The Strategic Perspective

 Introduction:

This paper will focus on Chapter three of the text – Electronic Commerce – The Strategic Perspective. “Electronic commerce is a revolution in business practices. If organizations are going to take advantage of new Internet technologies, then they must take a strategic perspective.” (Watson, R. et. al., 2020) In this paper I will discuss the definition of “Electronic Commerce” and describe three types of attractors, summarize the definition of each attractor and provide examples each.

“Electronic commerce, in a broad sense, is the use of computer networks to improve organizational performance. Increasing profitability, gaining market share, improving customer service, and delivering products faster are some of the organizational performance gains possible with electronic commerce. Electronic commerce is more than ordering goods from an on-line catalog. It involves all aspects of an organization’s electronic interactions with its stakeholders, the people who determine the future of the organization. Thus, electronic commerce includes activities such as establishing a Web page to support investor relations or communicating electronically with college students who are potential employees. In brief, electronic commerce involves the use of information technology to enhance communications and transactions with all of an organization’s stakeholders. Such stakeholders include customers, suppliers, government regulators, financial institutions, mangers, employees, and the public at large.” (Watson, R. et. al., 2020)

 

 

Main Topic:

“An attractor is a Web site with the potential to attract and interact with a relatively large number of visitors in a target stakeholder group (for example, an auto company will want to attract and interact with more prospective buyers to its Web site than its competitors). While the Web site must be a good attractor, it must also have the facility for interaction if its powers of attraction are to have a long-life span.” (Watson, R. et. al., 2020)

Below are the three types of attractors and its examples:

The entertainment park – it is said that this type of attractor is composed of websites engages visitors to various activities in which it requires a high level of participation from the visitors while offering entertainment. (Watson, R. et. al., 2020) Examples for this type of attractor are:

·         “GTE Laboratories’ Fun Stuff part of its Web site, which includes Web versions of the popular games MineSweeper, Rubik’s cube, and a 3D maze for Web surfers to navigate;” (Watson, R. et. al., 2020)

·         “Joe Boxer uses unusual effects and contests for gaining attention. For solving an advanced puzzle, winners gain supplies of virtual underwear. Instructions such as “Press the eyeball and you will return to the baby,” are a blend of insanity and advertising genius.” (Watson, R. et. al., 2020)

Exclusive sponsorship – “An organization may be the exclusive sponsor of an event of public interest, and use its Web site to extend its audience reach. Thus, we find on the Internet details of sponsored sporting competitions and broadcasts of special events such as concerts, speeches, and the opening of art exhibitions.” (Watson, R. et. al., 2020) There are several websites who offers sponsorship and use its website to broaden the coverage of the promotion of the event like concert. Example of sponsorship are as follows:

·         Pepsi Cola provides details of their sponsored events like the popular “Half-time Show” which attracts millions of football fans across the globe.

·         Smart Communications, a telco company in the Philippines which engage into sponsorships for biggest artist in the concert and uses their platforms to promote SMART sponsored concerts and events.

The freeway intersections or portals – according to Watson, R. et. al. (2020), these are websites “that provide advanced information processing services (e.g., search engines) can become n-dimensional Web freeway intersections with surfers coming and going in all directions, and present significant advertising opportunities because the traffic flow is intense–rather like traditional billboard advertising in Times Square or Picadilly Circus.” Examples of this type of attractor are as follows:

·         “Yahoo! A hierarchical directory of websites” (Watson, R. et. al., 2020)

·         Bing is a Microsoft owned search engine that works almost identical to Yahoo! it promotes various advertisements from different websites.

While there are several types of attractors we can find online, the three aforementioned types of attractors are few of the common and popular attractors.

 

 

 

Conclusion:

In conclusion, with the vast innovation of technology, traditional marketing and advertisement has to shift in order to compete to these fast technological innovations. The more attractors the business will engage into, the wider the coverage of its advertisement and promotion. Modern society are now less engagement through face-to-face, the web has change the communication drastically with the help of various platforms that we can find online whether through mobile phones, tablets, laptops or computers.

 

References:

Watson, R.T., Berthon, P., Pitt, L. F. & Zinkham, G. M.  (2020).  Electronic commerce: The strategic perspective. Global Text Project. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Retrieved from https://parrity.com/ebooks/514/electronic-commerce-the-strategic-perspective/pages/1