'E-Commerce in East Africa\r'

'Table of Contents rendering and ad gaugeground2 Reasons for egression of e- calling in eastern hemisphereernmostern about Africa. 4 Influence of e-commerce on wiliness practices in East Africa. 5 Types of e-commerce8 Challenges facing the out product of e-commerce in East Africa. 9 1. Poor infrastructure9 computing machine illiteracy9 Lack of proper regulation9 deficient capital10 Inadequate personnel10 Conclusion10 References11 Definition and backgroundE-commerce refers to echo line conducted through the employment of data functioningors, teleph angiotensin-converting enzymes, fax machines, barcode readers, reference book cards, automated teller machines (ATM) or opposite electronic appliances (whether or not using the lucre) without the commuting of paper-establish documents. It includes activities such as procurement, order entry, exertion processing, payment, authentication and non-repudiation, register control, order fulfillment, and customer support. When a buyer pays with a bank card swiped through a magnetic-stripe-reader, he or she is participating in e-commerce. |It mainly involves the purchasing and selling of products or profits over electronic systems such as the cyberspace and other computer networks. electronic commerce draws on such technologies as electronic funds transfer, supply chain counselling, Internet marketing, online act processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), gunstock management systems, and automated data collection systems. modern-day electronic commerce typically uses the World spacious sack at least at one point in the transactions life-cycle, although it may encompass a wider range of technologies such as e-mail, mobile devices and recalls as well.Originally, electronic commerce was identified as the facilitation of commercial message legal proceeding electronically, using engineering such as Electronic Data supercede (EDI) and Electronic cash Transfer (EFT). These were both intro duced in the late 1970s, allowing short letteres to localise commercial documents like purchase orders or invoices electronically. The harvest-tide and acceptance of credit cards, automated teller machines (ATM) and telephone banking in the 1980s were also forms of electronic commerce. other form of e-commerce was the airline reservation system typified by Sabre in the USA and Travicom in the UK.Electronic commerce or ecommerce is a term for any cause of business, or commercial transaction that involves the transfer of discipline across the Internet. It covers a range of different types of businesses, from consumer establish retail sites, through auction or medicament sites, to business exchanges trading goods and serve betwixt corporations. It is shortly one of the most important surveys of the Internet to emerge. Ecommerce allows consumers to electronically exchange goods and services with no barriers of clipping or distance.Electronic commerce has expanded speedyly ove r the sometime(prenominal) five years and is predicted to continue at this rate, or raze accelerate. In the near future the boundaries among â€Å"conventional” and â€Å"electronic” commerce will stick increasingly blurred as much and much businesses move sections of their operations onto the Internet. business line to Business or B2B refers to electronic commerce between businesses rather than between a business and a consumer. B2B businesses a great deal swop with hundreds or even thousands of other businesses, either as customers or suppliers.Carrying out these transactions electronically provides vast competitive improvements over traditional methods. When implemented properly, ecommerce is frequently faster, cheaper and more than convenient than the traditional methods of bartering goods and services. Electronic transactions pay off been around for quite some time in the form of Electronic Data Interchange or EDI. EDI requires each supplier and custo mer to destiny up a dedicated data sleeper (between them), where ecommerce provides a cost-effective method for companies to set up multiple, and ad-hoc links.Electronic commerce has also led to the development of electronic market scores where suppliers and authorisation customers argon brought together to conduct inversely beneficial trade. Just like the rest of the world, East Africa hasn’t been left behind in adopting e-commerce as a focusing of doing business. Many individuals, corporations and even governments stupefy resolved to using e-commerce in consummating their business transactions, albeit on a lesseneder margin as compared to Hesperian countries or the more developed world economies.Countries in east Africa, that is Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania eat up all been taking travel in the recent past to ensure that trade among them grows as a way of advertiseing the economic growth of these countries. One of the steps has clearly been adopting the use of e-com merce. germane(predicate) infrastructure has been or is beingness established to back up this adoption. Since e-commerce ideally is all about the internet, most of the infrastructure I am referring to involves it in way or another.Most notably has been the laying of the fiber eye cable from the coast of Kenya towards the inland that allows for high bucket along internet access. Reasons for growth of e-commerce in East Africa. The rapid growth of e-commerce since 1995 is overdue to the unique features of the Internet and the Web as a commercial medium: * ubiquity: Internet/Web engine room is e genuinelywhere, at work, home, and elsewhere, and anytime, providing a ubiquitous market space, a marketplace withdraw from a temporal and geographical location. * Global go on: The technology reaches across national boundaries. Universal standards: in that location is one set of Internet technology standards, which greatly lower market entry be (the costs to bring goods to market) and reduce search costs (the apparent movement to find products) for the consumer. * Richness: Information loadedness refers to the complexness and content of a message. Internet technology allows for rich video, audio, and text messages to be delivered to large numbers of people. * Interactivity: The technology works through interaction with the user. * Information assiduity: Information density is the total amount and quality of instruction available to all market participants.Internet technology reduces training costs and raises quality of information, alter worth transparency (the ease for consumers of finding a novelty of prices) and cost transparency (the ability of consumers to determine the literal costs of products). Information density allows merchants to engage in price discrimination (selling goods to targeted companys at different prices). * Personalization/customization: E-commerce technologies set aside personalization (targeting personal messages to consu mers) and customization (changing a product or service based on consumer preference or history.Influence of e-commerce on trading practices in East Africa. As it has already been established, e-commerce is being used, even though not so wide in East Africa. The firms or organizations that have decided to employ e-commerce are benefiting from it in the quest ways: 1. Exploitation of New Business broadly speaking, electronic commerce emphasizes the generation and exploitation of recent . business opportunities and to use popular phrases: â€Å"generate business value” or â€Å"do more with less(prenominal)” Safaricom, mobile service provider has the m-pesa service that captured so many another(prenominal) customers and helped many people establish saucily businesses.There is also the m-kesho service which is a joint venture between Safaricom and Equity Bank that has alterd many small(a) business owners and individuals to access banking services. 2. Enabling the Cu stomers Electronic commercialism is enabling the customer to have an increasing evidence in what products are make, how products are made and how services are delivered (movement from a slow order fulfillment process with miniature understanding of what is taking place inside the firm, to a faster and rt1ore open process with customers having great control. . Improvement of Business Transaction Electronic handicraft endeavors to improve the execution of business transaction over various networks. 4. Effective Performance It leads to more effective performance i. e. fall apart quality, greater customer satisfaction and better corporate decision making. 5. greater Economic Efficiency We may achieve greater economic efficiency (lower cost) and more rapid exchange (high speed, accelerated, or real-time interaction) with the help of electronic commerce. 6. accomplishment of InformationIt enables the execution of information-laden transactions between two ore more parties using int er connected networks. These networks move be a combination of ‘plain old telephone system’ (POTS), Cable TV, leased lines and wireless. Information based transactions are creating newfound ways of doing business and even new types of business. 7. Incorporating Transaction Electronic Commerce also inco11orates transaction management, which organizes, routes, processes and tracks transactions. It also includes consumers making electronic payments and funds transfers. 8.Increasing of Revenue Firm use technology to either lower operating costs or increment revenue. Electronic Commerce has the Potential to increase revenue by creating new markets for old products, creating new information-based products, and establishing new service delivery channels to better serve and interact with customers. The transaction management aspect of electronic commerce can also enable firms to reduce operating costs by enabling better coordination in the sales, production and distribution processes and to unify operations arid reduce overhead. . Reduction of clang Electronic Commerce research and its associated implementations is to reduce the â€Å" skirmish” in on line transactions frictions is often described in economics as transaction cost. It can arise from ineffectual market structures and inefficient combinations of the technological activities required to make a transaction. Ultimately, the diminution of friction in online commerce will enable smoother transaction between buyers, intermediaries and sellers. 10. Facilitating of Network discrepancy Electronic Commerce is also impacting business . o business interactions. It facilitates the network form of organization where small flexible firms rely on other partner, companies for office supplies and product distribution to meet changing customer demand more effectively. Hence, an end to end race management solution is a desirable purpose that is needed to manage the chain of networks linking cu stomers, workers, suppliers, distributors and even competitors. The management of â€Å"online transactions” in the supply chain assumes a central roll. 11. Facilitating for Organizational ModelIt is facilitating an organizational model that is basically different from the past. It is a control organization to the information based organization. The emerging forms of techno-organizational structure involve changes in managerial responsibilities, communication and information flows and work group structure. Types of e-commerce Business-to-business (B2B) Business that sells products or provides services to other businesses. Business-to-consumer (B2C) Business that sells products or provides services to end-user consumers.Consumer-to-consumer (C2C) Consumers sell directly to other consumers. Business-to-government (B2G) Government buys or provides goods, services or information to/from businesses or individual citizens. Business-to-employee (B2E) Information and services made a vailable to employees online. Mobile commerce (m-commerce) E-commerce transactions and activities conducted in a wireless environment. Collaborative commerce (c-commerce) Individuals or groups communicate or collaborate online. Challenges facing the growth of e-commerce in East Africa. . Poor infrastructure. Many consumers and businesses in the east African persona are not able to access internet services due to poor access of the internet and online services in general. This makes it difficult for them to transact through the internet and consequently e-commerce has not been able to grow at a reasonable rate. This poor internet access can be attributed to the poor infrastructure currently being used in the region. Modern high performance network equipment has to be installed for e-commerce to grow as expected. reckoner illiteracyMany individuals in the east African region do not have access to computers and those who might have access do not know how to use them. This has largel y affected the growth of e-commerce since computers are an full part of the online business. This is why many online transactions in the region are usually done by way of mobile phones which again aren’t that fond to the common citizenry. Lack of proper regulation The internet is largely unregulated. Many businesses and individuals lose their money to unscrupulous and fraudulent business people who take advantage of the lack of proper rules and regulations to play foul.The situation is even worse in east Africa and many businesses are losing money hindering their expansion and the industry in general. Inadequate capital Investment in the equipment and hands required to test online business is very high-ticket(prenominal) and most firms cannot afford it. Computers, database managers, hard drives, software system and software managers are all needed to keep on online system running. Administration of such systems is also very expensive and it needs regular updating and up grading. Inadequate personnel Many firms in east Africa do not have the expertise needed to run these e-commerce systems.The curriculum in schools and higher learning institutions do not offer adequate skills. Expertise has to be imported from the rest of the world to complement the little that we have. This makes it so expensive to run online businesses. Conclusion crimson though it has taken so long for e-commerce to be integrated into the business world in east Africa, it is finally here and it is being appreciated by those who are willing to adopt it. The governments of the countries in the region are doing a lot of investment in the required infrastructure to see to it that internet is accessed widely and cheaply.Investors from other countries have also realized that this east African region holds a lot of potential and are willing to invest their money to boost online trading establishments. There are still many challenges that need to be surmounted and e-commerce has gotten to its feet full, but with the measures being taken by the governments, the private sector and many other stakeholders in the information technology sector, it is tho a matter of time before e-commerce becomes fully operative in the region.This will present a lot of opportunities that will help improve the standards of surviving in the region. References * www. ecommerce-land. com * www. ihub. co. ke * The Economics of M-Pesa, William Jack and Tavneet Suri, 2nd Edition, luxurious 2010 * www. kcbbankgroup. com * www. imbank. com * The Smart Company, The Daily Nation, 17th July 2012 page 8-9\r\n'