Electronic Commerce
Electronic commerce is about undertaking business processes in a networked electronic environment.
E-commerce is more than businesses advertising or consumers buying on the Internet. While these activities are driving changes in the nature of retailing and distribution, greater gains from e-commerce lie in the area of business-to-business dealings, and in communication within businesses.
E-commerce is expanding the scope for businesses and individuals to acquire and use information as an input, and as a tool for more efficient management. It is changing the means of interaction between business and customer, business and business, individual and individual, and between government, the private sector and individuals.
Access to information and to the new ways of managing it have encouraged many businesses to identify and exploit new opportunities. They are embracing e-commerce to reduce costs, significantly increase efficiency, and ensure better customer and supplier management. More importantly, they are recognising its potential for maximising both opportunities and revenue from new and current products and services. The effective use of e-commerce can assist New Zealand business, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), to offer niche products and services to a global market. It allows us to overcome some of the problems associated with distance from markets and the small size of our economy.
In short, e-commerce is inspiring and forcing businesses to take a new look at how they do business, to reassess their competition, to collaborate in new ways, and to identify new customer bases.
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