E COMERCE IN THIRLD WORLD COUNTRIES

E-commerce in the Third World : Developing Economies or Stagnant Prospects

There 's no stopping the Digital Age from seeping even in the far-flung areas of the world . Whether you 're a cowherd in Somalia or a stockbroker in New York , one could have easy access over the new forms of trading via the Internet . Thus , e-commerce has attained to become a buzzword at the turn of this millennium , along with such big ' words like globalization and multiculturalism . As a concept , it aims to bridge people and cultures making the flow of income

more pragmatically accessible through one 's own computer

What seems to be the root of all these buzz regarding e-commerce ? The reason is simple . Information technology (IT ) in general and e-commerce in particular have become the major facilitators of business activities in the world today (Mankin 1996 . E-commerce is also a catalyst of fundamental changes in the structure , operations , and management of organizations (McLaren and McLaren 1999

Buzzing Through E-Commerce

According to Turban et al (2002 , electronic commerce (e-commerce , EC is an emerging concept that describes the process of buying , selling , or exchanging products , services , and information via computer networks including the Internet . Citing Kalakota and Whinston (1997 , they defined e-commerce from these perspectives

From a communications perspective , e-commerce is the delivery of goods services , information , or payments over computer networks or by any other electronic means

From a business process perspective , e-commerce is the application of technology toward the automation of business transactions and work flow .From a service perspective , e-commerce is a tool that addresses the desire of firms , consumers , and management to cut service costs while improving the quality of goods and increasing the speed of service delivery

From an online perspective , e-commerce provides the capability of buying and selling products and information on the Internet and other online services

Turban et al (2002 ) appended two more perspectives to this

From a collaborations perspective , e-commerce is the framework for inter- and intra-organizational collaboration

From a community perspective , e-commerce provides a gathering place for community members , to learn , transact , and collaborate

In observance of the term commerce , Turban et al (2002 ) defined the describing transactions conducted between business partners in e-commerce . When this definition of commerce is used , some people find the term electronic commerce to be fairly narrow . This is the reason why the term e-business is used to broadly satisfy this notion . E-business widens the scope of the definition of EC , not just the buying and selling of goods and services , but also servicing customers collaborating with business partners , and conducting electronic transactions within an organization . According to Lou Gerstner , IBM 's CEO , E-business is all about time cycle , speed , globalization enhanced productivity , reaching new customers and sharing knowledge across institutions for competitive advantage ' However , Turban et al (2002 ) rationalized that using of the broadest meaning of electronic commerce , which is basically equivalent to e-business , they recommended we could use the two terms interchangeably

Consequently , Turban et al (2002 ) elaborated on several classification of...