ICT AND GLOBAL ECONOMY 2

 Information technology impacts the economy through e-commerce, redefined organizational boundaries, marketing, privacy, globalization, job redesign, and security. Explore the definitions of these terms and how they affect business and the economy

E-Commerce

The last decade has seen incredible changes to the economy due to electronic commerce. The landscape is now dominated by large commercial retailers such as Amazon.

Entrepreneurs have harnessed technology and changed the way we conduct and transact business, and even individual businesses now make transactions using Amazon's platform.

Electronic commerce, or e-commerce, enabled by information technology, has fueled many changes and created a new economy.

 E-commerce is the buying and selling of products over the E-commerce eliminates barriers such as time, geography, language, currency, and culture. Just think how the pandemic of 2020 would have progressed without the ability to buy almost everything through an online storefront.

Information technology has redefined organizational boundaries. Transactions such as payments can be conducted over the Internet. Relationships with customers, suppliers, and partners can be strengthened and streamlined. Inventory can be kept electronically. Purchase orders can easily be exchanged among different companies electronically.

Consider the popularity of Cyber Monday. 

Cyber Monday is the term used to describe the Monday after Thanksgiving, in which companies offer great deals to persuade consumers to purchase products. It is the official kick-off to the holiday shopping season. It is growing in popularity and is in strong competition with Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, which is often cited as the biggest shopping day of the year in the United States.

Marketing and Privacy

With e-commerce, sales and advertising can be customized to the individual consumer, and websites can easily monitor consumer behavior without knowledge or consent. Businesses can track customers' movements with the use of cookies. 

Cookies are small data files that are written and stored on the user's hard drive by a website when that user visits the site with a browser. The cookies provide the company with information on pages visited, items examined, and dates of visits.

This information is stored in the cookie and sent back to the company. This information is analyzed, usually through an automated process, in order to determine preferences and create recommendations for purchases while consumers are on the Internet.

And, if you have a smart speaker such as Alexa, you can try out a little experiment yourself. Start a conversation about car tires, and how you are looking to replace them on your vehicle. You may be surprised to find links to online tire sellers when you next go online (e.g., to Amazon or Facebook). This leads us to our next concern, information privacy.

Companies gather customer information for targeted marketing and advertising. It is much more effective to send a user an advertisement specific to their likes rather than just a general advertisement. The ability to predict consumer preferences and behavior is greatly increased using this method. The concern that arises is privacy. 

Information privacy is the right to determine when and to what extent information about oneself can be communicated to others. Information technology has created a more open society where privacy grows scarcer with the development of each new technological innovation. Some are concerned about the data collected and how it will be used.

Globalization

Globalization is the increasing movement of goods, services, and capital across national borders. Global commerce has transformed the world's economy. In fact, one fourth of all goods and services produced worldwide are sold to other nations.

The acceleration of globalization has been driven by several factors, one of which is technological innovation. Software, hardware, Internet, fiber optic cables, and much more have made it easier and faster for companies to communicate with employees, partners, and suppliers from all over the globe in real time. Technology has improved transportation, making it faster and cheaper to move goods from one place to another. Globalization transfers technology. This means the best and newest innovations spread quickly and become accessible to people all over the globe. Globalization tends to reduce prices for consumers. Costs are kept down by moving operations abroad, where it may be cheaper to hire labor or conduct business.

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