siliconindia | | February 20168in myopinionThe Changing Landscape of eCommerce and Challenges for CIOs and CMOsIn a world defined by internet ubiquity, eCommerce, is arguably the most impactful and transformative business model we have witnessed in over a 100+ years. Today eCommerce is a way of life, in fact, many of the ideas are remarkably simple, relying on the ability to leverage the power of networks, always on connectivity and cheap computing power. The sheer scale and size of the transactions are astounding. Alibaba, the Chinese eCommerce powerhouse, transacted over $9B in online sales on a single day on Singles day (11/11), there are other examples in Flipkart in India or Amazon in the US. This discussion is focused on the impact of eCommerce on the traditional business specifically in how it affects the roles of the Chief Marketing Officers (CMO) and Chief Information Officers (CIO) in terms of their ability to support their company's eCommerce related mandates.What is Driving Change?The eCommerce explosion has been aided by a set of very powerful global drivers. In order to properly examine the implications, it would be prudent to understand these drivers. These change drivers are predominantly rooted in macro economics, technology or organizational culture. Here is a list to consider relevant to our discussion. Large economies are driving internet adoption at an astounding rate largely aided by countries like India and China, countries where internet adoption and innovation has been picking up steadily, it appears we are approaching inflection points. The adoption will be marked by broader programs that impact society as a whole like the open source movement, the world of crowd sourcing and crowd funding, micro lending and financing to name a few. The network effect of digital, social and mobile is impacting how brands connect with their customers. For the first time in a long time customers control the power in the equation, causing brands to pay attention to how they communicate and manage their customer relationships. Thanks to the network effect, we can reach 80% of the world's population in 20% of the time. Packaged experiences are giving way to continuous experiential engagements. Technology is increasingly commoditized as cost of computing technology continues to fall thanks in large part to Moore's law; from a $1M/TB some 20+ years ago to less than $1/TB in 2020. This is making innovation affordable and within reach of the masses. Entrepreneurship in a box is becoming very real as several key components needed to drive entrepreneurship gets commoditized and is easily accessible, including capital. Development costs, hosting costs, access to global networks for crowd sourcing ideas, open source movement to build common components have all helped anyone with an idea to bring tangible products and services to fruition. A highly connected world market is the order of the day. Today entrepreneurs think of the global economy as the market. Almost any product or service either in its original or a variant form will exist and thrive globally. Challenges to the CIOs and CMOsA seamlessly integrated sales and marketing platform powered by social, mobile and digital considerations is core for competitive differentiation. Our customers go across devices, domains Ajit Sivadasan, VP/GM Global eCommerce, Lenovo [NASDAQ:LNVGY]
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