Evaluate the impact of the internet on business Essay

Evaluate the impact of the internet on business - Essay Example Internet alone has been able to change the marketing strategies of several businesses and social media is one internet outlet that has really contributed heavily towards the evolution of new marketing activities. Electronic business which is often titled as e-business is a term used to refer to the huge range of business operations that are conducted online and these activities take place between stakeholders of a business that are located within and outside the organization (Columbus, 2000, p.240). One of the first organizations to define the concept of e-business was IBM. They stated that e-business is the alteration of significant business operations with the utilization of internet (Garbade, 2011, p.20). The term is even used to refer to kind of exchange or transaction that may take place between different parties through the means of internet and is quite different as compared to the traditional way of performing business activities in which the physical presence of both the buy ers and sellers used to be required. The success of e-business and the benefits of e-business to organizations can be realized through the e-commerce sales figure of $343 billion experienced by US businesses documented during the period of 2012 by Plunkett Research (Plunkettresearch.com, 2013). The importance of use of internet in marketing activities have been recognized as Plunkett Research figured out that during the period of 2012, 24% of all marketing activities conducted by US organizations was through online channels (Plunkettresearch.com, 2013). On the other hand are those who believe that internet has negatively impacted the world of business and measures should be taken to counter these negative impacts. This writing will argue that internet has more benefits to offer than disadvantages and if used in the appropriate manner, it can help business flourish. Body E-business has assisted businesses in reaching their target market in various methods and has even assisted busine sses in increasing their market shares with limited amount of investments. According to Boone, the internet has made it possible to reach various customers in several ways that were unknown to businesses before it evolution and the main benefit that has been identified by Boone is that internet has made it possible for businesses to cater to the needs of customers throughout the world (Boone, 2012, p.105). This means that internet has eliminated boundaries that divided countries from countries and restricted businesses to cater the need of limited number of people. The opponents argue that although internet has helped businesses cross domestic boundaries and has allowed even small scale businesses to operate in the global world, this feature of internet has increased the competition for local businesses and local businesses are shutting down due to their failure to compete. In my opinion, this is not necessarily a disadvantage and is rather an advantage for local businesses and has helped them in realizing that they need to operate in a much effective and efficient manner if they have to survive the competition. Internet has even assisted organizations in decreasing their expenditure on advertisement and marketing and this feature has even lead to increase in the power of the multinational organizations. Internet based advertising and promotion is almost free of cost. Basic level internet marketing such as creation of blogs and creation of WebPages on Facebook does not cost organizations a dime. If