How has e-commerce had an impact on a business’s functional areas? (40 marks)
Functional areas of a business is the grouping of individuals on the basis of the function each performs in the organization, such as accounting, marketing, customer service and manufacturing.
Marketing professionals determine the products that their companies introduce to the marketplace, often using marketing research surveys to determine what consumers need and want. This helps the company to better align its strategies. E-commerce has aided this functional area because it means that when someone makes a purchase online they can analyse the data that comes with it. Online sales may use ‘cookies’ this is a feature that stores all sorts of useful information for the business to analyse. This could consist of what you have clicked on, how long you stayed on each web page or even what you added to your basket. This means that e-commerce has provided a far more detailed and easy way for a business to know exactly what its consumers want. Not only is this easier and more effective, but it also come at a much lower cost. This is because you don’t need to hire any staff to collect this data whereas if it was manually collected it would be less accurate, take more time and cost more money. It also means that when a business is deciding what price to set for a product they will have a better idea of what people are willing to pay. Furthermore, they also now know who their most common consumer is so they can target their advertising directly to them. ‘Cookies’ is also an optional feature for a consumer to use so the consumer won’t be complaining for businesses storing their data as they have the option to say no.
E-commerce also has its drawbacks for marketing. The reason for this is because a business now has ‘less of a voice’ in their industry. This is because all businesses have access to