BUSN20016- RESEARCH IN BUSINESS

IMPACT OF E-COMMERCE IN SMALL BUSINESS

ASSESSMENT 1:PROJECT OUTLINE

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Contents
Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1
Aims and objectives ........................................................................................................ 1
A Brief Methodology ........................................................................................................ 2
References ...................................................................................................................... 3
Appendix ......................................................................................................................... 4
Introduction
E-commerce is an electronic transaction of doing business which brings together buyer
and seller in arm length. The development of internet has emerged the new way of
doing the transaction in an easy and efficient way. Around 94 to 96 percent of
commercial organizations in Australia is small or medium sized business (ABS, 1998)
thus playing the vital role in development of economy and creating the employment
opportunity in private sector.

In the past, business takes decade to have a global presence. The growth of business
was slow and steady. But, due to the advancement of technology, businesses are no
longer within the brick and mortar. E-commerce has provided the opportunity for the
global presence. Though the implementation of e-commerce is a step by step process
and moves from simple to complex process (Brand & Huizingh 2008), traditional
business are forced to adopt new technology as e-commerce has provide both
opportunity to grow and prosper and has barrier to gain competitive advantage. As long
as SMEs do not perceive the competitive advantage from implementation of e-
commerce, they hinder in using them (Clarke, 1997). Also, SMEs has few staffs rather
than professional as that of large organization, resulting in initial high cost of
implementation, employee resistance, keeping up-to-date technology, low return, which
small business is likely to avoid (Farmer, 1996)

Thus, due to various pros and cons of implementing e-commerce, this report explains
the impact of e-commerce on Australian small-sized companies. It explains why and
what are the competitive advantages and barriers to implementation of ecommerce in
business. For this various literature will be reviewed and secondary data will be
analyzed.

Aims and objectives

This research projects aims to find out why the use of e-commerce is still not being
used in business despite of huge potential of development and generate inflows and
increase profit. Implementation of e-commerce has various barriers and can bring
difficulties for the business. Thus, this report aims

 To conduct secondary data research to find the problems related to

implementation of e-commerce.

 To determine internal problem related to business for adopting e-commerce.

 Make recommendation what business has to do for adopting and implementing

e-commerce.
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A Brief Methodology
This research has used secondary data with an exploratory research method. According
to Burns & Bush (2010), the data or information which has been gathered and published
before are secondary data.

Desk research:

This project will be completed by using exploratory research method, which will use
secondary data and resources. The data are mostly obtained from the official
government sites, journal and articles of the publisher. Furthermore, review of past
researcher has given board overview of the topic as this can give more accurate
conclusion. As it was the main reason to choose secondary data. Data related to e-
commerce, its development, benefit and barriers are analysed using journal articles,
books, government official websites, business reviews. As journal articles and past
report about the topic will be look for through CQU library (online) as well as Google
scholar.

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References
Australian bureau of Statistics (1998), Characteristics of small Business, available at:

www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats

Brand, M. & Huizingh, E. (2008). Into the drivers of innovation adoption. European
Journal of Innovation Management, Vol. 11 No. 1, 2008, pp. 5-24.

Burns, A. & Bush, R. (2010), Marketing research, 6th Edition, Pearson/Prentice Hall,
Upper Saddle River, NJ.

Clarke, R (1997), What’s holding up EC in Australia? available at:

www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/EC/Impeds97.html

Farmer, C. (1996), Nothing but net, Success, Vol. 43 No. 3, pp. 58

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Appendix