Data Mining And Social Network Techniques

KMS and Ecommerce

Discuss about the Data Mining and Social Network Techniques.

Organizations implement a number of strategies based on their capabilities and resources (Kumar, 2012). These strategies extend the core competence of the organization and entails establishing competitive advantage in the market. In order to develop and implement a suitable strategy that fits into the organizational capabilities and functionalities, a thorough analysis of its external environment and internal environment is conducted, which lets develop a suitable strategy. The scope of this essay is focused on Indigo Paints, which is a company based in Nepal and is trying to adopt Knowledge Management Systems (KMS) Ecommerce solutions for its business. This part of the work is an extension of the previous assessment done to evaluate the prevailing conditions and strategy for the company. This part enhances the work done in the last part in order to incorporate the scope of ecommerce and its various implications that it can have on the organization (Al-Qirim, 2008). The essay encompasses relevant concepts, impacts and other areas that might have an effect on the Company. Implementing KMs will entail managing internal resources and capabilities of the organization. Adopting ecommerce for the Company will entail broader market reach as well as improvising the current profitable levels for the Company. Through this technique it will be able to overcome various weaknesses and threats that it might have to face in its home country. With extension of its markets, it will further be able to capitalize on its strengths and take significant advantages of prevailing opportunities (Beynon-Davies, 2013). 

KMS is a platform that handles information of various types and processes them to obtain suitable output for the Company for developing its strategic output (Bali, 2009). KMS is an important tool that allows for managing data of various types from external environment and sources and then processing the same to obtain strategic fit for the Company.

Ecommerce encompasses the concept of transacting through online or virtual presence. Through ecommerce methodologies a company can extend its products and entail buying and selling for its products (Datta, 2011). Ecommerce uses various technologies including electronic fund transfer, internet marketing, mobile commerce, online transaction processing, inventory management systems, electronic data interchange, and data collection systems and so on. It makes use of World Wide Web and emails to facilitate various transactions for the Company. Ecommerce can be of various types as, they can be from business to business (B2B), business to consumers (B2C), through online marketplace and online shopping experiences. Ecommerce allows exchange of monetary benefits as against products or services of various types (Wang, 2009). An ecommerce endeavor done by a company is generally a portal or a website based module wherein transactions can be made easily. Upon promotions or awareness done by the website, customers enter the website, browses through the necessary options available and then selects a particular product according to their suitability and then proceeds to make the payment for the same. Porter’s Five Factor analysis helps the Company diagnose threats of the Company and possibilities to increase market scope (Dalkir, 2011). With a variety of demographic customers present in the country and narrow scope for expansion, ecommerce will help attain broad based strategy for the Company. Without physical store expansion and set up the Company will be capable of broadening of market opportunities for its existing customers and also able to attract new customers for the business and its products (Denizhan Kalkan, 2008).

Impact of Ecommerce

Indigo Paints is currently a small Company based in Nepal with limited market scope and opportunities. The Company can easily enhance its current area of operations by incorporating KMS and developing an ecommerce portal and a delivery management system (Adnan, 2011). It will be able to overcome the threats and challenges that it faces in Nepal by catering to a wide range of market. It can easily advertise and opt for other promotional mechanism for its ecommerce portal.

Impact of the possible development of ecommerce can be understood by deriving significantly from the SWOT Analysis, Porter’s Five Forces Model and Employee engagement. Strategic analysis for the Company reveals that though the Company has significant capability in terms of its products, which is innovative in nature (low VOC paint and environmentally friendly) but it has low marketing (Tan, 2007). There is significant strength in the business model for the Company and its innovated products, which will allow overcoming all relevant weaknesses and threats for the same. Significant pressures from larger companies have lowered the market share for the Company and hence rendering poor brand value to the Company and its products. There is prevalence of large scale companies as Asian Paints which have significant market share (Barthélemy, 2008). Though there is limited threats from rival products of the Company, as customers generally utilizes wallpapers and other paints but to a limited extent. Further, analysis of its prevailing industry level factors reveals that though the Company produces high quality products but due to its high price it renders the Company low profitability. Limited scope of market in Nepal has made it nearly impossible to market its high quality paints. Even with high levels of employee engagement it has been nearly impossible to achieve high levels of training (Riemer, 2008). Ecommerce implementations will help the Company accomplish high levels of market share along with customer satisfactions. There is high levels of employee engagement of the Company which has enabled it to devise new and innovative products for the purpose of marketing. It has also adopted new and specialized techniques for applying paints and its solution for long sustenance for the same (Carmeli, 2013).

KMS will take input from various types of external factors process the same and derive its implications on the Company such that it can establish its competitive advantage in the industry. Ecommerce will have high impacts on the business and profitability of the Company. Through ecommerce the Company will be able to broaden its supplier, vendor and distributor base. The Company will be also able to achieve customers from various demographic segments, psychographic and physiographic variable. Its high priced products will be able to be marketed through these portals to appropriate customer group (Lawrence, 2010).

Domestic and International Contextual Factors

There are however various barriers in the adaptation of ecommerce portals in Nepal due to poor performance and efficiency of internet service providers. Extending or enhancing ecommerce capabilities might impact high costs for the Company initially (Kshetri, 2008). Recently in the advent of globalization there is a growing trend amongst all types of business is to set up their online platforms for ecommerce solutions. Not only does such ecommerce solutions entails increased flow of goods and services but also enhance markets for the organization. Thus, today almost each and every type of business develop their own websites or ecommerce portals where customers can view relevant products of the company and can also select or purchase such products. 

Indigo Paints will develop an enhanced platform for its business after it has been able to develop its ecommerce solution for its customers (Ruggles, 2009). Through KMS the Company will be able to develop proper strategies for the Company and evaluate efficiency for the same. But once Indigo Paints is able to incorporate ecommerce solutions for its business it will be able to extend its markets for domestic as well as international customers. There is presence of domestic high income customer group of the Company that it can provide its products to. Through ecommerce, it will be able to attain SEO and social media advertising along with other promotional techniques (Aleid, 2009). In international sphere as well the Company will be able to cater its products. But prior to develop an ecommerce solution, it needs to overcome the current challenges and incapability’s existing. It needs to further develop integrated supply chain management systems that allows for proper delivery and transfer of products and services. In domestic and international contextual factors enable implementing proper strategic impact (Boateng, 2008). Through adoption of ecommerce, the Company will be easily implementing its various strategies as well as extend them further. Strategic impact enabling competitiveness of the Company will be enhanced through application of ecommerce solutions. There will an overall impact in increase in sales from such ecommerce portals developed for the Company and also brand building tasks through such endeavors. The Company which currently lags in its brand value and barely has target market reach will be able to do so by the application of such portals. Thus, ecommerce will benefit the business greatly and it will be able to emerge in its resources and capabilities highly through such applications.

Conclusion

KMS and Ecommerce is increasingly becoming as the way to do business and extend strategic capabilities of businesses. A Company generally develops and adopts KMS and ecommerce solution for extending its market and strategic capabilities. Some of the recommendations for the firm are;

• Indigo Paints will be able to increase its scope and areas of marketing by adopting KMS and ecommerce solution for its businesses.
• The Company is currently facing threats from limited opportunities and market space. KMS and Ecommerce will allow it not only increase market capabilities but also cater to a wide spread of market and develop capabilities to cater to the same.
• As market needs vary across borders and boundaries and they are bound to be different in Nepal compared to other countries internationally.
• Cultural taste and preference needs to be accommodated for the purpose of developing new markets and market penetrations strategies for the Company. This will increase profitability for the Company which will now be able to further divert more resources and capabilities towards marketing expenditures. 

Reference Lists

Adnan, M. N. (2011). Promoting where, when and what? An analysis of web logs by integrating data mining and social network techniques to guide ecommerce business promotions. Social Network Analysis and Mining, 173-185.

Aleid, F. R. (2009). Factors affecting consumers adoption of ecommerce in Saudi Arabia from a consumers’ perspective. In IADIS International Conference e-Commerce, 11-18.

Al-Qirim, N. (2008). The adoption of eCommerce communications and applications technologies in small businesses in New Zealand. . Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, 462-473.

Bali, R. W. (2009). Knowledge management primer. Routledge.

Barthélemy, J. (2008). Opportunism, knowledge, and the performance of franchise chains. . Strategic Management Journal, 1451-1463.

Beynon-Davies, P. (2013). Business information systems. Palgrave Macmillan.

Boateng, R. H. (2008). E-commerce in least developing countries: Summary evidence and implications. . Journal of African Business, 257-285.

Carmeli, A. G.?P. (2013). Leadership, creative problem?solving capacity, and creative performance: The importance of knowledge sharing. . Human Resource Management, 52(1), 95-121.

Dalkir, K. a. (2011). Knowledge management in theory and practice. . MIT press.

Datta, P. (2011). A preliminary study of ecommerce adoption in developing countries. Information Systems Journal, 3-32.

Denizhan Kalkan, V. (2008). An overall view of knowledge management challenges for global business. Business Process Management Journal, 14(3), 390-400.

Kshetri, N. (2008). Barriers to e-commerce and competitive business models in developing countries: A case study. Electronic commerce research and applications, 443-452.

Kumar, V. &. (2012). Business to business (b2b) and business to consumer (b2c) management. International Journal of Computers & Technology, 447-551.

Lawrence, J. E. (2010). Barriers to e-commerce in developing countries. . Information, society and justice journal, 23-35.

Riemer, K. (2008). The Beergame in business-to-business ecommerce courses-A teaching report. BLED 2008 Proceedings, 1.

Ruggles, R. (2009). Knowledge management tools. . Routledge.

Tan, J. T. (2007). Business-to-business adoption of eCommerce in China. Information & management, 332-351.

Wang, Y. &. (2009). The moderating effect of the business strategic orientation on eCommerce adoption: Evidence from UK family run SMEs. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 16-30.