STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT

Strategic Management



Strategic Management

Introduction

Although business challenges such as time and space now matter less, new challenges arise when people conduct electronic business (e-business). These challenges arise from two primary sources: global customers' cultural values and culturally sensitive technology applications. Important cultural questions affect e-business and global customers. Such questions include (1) why is culture important to consider when conducting e-business? And (2) how do companies leverage their information technology (IT) applications in light of cultural differences exhibited by global customers? Answering these questions can help companies that use IT in a multicultural market (Schein, 1999, Pp. 19).

E-Tees is an online T-shirts company who trades online. There are various challenges that this company faces while conducting the business. In order to tackle these challenges, some strategies need to be adopted so that the company may operate in the long run.

The Technological Revolution

A new landscape for conducting e-business has arisen with the proliferation of technologies that facilitate e-business, such as information communication technologies (ICT) (any communication device or application encompassing radio, television, cellular phones, satellite systems, etc.); enterprise resource planning (ERP) (any software system designed to support and automates the business processes of medium and large businesses); electronic data interchange (EDI) (an information system or process integrating all manufacturing and related applications for an entire enterprise; and manufacturing resource planning (MRP) (a system for effectively managing material requirements in a manufacturing process). Agility, flexibility, speed, and change are the conditions for developing e-business models. In addition, by using information and telecommunication systems, companies are able to communicate with their global customers where barriers such as time zones, currencies, languages, and legal systems are reduced or eliminated. As a result, global customers can be reached anywhere and at any time. Services and products can be obtained whenever, wherever, and by whomever. The digital economy is blazing a new path for doing business where the notion of “value through people” becomes the driving force for a successful model of e-business (Rosenbloom, 2003, Pp. 317).

With the advent of the World Wide Web, business is increasingly becoming an online environment. Traditional brick-and-mortar businesses have evolved into “click-and-mortar” businesses. Additionally, the Internet has changed from a communications tool used mostly by scientists to a business tool used by companies to reach millions of customers across the globe. As a result, the Internet has become a powerful business resource because its technology enables firms to conduct business globally (Simeon 1999). In addition, online sales easily penetrate global markets. Some companies treat Web customers as a new type of audience—so united in their use of the Internet that national differences no longer apply. Other companies, such as IBM, Microsoft, and Xerox, have developed local versions of their websites. These versions run off regional servers, address technical issues (such as the need to display different character sets), and provide information about local services and products. Occasionally they reflect aesthetic differences—such as cultural biases for or against certain colors—but few companies actively consider cultural variations that might enhance the delivery ...