization reach a new

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level. Along with this it is also seen that the traditional boundaries are also being
eliminated associated with the increase in the number of online retailers to the new
geographies. Due to all this reason the companies are left with an situation where they
have to deal with the various government regulations, geopolitical status, international
competition, and extensive local and "stateless income". The modern day E-Commerce is
having a race for the purpose of providing the premium services which are the best for
their customers along with finding the right amount of balance between the globalization
and the localization.
7. Building of trust and brand as the key differentiator: The success of any business is
dependent on the building of the trust and brad loyalty. It has been seen that the
traditional brand building exercises are mostly irrelevant for the e-business sector (Veit et
al., 2014). In case of any kind of failure to respond to the demand of the customer might
be leading to the failure of the retention of the customers.
8. Poor experience due to disparate systems: presence of various kind of data management
system like the POS or point of sale, ERP or Enterprise Resource Planning and CRM or
Customer Relationship Management is different from one another in terms of
architecture, deployment and usage. This are generally built on dated technology which
are prone to stagnation. It has been seen that the resources are being spent on the other
systems which are initially interfering the demand of internal business and are also
responsible for the creation of distraction of the focus from the tasks which are very
important.
9. Lack of cross-departmental collaboration: the challenges faced while running of the e-
business can be classified into four major divisions and this includes the technological

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challenges, data carnation challenges, challenges faced during delivery of the products
and challenges in managing the peoples (Pedersen & Netter, 2015). It has been that the
modern companies associated with e-business face challenges during collaborating with
the different departments, some of them are isolated geographically and some are placed
in different time zones. So it is very important for the marketers, merchandisers and the
e-commerce managers to learn the ways of operating strategically by making use of one
integrated channel.
10. Personalization: it has been seen that the modern e-commerce is associated with thriving
in order to deliver the best type of personalized experience for the consumers. The
management of the respiratory of the customer’s data is seen to be very much challenging
and for this reason it is essential for the the e-business companies to understand the
process of using the data.
11. Easy use and technology: The consumers have been provided with more power along
with the increased global competition in the e-commerce sector due to the ease of use and
the advances that the technology has made. One of the way forward for the e-commerce
is the Omni-channel retailing which is associated with putting pressure upon the
companies in order to deal with the technical issues while running the online business.
Opportunities of using E-Business:
The implementation of the e-business the business are capable of selling their products as
well as service online by which they become capable of reaching more customers which the
traditional brick-and-mortar stores are not capable of. The internet is also used by the e-business
for the purpose of acquiring wholesale products or supplies for using it in in-house production
(Alkhanak, Lee & Khan, 2015). The facets that the e-business is having are often considered to

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be an e-procurement which is associated with allowing the business to cut the costs drastically.
The e-business which is operating without any usage of the electronic upfront might be
associated with the usage of the e-procurement which acts as a major way responsible for the
tracking and management of the purchasing.
Along with the buying of the products and selling of the products the e-business might
also be associated with the handling of the other traditional business aspects as well. With the
usage of the electronic chat, which generally acts as one of the technical form of customer
support, might be acting as one of the excellent example for this. There exist many e-businesses
which are associated with the usage of the chat option in order supplement the traditional method
of customer support (Zheng et al., 2016). The usage of the virtual computer systems like the
technical support operators are capable of accessing the computers of the customer and provide
them assistance by correcting the problems and guiding them how to use the system.
The usage of the emails and the private websites also acts as a method associated with the
dispensing of the memos and the white sheets which are present internally. This can be
considered to be another usage of the internet by the e-business. A central server or email list can
be considered to be an efficient way for the distribution of the necessary information.
Conclusion:
From the above report it can be concluded that e-commerce has become an important
section of our society. Along with the e-business The World Wide Web is also plays a huge role
in making lives easier. Along with the development of the computer technology the e-commerce
has been associated with the development of various new opportunities for different businesses.
Rapid changes in the technology is associated with the bringing of new goods and services in the

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market which is also accompanied by new strategies for selling of this products. Besides this
there exists certain ethical issues related to the emergence of the business. This issues should be
identified and should be taken care of immediately. Along with the ethical issues the security
issues should also be taken care off as soon as possible. Once the challenges are tackled various
new opportunities arrive which helps a business to grow rapidly.

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