Incorporating Effective Technological Strategies - 6325 Words

E- Commerce Fashion Company: Incorporating Effective Technological Strategies (Dissertation Sample) Content: E- Commerce Fashion Company: Incorporating Effective Technological StrategiesNameInstitutional AfflictionAcknowledgementUpon completion of this dissertation, I would love to sincerely give thanks to my professor. For the valuable time and guidance she provided. Moreover, I would like to express my truthful appreciations to the interviewees who contributed to the answers of the research questions in the interviews.AbstractSmall business entrepreneurs who make use of global activities in the marketplace face challenges when it comes to technical innovation. Technological innovations and information technology of the World Wide Web are observed to have a competitive factor in the marketplace with a loss of market share for the personal business owner. The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the influence of e-commerce on the small-size companies in Sweden. It describes the drivers for adoption of e-commerce and goes on to investigate the barriers and benefits that are faced from the companies in the period of the beginning of the process of implementation. A qualitative research was performed and the theoretical background was connected by going forward and back in the analysis process. Interviews were conducted in a small company in Varmland County, Sweden in order to provide answers to the research questions.This research study shows that companies in Sweden have relatively well developed e-commerce strategies compared to other countries, but the gap between large and small companies is recognizable. The e-commerce adoption decisions are based on the knowledge of the manager/owner and e-commerce is broadly used as a tool in marketing. Improved internal efficiency and increased information exchange are the main benefits of adoption of e-commerce. The results advocate that companies value less than before the cost factor and ruminate the main barrier being lack of knowledge. Many companies at the same time are not motivated enough to make im provements, due to lack of customer demand.Key words: barriers, benefits, e-commerce, small-size companies1. IntroductionIn this chapter, the presentation of research background and the purpose of the thesis are put down. The most important reasons why e-commerce should be studied are briefly mentioned. At the same time, the aim of the research is described and research questions are set. In conclusion, outline of the content of the thesis is put down.1.1. BackgroundE-commerce is reshaping many aspects of social life and business. Companies, for that reason, require being competitive in the marketplace. According to Chong (2008) e-commerce is a new way of conducting business and its influence is increasing each decade. Chaffer (2009) describes e-commerce as all electronically mediated transactions between the company and the third party. Simultaneously, e-commerce not only increases the speed of the transactions and decreases costs, provides the companies with a huge amount of infor mation, but also reshapes their marketing practices and strategies. Different companies may have different reasons for implementing an e-commerce strategy. The main factor driving big companies to adopting e-commerce is to improve efficiency in their internal processes. The small companies on the other hand are more concerned with the competitiveness (Xu Quaddus, 2009). According to Brand and Huizingh (2008) for companies to successfully adopt e-commerce, they must go through a slow process that cannot be completed at once, but rather in small processes of adoption in which the company moves from simple to move complex stages of e-commerce. Basically, that are in the beginning of the process of adoption may face lots of barriers and problems. For that reason, managers need to overcome the barriers and realize the benefits acquired form e-commerce for the purpose of preventing the risk of competitive disadvantage in their businesses.This dissertation will describe the impact of e-co mmerce on small-size company in Sweden. The reasons why the company has adopted the process of e-commerce will be defined. Moreover, the dissertation will focus on the benefits and barriers that are in relation to this process. So as to do this, a broad review of the secondary data and literature review will be looked at. Second, an interview with a small-sized company in the region of Varmland will be conducted. The company that was accessed can be described as small, with a number of workers ranging from 10 to 49 and an annual turnover below 5 million euro. Company A is a producer of fashion products and operates largely in the local Swedish market. Its products are distributed within the country by a network of industrial distributors and retailers who are well-developed.1.2. Research problemIn this paper, the investigation of the impact of e-commerce on Swedish small company was conducted by identifying the perceived benefits and barriers for adoption of e-commerce. The study is important, since it provides light on the unique and ever changing factors that influence the company. In addition, in European Union (EU) most of the enterprises are small and medium sized (SMEs) that corresponds to 99.8% of all enterprises. Rendering to Calogirou et al. (2010) the SMEs enterprises hired around 67% of all employees; generate 58% of the total turnover in EU and they are the key drivers in the economy. Implementation of e-commerce form the small companies is becoming necessary due to the dynamism of the market and ever developing technology. E-commerce creates possibilities of better connections with partners and consumers, unique customers solutions and extensive information exchange.Concurrently, small companies are still lagging behind in adopting new technologies because of different visions, motives and resources. For instance, while for the big companies the leading engine for the adoption of e-commerce can be predictable improved efficiency, small companies c an have different motives which are consumer demands or to advance competitiveness (Xu Quaddus 2009). The ability to benefit from that new strategy for the small companies is very important. If they do not realize any benefits or the managers are not being able to realize and estimate them properly, the motivations for future developments and grasping more sophisticated levels of e-commerce are at a lower hedge. Noticeably, many different barriers for adoption are and will be faced by the managers inside the small firms.An attempt to describe the importance of incorporating e-commerce in a small company for effective technological strategies into their business plan is captured in this thesis and the benefits and problems faced are also discussed.The significance of the topic how important is it for a small ecommerce company in Sweden to incorporate effective technological strategies into their business plan? and the reasons I decided to explore this field are outlined below: * I d ecided to focus my thesis on Swedish companies, primarily because Sweden is a nation that is among the highly developed countries in ICT, and secondly, the trends retrieved here can be confronted in the future by companies that are located in the developing countries. * Many studies have scrutinized the impact of diverse factors and anticipated conjectural framework and precarious rudiments for future analysis. The swift progress on Internet and new technologies presumes incessantly monitoring the altering conditions. Consequently the need of studies to monitor the current status is necessary and can be of interest for future researchers and companies. * I decided to focus on small companies, since they are reasonably in the middle of the process of implementation of e-commerce and are familiar with all the benefits and problems which companies that are large have already faced and solved. But because of the differences between the large and small companies, natives, benefits and mo tives are anticipated to be poles apart. In addition, the impact of the small companies in Europe is aggregating and they are deliberated as very important for the economy.1.3. Aims and objectivesThe aim of the research is to investigate the barriers, influence and benefits of adoption of e-commerce in small-size fashion companies in Sweden. In order to do this, the subsequent tasks will be accomplished: 1 Disparagingly review past publications about the influence of e-commerce. 2 Review the literature about the apparent benefits and barriers from small size companies. 3 Contact interviews with small size companies in Sweden.These are the research questions that have been set: 1 What does technology insertion mean to you? 2 What are the forces that resist or drive you to introduce technology? 3 What are your beliefs about the value of implementing technology in your business? 4 Have you engaged in or implemented any technology insertion efforts the last three years? Why or why not? 5 Do you consider technology as a threat to the success of your business in moving forward? 6 What are the perceived barriers for e-commerce adoption? 7 What are the perceived benefits from e-commerce adoption?2. Literature reviewThese include secondary sources of articles from dissertations and journals that cover the categories of technological insertions, sustainability and an overview of Rogers (2003) diffusion of innovation theory.2.1. Technology Insertion and Technology ApplicationScholarly articles functioned as the literature related to technology application and insertion for the following research study. Gary (2010) associated the effect of technology in premeditated decision making process for survivability at various levels. Based on a cross-tabulation of survey data, more than 58% of the respondents believed that the strat...