The Implication and Effectiveness of E-Marketing in the Kingdom of Bahrain Presentation

Background Introduction & problem statement

• Though Bahrain business communities have been under pressure to effectively adopt and implement e-marketing and e-commerce to compete globally, no suitable standardized framework has existed to support businesses and consumers in this industry.
• There exists a problem of lack of guiding rules and facilities to govern the online business transactions. No research has been conducted to assess the effectiveness/status of e-commerce in Bahrain as is with other developing countries.

Rational/importance of the research

• Study is important in assisting Bahrain regulators and policy makers to identify suitable measures for enhancing growth in this developing nation.
• Thesis will also improve cooperation amongst Bahrain scholars, regulators and policy makers by identifying gaps and suggesting measures for improvements.

Aim

• To investigate the effectiveness of the implication of Bahrain’s e-commerce based on the companies’ and customers’ responses and expectations and go ahead to recommend improvements.

Objectives

• To scrutinize the roles of e-commerce in Bahrain.
• To survey and illustrate the objectives and attitudes of customers and businessmen with regard to e-commerce in Bahrain.
• To recommend suitable and sustainable standards of adopting and implementing e-commerce in the country.
• To examine the issues hampering the successful adoption of e-commerce in Bahrain.

Research Questions

• Commend on the extent to which the existing theoretical concepts have facilitated the use of ICT to support e-business operations in Bahrain.
• What kind of e-business models take place in Bahrain?
• How best have the national rules influenced e-marketing in Bahrain?
• What are the challenges/barriers facing the adoption and implementation of e-marketing in Bahrain?

Scope

• Study limited its coverage to the following areas:
  • Comparing how banks and other financial institutions in Bahrain have tried to effect online-banking systems.
  • Narrowing on how Bahrain government has adopted electronic operations.
  • Researcher will narrow down on the aspects of e-marketing in Bahrain: the available theoretical concepts, their effectiveness, infrastructure plus current regulatory framework.

Limitations

• Little timeframe to cover the many aspects of the topic.
• Inadequate funding may have led to little coverage on some sections.
• Past findings gave little attention to the case of Bahrain.
• The quality of data from uncooperative study respondents may have lowered the quality of findings on some aspects.

Literature

• This chapter reviewed past findings in the following ways:
  • The conceptual framework looked at the definitions and the components of e-marketing.
  • Here, the author discovered the relationship of the 4 major concepts as demonstrated in the figure below.
  • From the figure, e-business is the broader concept that accommodates the other three.
• The author reviewed literature on the processes/stages of e-marketing: think, create, engage, optimize.
• The researcher also reviewed the following models that formed the e-marketing strategy: auction, merchant, manufacturer, affiliate, advertising, infomediary, subscription, brokerage, virtual communities and logistics model.
• The review also looked at the following components of Bahrains legislative framework: Electronic Commerce Decree No. 28/2002, intellectual property and e-government law (see illustration below).

Research methodology

• This section described the important processes carried out to achieve the project aim:

Research Method

• This being a descriptive research, the author adopted quantitative research approach.

Study population, study place and study sample

• The business community plus their clients in Manama formed the study population.
• Random sampling was used to select 100 respondents.

Methods of data collection

• Primary sources: questionnaires were emailed. Phone interviews were also done to few respondents.
• Secondary sources: Documentary sources e.g. directories, internet and government reports were used.

Researcher experienced challenges with uncooperative respondents, the shortage of electronic data on e-marketing in Bahrain amongst others.

Data Analysis

• Software applications such as MS Excel were used to draw summarized findings of summarized figures for easy understanding.

Presentation & Analysis of Findings

Findings

• Most businessmen in Bahrain had spent a considerable amount of time and accumulated experience.
• Most respondents had integrated ICT to improve their e-business operations.
• Most firms had gone online; through static websites. This hindered electronic transactions.
• Most customers identified flexibility as being the most valuable benefit of e-commerce.
• Challenge of high costs of implementing the technological infrastructure was the main reason for the slow growth of e-commerce in Bahrain.
• Failure to use any proper business model; thus limiting growth of e-commerce sector.
• Online buying and selling were the most preferred forms of e-business.
• Most respondents said legislation had not highly influenced the e-market.
• Most people used search engines such as Google Trader for e-marketing.
• Most companies preferred carrying out their won market research in developing e-marketing strategies.
• Most people called on the government to fund the growth of the e-commerce as well as the recruitment of skilled manpower.

Discussion

• The researcher supported the above findings by quoting documented findings.

Recommendations and Conclusions

Recommendations

• Conduct workshops or open discussion forums to sensitize Bahrain people on benefits of engaging in e-commerce.
• Request the government to improve ICT pathway/infrastructure as well enable free flow of information.
• Incorporate more ICT courses in the educational programme.
• Recruit qualified and skilled manpower to help implement e-commerce.

Conclusion

• Study demonstrated that despite Bahrain being well endowed with lots of resources, it had made little progress in implementing e-business. This has been created by a number of limiting factors including lack of cooperation amongst businesses, little knowledge on ICT and censorship laws that restrict free flow and sharing of online information.
• It is therefore important that the proposed recommendations be implemented to enable the growth of e-business in this Kingdom.