Starting a Business Online

Starting a Business Online

Introduction

Although business challenges such as time and space now matter less, new challenges arise when people conduct electronic business (e-business). We are discussing Tees' clothing store going online strategy. Tees is an online T-shirts company who is adjacent to Jersey Shore Boardwalk. There are various challenges that this company faces while going online. In order to tackle these challenges, some strategies need to be adopted so that the company may operate in the long run.

Description and Analysis

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 anytime. 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.

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.

E-business Strategies

Because global customers come from all over the world, their demands, needs, and values are more divergent than similar. Cultural context and cultural distance may have an impact on how goods and services can be delivered to them—that is, on marketing channels and logistics. Hence, e-business companies must fully understand the values that affect customers' preferences. Companies need to tailor their ...