Introduction
E-business is the use of the internet to create and implement business transactions. The internet provides many opportunities that enable businesses to create markets and serve their customers in extraordinary ways. It is a new area in global trade that involves trading of goods and services across borders electronically. It is the use of telecommunication networks to produce, advertise, or sell goods and services.
With the advancement in technology, electronic business has been growing drastically calling for the attention of the government and technology industry to ensure that it does not go out of hand. This paper looks at the internet as a medium for business transactions, highlights the e-business environment in Brazil, and gives the implication of e-business to the telecoms and technology industry in Brazil.
The Internet
The internet is a worldwide system of computer networks. Information posted on the internet can be accessed by anyone who knows how to use it. It is worth noting that when businesses decide to sell their products online, they are attracting some risks which may come about as a result of exposing some of the crucial information.
This information can be used by fraudsters to imitate the company’s products or to destroy the reputation of a business. To prevent this, every e-business has to install software known as 3-D secure protocol (Conway, Ward, Lewis and Bernhardt 2).
This ensures that unauthorized people are prevented from accessing the critical systems. This is done by the use of a merchant plug-in (MPI) which is connected to the centralized directory for authentication of enrollment of a card holder. With MPI, a cardholder browses through merchant shop to select goods or services for purchase. After identifying the products, the merchant shop initiates a new payment transaction.
The merchant shop then receives card details through an encrypted SSL and it passes them to the MPI. If enrolled, the issuer is located by the MPI and he is requested to authentify the card holder and the resulted are transmitted to the merchant for purchases. If the card is not enrolled, the merchant has a right to continue or stop the transaction.
E-business in Brazil
Modern E-business started in the year 1990 when the World Wide Web. (WWW) was discovered. However, commercial trade was prohibited until five years later when security protocols were discovered. These protocols allowed companies to trade using the internet and by early 21st century, many companies in Brazil were offering services and products over the internet.
Today, over one thousand businesses in Brazil are trading over the internet and this is owned to the development of information technology. Customers have a wide variety of goods and services to choose from and purchases and payment transactions have become easy over the internet. Brazil is the 7th largest software producer in the world.
It is already leading in e-business. In 2005, services worth more than US$2 billion were traded electronically in the country. Brazil’s software exports increased drastically from US$ 10 million in 1997 to over US$ 200 million in 2005. This increase was a result of the growth in soft companies which generate almost 200, 000 jobs (Torquato 9).
The most important thing in E-business is obviously the use of a website. This is where products are advertised and marketed. It contains all the information related to a product, including their design, how they work, what they cost, and their importance, among other things. The website needs to be properly designed and promoted to ensure that it is up to standard. To do this, one requires hiring an expertise who can design and maintain it regularly.
This creates business opportunities for the telecom and technology industries. With the current technology, there are many programs available for the technology industry that can be used in designing websites for different companies. The future looks more promising because we now have a new protocol called the Hot Java which makes use of video clips thus enhancing marketing (Andal-Ancion 2).
Implication of E-business environments
With the advancement in technology, millions of people are now relying on the internet for their day to day activities. This means that there are millions of customers who are likely to get exposed to the services offered by telecoms and technology industry.
This increases the chances of this industry succeeding in the current economic hardships. Recent research shows that, there are approximately 10 million people who are using the internet today, and this is expected to increase to 100 million in the next five years.
With the high number of potential customers, Brazil is assured of success in the global world which may not be so if the products were sold locally.
The internet covers a wide global area thereby enabling businesses to send or receive messages from diverse geographical areas, and explore markets and new opportunities. Businesses can now venture into markets that were inaccessible before and market their products.
The internet offers a lot of information which a business can rely on to improve its products and learn more about customer service (Chaudhury and Jean-Pierre 24).
However, they are so many people conducting businesses over the internet and this call for unique products and services. Statistics show that, more than 60% of businesses in Brazil are planning to go online for intercommunications and about 23% are interested in E-business ((Torquato 3).
This means that, E-business is a competitive business and only those who are fit actually survive. There are so many large companies that are already selling their products over the internet and if Brazil is to succeed in this business, its telecom industry has to be involved in a lot of research and creativity to make sure that, it services have some unique features that attract a large number of businesses.
The rate of crime has gone up and many people are using the internet to corn people. Some customers have been robbed off their money in the name of commerce. Other have lost significance sum of money trying to locate the fraudsters with no success. This has reduced the level of trust on telecoms and many customers are afraid of trading over the internet.
Before making a purchase, the customer needs to be reassured that, the order placed on the website is authorized and comes from the indicated source. This can be done through the use of electronic signatures and trusted third party validation (Conway, Ward, Lewis and Bernhardt 4).
Conclusion
Today, the Internet has become a public, self-sustaining, and a cooperative flair that many people all over the world can access. World Wide Web (WWW) or sometimes called the Web, is the mostly used Internet part where a lot of information can be accessed.
With the way technology is growing, it seems we will become more dependent on the internet for the day to day operations. Information technology has advanced to a level such that even organizations rely on it for their operation
Works Cited
Andal-Ancion, Angela; Cartwright, Phillip A. and Yip S. Georg. “The Digital Transformation.” MIT SLOAN Management Review, summer 2003.
Chaudhury, Abhijit. and Jean-Pierre, Kuilboer. E-Business and E-Commerce Infrastructure. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-247875-6, 2002.
Conway, Tony; Ward, Mike; Lewis, Gerard; and Bernhardt, Anke. Internet Crisis Potential: The Importance of a Strategic Approach to Marketing Communications. Journal of Marketing Communications. Vol. 13, No. 3, 213–228, September 2007.
Torquato, Cid. “Brazil’s Chamber Of Commerce Promotes E-Business.” International Trade Centre, International Trade Forum –Issue 3/2003. Web.