Edited by Geoffrey P. LantosFarce to Force: Building Profitable E‐commerce Strategies

Citation

Karakaya, F. (2007), "Edited by Geoffrey P. LantosFarce to Force: Building Profitable E‐commerce Strategies", Journal of Product & Brand Management, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 154-154. https://doi.org/10.1108/10610420710740043

This is a must‐read book by business executives interested in doing business online. It explains the e‐commerce jargon and operations that even a novice reader can understand and utilize. In fact, the reading is appropriate for novice, intermediate, and advanced e‐commerce users. The book is rather prescriptive and concisely written, suggesting successful strategies to use and traps to avoid. Most of the book's material is based on findings from research studies and actual e‐commerce practices by businesses. The author incorporates research findings and business practices into her explanations of e‐commerce concepts and strategies for competing successfully in e‐commerce markets. In addition, the book provides advice on organizational structure and responsibilities for e‐commerce operations to be successful.

Dr McCue clearly lays out the barriers to become successful in e‐commerce operations and in Chapter Two, “The e‐commerce challenge faced by enterprises around the world,” offers solutions as to how to overcome the barriers. Inclusion of “Examples of potential best practices” in Chapter Three, “The e‐commerce challenge faced by enterprises around the world,” is beneficial for anyone doing business online as well as for those interested in starting new online businesses. Most of the brick‐and‐mortar businesses now have web sites, and many use these sites to supplement their traditional business operations. The author suggests integration of e‐commerce strategy into business strategy and discusses eBay and Sotheby.com as examples in detail. Development of e‐commerce strategy is discussed at length, and the importance of having a written e‐commerce strategy is delineated.

Chapter Four, “Five Cs of successful e‐commerce websites,” suggests that one of the most important factors in becoming a successful e‐commerce operation is having a website that serves customers well. The author further explains how to have winning websites by detailing the “five Cs”: clarity, content, convenience, commerce, and commitment (p. 75). These factors are explained concisely without compromising any content. The inclusion of the “ 101 winning websites” is a nice addition to the chapter. Examples of these winning sites in the following categories are presented: business‐to‐business web sites, business‐to‐government, business‐to‐consumer, government‐to‐business, government‐to‐government, government‐to‐consumer, consumer‐to‐business, consumer‐to‐government, and consumer‐to‐consumer web sites. The “Category killer web sites” (p. 98) in this chapter is an interesting reading piece as well.

One of the most important and well‐written chapters of the book,“Secrets of electronic commerce,” appears a bit late in the book's fifth chapter, which does an excellent job in describing what the Internet was intended to be and what it became. The chapter clearly describes how to start an e‐commerce operation (business) step by step. One may consider reading this chapter first. The chapter also suggests ways of increasing traffic to web sites (e.g., search engine optimization), which is an important part of doing business online. In addition, the chapter discusses developing successful marketing strategies. Again, this is done in a step‐by‐step process, and the explanations are very prescriptive.

In Chapter Six, “Trends in e‐commerce,” the author provides a good explanation of the internet boom that started in 1990. The factors relating to success and failure of new Internet startup companies, as well as how the internet has changed the way companies do business, are discussed. Readers are also provided information on the future trends of e‐business, including new technology such as the wireless internet that will be used in future. The chapter concludes that the internet will continue to increase business efficiency and decrease costs in the areas of marketing, finance, human resource management, and production management. Therefore, the book's is not just on generating sales from web sites, but also to improve business functions in all areas.

Chapter Seven, “Enhance your EQ … education for the 21st century,” is well laid out and comprehensive. The chapter identifies a measure “E‐commerce quotient – parallel to IQ” (p. 161). One of the goals of this chapter is to minimize e‐commerce business failures, achieved by suggesting the minimum knowledge necessary to run e‐commerce operations. In addition, the chapter discusses e‐marketing fundamentals, finance and accounting, electronic payment systems, computer security, e‐commerce law and regulation, intelligent agents, online customer service, and other necessary techniques and skills for managing successful e‐commerce businesses.

The eighth chapter, “Actions for thought leaders,” suggests that many improvements will take place in the future and that internet adoption by businesses will become much easier. The critical issues pointed out by the author include IT structure, public policy and legislation, regulatory and security issues, and creating public and private sector partnerships and network building. This chapter is a must read by government, business and academic leaders because it deals with the future of e‐commerce business practices and how they can have an impact on the success of e‐commerce. The author suggests ways of developing public/private partnerships through networking and collaboration.

The book concludes with Chapter Nine, “The future of e‐commerce for developing countries,” by providing a global picture of e‐commerce. A thoughtful discussion is presented of the differences in computer equipment, telecommunication equipment, and connectivity between developing countries and developed countries. The chapter ends with a rather comprehensive list of important items for successful e‐commerce operations for now and the future.

Overall, the book is easy to ready and understand. I expect people would spend little time in reading the book; however, those who do not have the time to read the whole book will still learn a great deal of e‐commerce knowledge and skills by reading Chapters Five “Secrets of electronic commerce,” Six “Trends in e‐commerce,” and Seven “Enhance your EQ … education for the 21st century.” I am not suggesting that readers skip the other chapters in the book but rather I am trying to stress the importance of these three chapters.