Benefits of e-commerce in communication and conducting trade and commerce

The globalization in the global market of oil and natural gas industry has increased the scope of use of e-commerce in the structure of the companies. E-commerce helps the organization in expanding their business on global level by creating more opportunities for them. Here opportunities are provided by e-commerce are in terms of communication and conducting trade and commerce. In the given paper, it has been described the role of e-commerce in case of oil and natural gas industry, and how by using social media as a tool growth in the business can be ensured (PWC, 2014).

It has been observed that by introduction of informational technology and communication systems the importance of use of e-commerce in the structure of the company has also been increased. E-commerce helps the organization in expanding the business activities between the business to business trading and business to consumer trading. However it has been seen that in case of oil and natural gas industry the consumers of such companies are big industries such as chemical industry or petroleum industry (Nassiry & Mukhtar, 2014).

For making the trading and communication easier, it is needed for the management to use e-commerce techniques. This would help the organization in communicating with them in an efficient manner. This is considered as one of the important tool by which an organization can reduce its cost and can generate more income (Teece, 2010).

In the case of oil and natural gas industry, they are considered as major player at world energy market. E-commerce helps such organization in utilizing all the available resources of the organization. In case of global markets, the technology and information system leads to impact positively. The reason behind this is informational technology, and internet enables the segments of the organization in exchange of information and resources.

In case of business to business marketing, the market is niche but the volume of the transaction is large. Hence it is very necessary for the firm dealing into oil and natural gas industry to adopt for more innovative techniques and tools. The main motive behind using innovating informational technology tools is that to foresee the market changes and targets the segmented market and after it to retain them (Manzoor, 2010).

It has been analyzed that in case of business to business marketing in case of oil and natural gas industry, the e-business can be classified into two categories which are as: e- procurement and e- commerce. In case of e-procurement it can be defined as ordering the goods and services by using online media as a source such as electronic systems, it also includes public and private networks. While in case of e-commerce, it is doing the transactions, enabling the marketing activity such as buying and selling of goods and services by using online media and informational technologies as a source.

Components of a business model

Hence by above analysis, it can be said that e-commerce lead the organization in achieving growth, the reason behind this is, the management of the business can analyze the other industry data by sitting at one place, the changes in the market trends which can lead to impact the functioning of the organization. This would lead to reduce in the cost in a drastic manner, while increase in the revenue of the company (Qin, 2010).

A business model helps the management of the organization in doing a rational analysis over how the organization segment, create and deliver value to them.  A business model is considered as one of the considerable plan as it helps the management in simplifying the complexities of the functioning of the business.  It ensures the business operations to be run smoothly. Following are the components of business model:

• Value proposition: it describes that how an organization fulfils the needs and demands for its customers. The examples of value proposition are providing customization or personalization, reducing the product search and price discovery cost. The example of value preposition is that it facilitates transactions by management of delivery of products.
• Revenue model: this model describes about how an organization is able to generate profits and increases its expected return on the invested capital. This can lead to increase in the performance of the company by analyzing the capability of the organization in generating profits. By increase in the profits the company can increase its required rate of return to some extent.
• Market opportunity: it refers to make a match between the market space available with the company and its available opportunities. This helps the organization in utilizing its all available opportunities in the available market space (Benson, Vladlena, 2014).
• Competitive environment: it refers that whether the organization is competent enough to compete with its competitors. It can lead to growth in the business of the organization by analyzing its strength and weakness and competitive advantage in terms of its competitors. It provides answers of the following questions that are as: who are the competitors of the company, scale of operations of competitors, the market share and price of the competitor firms. It also answers about the pricing strategy adopted by the competitor firms.
• Competitive advantage: it is the strength of the company that is very difficult for the competitor to copy. Competitive advantage is an advantage that leads to growth in the company. It helps the organization in increasing the brand value among its competitors. Competitive advantage can be achieved by an organization by doing first mover advantage, establishing any innovative technology which is very difficult for the competitors to copy. These are the advantages that provide return to the company for a longer run (Hurrle & Postatny, 2015).
• Market strategy: it is the strategy that is required by the company for entering into a new market. Market strategy leads to increase in the growth of the company by suggesting the strategy that would help the organization in excel in the targeted market. These are considered as a tool for attracting the consumers and sustaining in the market by competing with the competitors (Sobaci, 2015).
• Organizational development: this describes the management of the company regarding how work should be organized so to achieve the desired goals in the organization. This can bring growth in the performance of the business by analyzing and evaluating the work done by the management and analyzing this in respect of desired goals of the company.
• Management team: it is the team only which makes the business model work in an efficient and effective manner. The increase in the performance of the business can be ensured if the team is effective and knowledgeable (Wollan, Smith & Zhou, 2010).

It has been observed that the oil and natural gas industry are unable to gauge the success factors of e-commerce techniques. It has been observed that the major operations of oil and natural gas industry are done between businesses to business. In this case there is a very close competition between the companies. Hence to excel in the market it is required by the company to adopt for social media techniques (Nguyen, 2011).

In case of social media channels there are various type of channel that can be adopted by the company, those are as: Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, e-mail and many more. All these social media has their own advantages as well as disadvantages. The paper has made a descriptive analysis over three social media channels those are e-mail, Facebook and LinkedIn (Lardi & Fuchs, 2013).

In case of e-mail marketing, the business uses this as a professional source of communication, that means in this the information related to the operations of the company are mailed to the target consumers. In this case only those customers can be targeted whose mail id is held by the company (Quesenberry, 2015).

In case of Facebook, it has approximately 1.59 billion users. It is considered as one of the largest market space. It is a medium over which a business can connect with its prospective customers across the world. In case of advertising, it is considered as one of the effective platform due to largest customer base.

While in case of LinkedIn, it is considered as one of the effective tool for the organization in case of business to business operations. The reason behind this is in case of LinkedIn the customers can be targeted on the basis of their industry, their size of operations and many more (Management association & Information resources, 2015).

Conclusion

By analyzing the paper on use of e-commerce and social media marketing it is said that these are the tools which should be used by the organization to excel in its current market. It has also been observed that to analyze the difference between the strategies as adopted by the competitors of the company and itself these tools play a considerable role. The main advantage of using such tools is that it helps the organization in analyzing such at one place only. Hence it is recommended for each and every organization especially for those which are operating at global level to adopt for e-commerce and e-marketing tools.

References

Benson, Vladlena,. (2014) Cutting edge technologies and social media use in higher education, IGI Global, USA

Hurrle, D & Postatny, J,. (2015) Social media for scientific institutions: How to attract young academics by using social media as a marketing tool, Springer, United Kingdom

Lardi, K & Fuchs, R,. (2013) Social media strategy: a step by step guide to building your social business, vdf Hochschulverlag AG

Management association & Information resources,. (2015) Social media and networking: concepts, methodologies, tools and applications: concepts, methodologies, tools and applications, IGI Global, USA

Manzoor, A,. (2010) E-commerce: an introduction, Amir Manzoor, USA

Nassiry, M & Mukhtar, M,. (2014) Business type classification via E-commerce stage model in oil industry in Iran, (IJCIS) International journal of computer science and information security, Vol 12(6)

Nguyen, L,. (2011) Providing customer service by use of social media channels (best practices), GRIN verlag, Germany

PWC,. (2014) Colombia oil & gas industry 2014: an overview. Retrieved on 26^th April, 2017 from https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/oil-gas-energy/publications/assets/pwc-colombia-oil-gas-industry-2014.pdf

Qin, Z,. (2010) Introduction to E-commerce, Springer science & Business media, United Kingdom

Quesenberry, K, A,. (2015) Social media strategy: marketing and advertising in the consumer revolution, Rowman & Littlefield, United Kingdom

Sobaci, M, Z,. (2015) Social media and local governments: theory and practice, Springer, United Kingdom

Teece, D, J,. (2010) Business models, business strategy and innovation, Long range planning, Vol 43, pp 172-194

Wollan, R,. Smith, N & Zhou, C,. (2010) The social media management handbook: Everything you need to know to get social media working in your business, John Wiley & Sons, Canada