Information technology on date happens to be the most dynamic and robust force in the world of business. As a matter of fact e-commerce is taking on the conventional brick and mortar business in a big way. In India, the rural entrepreneurs are traditionally cash-depleted entities. They do not have enough money to invest for entrepreneurial ventures. In such a scenario, e-commerce and information technology comes as a boon.
Livestock sector has got the potential to rejuvenate the ailing rural economy, as it can provide substantial economic benefits to the micro-entrepreneurs. A variety of livestock products have got the potential to be marketed online. Moreover, the cost of marketing online is lot less than the cost of operating through brick and mortar business model. Whereas, if one decides to have physical premises for its venture it may require several lakhs of rupees; but the virtual premises will only requires few thousands.
The digital revolution across the globe has changed the world of business forever.
Digital Economy:
An economy that is based on digital technologies, including digital communication networks, computers, software, and other related information technologies; also called the internet economy, the new economy, or the web.
i. The digital revolution accelerates electronic commerce by providing competitive advantage to organizations and enabling innovations.
ii. Economic, legal, societal, and technological factors have created a highly competitive business environment in which customers are becoming more powerful.
Entrepreneurs must not only take traditional actions such as lowering costs and closing unprofitable facilities, but also introduce innovative actions such as customizing, creating new products, or providing superb customer service. That is even more important in the case of agri-based industries. In agricultural-based entrepreneurial ventures such as in the case of livestock, differentiation in the offerings can be created through use of technology and modern processes.
Electronic Commerce (EC):
The process of buying, selling, or exchanging products, services, or information via computer networks is termed as electronic commerce.
Major Business Pressures and the Role of EC:
Modern day entrepreneurs face a variety of challenges in the form of environmental factors.
The prevailing environmental conditions put every new venture to acid test. The major pressures are economic (market related), societal and technological. The successful entrepreneurs are those who respond well to these pressures. The entrepreneurs can respond by having strategic systems which are agile enough to deal with the prevailing conditions.
Information technology and e- commerce is a great help in such cases. Business alliances are a great help irrespective of the type of enterprise. Even issues such as lead time reduction are critical for efficient market response. The role of IT and e-commerce is ubiquitous across all industries and functional areas of business.
E-commerce also allows the decentralization of decision-making and authority via empowerment and distribution systems, but simultaneously supports a centralized control. The supply chain improvement such as reduction in supply chain delays, reduction of inventories and elimination of other inefficiencies can also be achieved through information technology.
IT can also help in creating or capturing knowledge, storing and protecting it and at the same time helps in updating and maintaining the knowledge.
Pure versus Partial EC:
Electronic commerce takes several forms depending on the degree of digitization (the transformation from physical to digital). It is on the basis of the product sold, the process and the delivery agent or the intermediary. The entrepreneurs can choose the level of digitalization based on the requirements of their project. It is difficult to have pure e-commerce in the case of livestock entrepreneurship, but partial e-commerce is possible in such cases as the process and the agent can be digitalized.
A number of brave entrepreneurs are marketing their livestock products ranging from ostrich meat to fur and even the eggshell through internet. In such cases, the process and the agent are digital. It is wonderful for the entrepreneurs as the digital organization can save them a lot of set up cost.
Electronic Commerce Organization:
The entrepreneur should choose the way he/she wants to operate.
There can be three different types to choose from initially:
i. Brick and Mortar Organization:
Old-economy organizations (corporations) that perform most of their business offline, selling physical products by means of physical agents. Traditionally, Indian farmers are used to brick-and-mortar form of business organizations.
ii. Virtual (Pure-Play) Organizations:
Organizations that conduct their business activities solely online. Virtual organizations are impossible to create with physical products such as meat, milk, etc.
iii. Click and Mortar (Click-and-Brick) Organizations:
Organizations that conduct some e-commerce activities but do their primary business in the physical world. This form of organizational set-up may be the most preferred one for the budding livestock entrepreneurs in India, as it offers the flexibility and suits the environmental set-up.
Internet—Backbone of Digital Organizations:
Internet provides the framework on which digital organizations can be erected. The intranet, extranet and internet are the different levels of scope of digitalization.
Intranet:
An internal corporate or government network that uses internet tools, such as web browsers, and internet protocols.
Extranet:
A network that uses the internet to link multiple intranets.
A basic understanding of the digital infrastructure is extremely significant for a new venture. Entrepreneurs can create their own intranets for organization wide connects, but it is insignificant in case of small entrepreneurs. Small entrepreneurs can rather have their website having a brick and click organization to operate efficiently.
The Future of EC:
i. Overall, the growth of the field will continue to be strong into the foreseeable future.
ii. Despite the failures of individual companies and initiatives, the total volume of EC is growing by 15 to 25% every year.
Benefits of EC to Organizations:
i. Global reach
ii. Cost reduction
iii. Supply chain improvements
iv. Extended hours
v. Customization
vi. New business models
vii. Vendors’ specialization
viii. Rapid time-to-market
ix. Lower communication costs
x. Efficient procurement
xi. Improved customer relations
xii. Up-to-date company material
xiii. No city business permits and fees
xiv. Other benefits.
Benefits to Consumers:
i. Ubiquity
ii. More products and services
iii. Customized products and services
iv. Cheaper products and services
v. Instant delivery
vi. Information availability
vii. Participation in auctions
viii. Electronic communities
ix. No sales tax
Benefits to Society:
i. Telecommuting
ii. Higher standard of living
iii. Homeland security
iv. Hope for the poor
v. Availability of public services
Some of the limitations of electronic commerce are listed below.
Technological Limitations:
1. Lack of universal standards for quality, security, and reliability.
2. The telecommunications bandwidth is insufficient, especially for m-commerce.
3. Software development tools are still evolving.
4. It is difficult to integrate internet and EC software with some existing (especially legacy) applications and databases.
5. Special web servers are needed in addition to the network servers, which add to the cost of EC.
6. Internet accessibility is still expensive and/or inconvenient.
7. Order fulfillment to large-scale B2C requires special automated warehouses.
Non-Technological Limitations:
1. Security and privacy concerns deter customers from buying.
2. Many legal and public policy issues, including taxation, have not yet been resolved.
3. National and international government regulations sometimes get in the way.
4. It is difficult to measure some of the benefits of EC, such as advertising. Mature measurement methodologies are not yet available.
5. Some customers like to feel and touch products. Also, customers are resistant to the change from shopping at a brick and-mortar store to a virtual store.
6. People do not yet sufficiently trust paperless, faceless transactions.
7. In many cases, the number of sellers and buyers that are needed for profitable EC operations is insufficient.
Conclusion:
Entrepreneurship in India is not an easy job. Because of inadequacy of capital and resources traditionally we could never produce great entrepreneurs in plenty. But, on date the growing digitalization has provided us an opportunity to explore the world. By using IT and working on e-commerce models even the farming community which aspires to have livestock businesses can have global access. Moreover, the cost of having this access is very low. The power of IT is tremendous and it provides us opportunities to create wonderful business models, provided we identify the opportunities intelligently.