Commerce is defined in simple terms as sales and marketing. Marketing is the process of promoting services and products to the masses that are considered clients or customers. Marketing takes two forms in spite of the campaigns to convert the world into a digital village; these include traditional marketing and e-marketing. Traditional marketing includes the promotion of products and services through billboard adverts, print media, and market researching. E-marketing, on the other hand, is the use of the virtual world to market the same products and services. Sales are simply the amount of goods and services that have been traded by a trader in any particular period. By using traditional marketing, traditional sales are made and by using e-marketing to promote sales, e-commerce is established. E-commerce is the activities that range from marketing to sales through the virtual world of networks where neither the buyer of the seller needs to walk to a store to make a purchase or to get customers (Stoner, Freeman, and Daniel 2003).
E-commerce is a business which requires research like any other form of business. Before venturing into business, investors take time to research the market and the trends involved with the type and nature of business they want to engage in. For those organizations that are already existing, product research is conducted to investigate the likely response of customers in case of a new product launch to the market. Business as a whole depends on the customers and their shopping habits; when this is figured out, organizations try to make their customers as satisfied with the services and quality of products as possible. In general, the above situation applies to the preliminary stages of any undertaking of an organization in the traditional marketing setting. Contextually, web analytics is the method that is used to investigate the same variables in an e-commerce setting. The impact of the web analytics restructures the management practices of organization in terms of ethics, practice, and adaptability.
As an organization is trying to make it in the e-commerce business, web traffic on the particular website that organization uses helps to determine the popularity of the organization as well as the customer response to elements of marketing such as advertising and promotions. Web analytics is, therefore, the collection, measurement, analysis, and reporting of web usage. Besides being a tool for measurement, web analytics is used in the researching of business and marketing processes as well as the determination of a website’s effectiveness (Stoner, Freeman, and Daniel 2003).
Organizations that are involved in the e-commerce business are practically exercising management in order to put their businesses on a level acceptable to shareholders and one that enables them to compete effectively with other organizations. Management in any organization seeks to unite all form factors of production to boost productionity and create surplus. Creation of surplus is a management theory applied in the contemporary management. Its meaning is derived from the elements and variables that are considered prior to its application. Most managers, thrive to put the departments they are heads of to the top of the growth-list. The growth rate of an organization is determined by the amount of returns it manages after all expenses are settled. The work of the management according to the theory of creating surplus is to organize, guide, control, plan, and staff the department that is heading in accordance with the objectives and goals set for accomplishment. The role of management in terms of creating surplus and its connection to e-commerce is fulfilled through production of quality products; the staffing of the organization with appropriate and qualified staff; controlling of the production team; and planning of production models (Stoner, Freeman, and Daniel 2003).
Contemporary management involves the goal of problem solving and decision-making processes. Decision-making processes are directly linked with the processes of solving problems. The decision-making process that is applied to solve a problem determines the effect of the solution as well as the duration it will last. Decision-making process is mostly used to address an impending problem or a situation that is likely to cause a problem. In the application of e-commerce, web analytics are used to research the business and marketing procedures of an organization through its websites. Through the results provided by the web analytics concerning the organization’s website, management decisions are, therefore, drawn to reflect on the problems generated (Fleet & Peterson 1994).
To distinguish between the two goals of management, reflection on the purpose of each theory and its variables helps to differentiate the use of one theory from the application of the other. Creation of surplus follows a procedure of organizing the human entities involved in the production and managing the processes involved. There are three management theories that are involved in the processes of decision-making and creation of surplus.
“¢ The Contingency Approach is a management theory that seeks to answer the question of mobility of managerial skills. Activists campaigning for the contingency approach have answered this question following the next criteria: result differs because situation differs; techniques that work in one instance will not work in another instance. According to the contagious technique, the work of managers in an organization is to find which technique will work in a particular condition, under particular circumstances and at a specific time.
“¢ The second management theory is the System Approach: Systems-oriented managers make decisions on scheduling; only when they have been established, these decisions will have the impact on other departments and the organization as a whole. This approach shows that the managers of organizations cannot rely on the traditional ways of running the organizations but rather mesh their departments with the entire organization. To meet this goal, they are required to communicate with other departments and employees as well as with the representatives of other organizations. System managers have seized the importance of networking business relationships to their efforts
“¢ The Dynamic Management Approach: The dynamic management approach puts into focus the strength of recent organizational relations and the intense time pressures that govern them. The dynamic engagement is used to suggest the current debate and thinking pertaining organizations and debates. Management theory has six diverse themes: new organizational environment, ethics and social responsibility, globalization and management, inventing and reinventing organizations, cultures and multiculturalism and lastly quality (Homans 1958).
Solving of problem, on the other hand, follows a criterion of finding appropriate decision-making process which aim is to address the issues emanating from web analytics’ results on the trends of e-commerce of the particular organization’s website (Stoner, Freeman, and Daniel 2003).
The characteristics of management as outlined earlier in this writing include planning, organizing, controlling, staffing, and leading. Management follows a procedure in the execution of duties as well as dealing with individual employees. Leadership skills are, therefore, an important requirement for a manager in that they guide him/her to exercise ethics in the line of duty. Management is a diverse course and involves challenges ranging from diversity of culture to working within tight schedules. Either way, management is demanding in terms of energy and psychological effects. Managers are, therefore, required to display a sense of leadership in that they should lead their departments in an ethical manner respecting individual cultures and aiming to make leaders out of the employees they manage.
In theory, a manager cannot control a group he/she is not leading. Control comes after leadership whereby after establishing work relations in the work environment, a manager applies controlling as a characteristic of management to steer the team of employees towards a similar goal. When management takes control of the operations of an organization establishing reliable supply chains; planning on the processes of production and systematic rendering of individual duties, they enable a standardized approach to the objectives and goals of the organization (Koontz, and Weihrich 1990).
Production and sales managers are not the only people who render leadership; the human resource department involves itself in training individuals to be effective and efficiently in terms of delivering quality services and achieving leadership skills. The human resource management is part of the management that is directly connected with the employees of any particular organization. This department is responsible for staffing the organization through identification of the right people for the position they require in the organization. Through training and development, the human resource management organizes the workforce members to unison in terms of accomplishing their duties concerning the organization’s objectives and goals.
Global management is affected by business trends, business culture, and seasonal changes in economic factors. During recession which is mostly an economic impact on the business sector, organizations have to cut off in order to manage their spending to profitable margins. Management at such period is affected by the trends of the general populace of customers and their shopping habits. During recession, customers tend to buy less in order to cut spending; the organizations do the same as well. For management, sales go down as well as the demand for products, therefore, leading to negative results in the web analytics. The number of hits on advertisements and the number of clicks for ordering goes down respectively. To management, this trend lowers the predictability of profits of the organization and the need to change the tactical approach in e-commerce (Koontz, and Weihrich 1990).
Business Culture is the pattern of resolving business issues, setting goals, realizing objectives, addressing one another, considering business ethics, and withholding a defined code of conduct in matters related to business in a certain country, region, or continent. Business issues include risks and challenges in the corporate world. While corporates are limited to the internal affairs of teamwork, output, margin of profits; business culture of corporates depends on the larger aspect of national heritage and the effect of social life on the businesses. While social life of workers, managers, and executives of various corporations differ, the manner and methods applied in the setting of goals revolve around the aspect of the general atmosphere of the nation in terms of developing work attitudes. Goals are attained through a strong set of objectives related to the ultimate reason for running the businesses. Contextually, business culture is the formal or defined method of setting these objectives in specific nations and business platforms. To the management, business culture means diversity and specificity of addressing key areas in context to culture and goals of an organization (Koontz 1961). E-commerce in this case applies to marketing strategies of advertising and promoting products. Given that, business culture depends on the issues of regional, national, and continental cultures as applied in the specific organization, management has to reflect on the same when promoting products on the e-commerce basis.
Besides recession, financial and economic crisis are affective to management. The stock market crunch of 1929 and the financial crisis of 2000 left almost all businesses in the USA either closed or struggling to survive and organizations opting out of market respectively. Management in either of the situations was impacted negatively in terms of sustainability and growth of the respective organizations and business models. If all the businesses and organizations were involved in e-commerce and applied web analytics as a tool for measure, traffic on the websites of these organizations would have indicated a change in the mode of customer response to advertisement and their willingness to actually purchase merchandise and service packages. Therefore, the effect of changing economic factors like the amount of money in circulation and liquidity levels affects management through the response of customers on services and products offered by those organizations. In this particular case, the impact of web analytics would be to predict downward movement on customers’ interest in an organizations product. This would be reflected to the organization’s management, therefore, applying or implementing a preventive measure to the escalating business situation (Fleet, & Peterson 1994).
The dynamic management approach puts into focus the strength of recent organizational relations and the intense time pressure that governs them. The dynamic engagement is used to suggest the current debate and thinking pertaining an organization’s management. Management theory has six diverse themes: new organizational environment, ethics and social responsibility, globalization and management, inventing and reinventing organizations, cultures and multiculturalism and lastly quality. The dynamic management approach comprises of several components but applicably to this document is the multicultural component.
Managers who practice the dynamic approach appreciate the fact that people are from different cultural backgrounds and have different values to bring to the organization, which are not only facts but also contributors to organizational functions. Modern managers also face challenges due to these different cultural orientations in one organization. Charles (2004) came up with the “Communication Movement” which stipulates that people from different cultural backgrounds can preserve their sense of authenticity and uniqueness if they value what they have in common in the organization and the community as a whole. Managers, therefore, target multiculturalism since more people are becoming aware of their traditions and social ties.
Managing of diverse employees in terms of culture depends on the variables of the business culture. As a rule in management and involvement in business with the context of business culture, a manager is supposed to be aware of his/her personal culture as well as the culture region his/her organization belongs to. The image of an organization is traded by its employees who are inspired by the mode of management and the level of innovation depicted by the management. To foster innovation through the available technology and economies of scale available for an organization, management balances cultural differences with a unified policy of acceptability to all cultures. This approach declares the workplace a leveled ground for everyone, therefore, leading to the building of interest in work (Fleet, & Peterson 1994).
Modern organizations are governed by policies that require everyone to be sufficient with basic and some high-end computer applications. The usage of the high-end or the basic computer in the management, or junior employee level has its ethical obligation. Computer applications in major organization are almost applied to do or assist in every type of duty task. The impact of using technology in organizations is to fasten the processes of production and accounting. However, despite the positive side of these technologies, managers have an obligation of using these applications ethically. Corporate social responsibility is distinguishable from managerial ethics and sustainable development in that it requires personal attributes rather than occupational obligations. For example, Mr. X is a computer expert specializing in networking tools and works for organization Z. It is his occupational obligation to be at work in time every day and to undertake the responsibilities as defined in his job description. Being an expert in networking tools, Mr. X has the ability to spy on personal computers of his colleagues. There is no docket in the organization’s policy to stop Mr. X from spying on his colleagues. However, as a corporate manager of the IT department Mr. X’s actions are defined by his corporate social responsibility of respecting everyone’s right of privacy (Koontz 1961).
Corporate social responsibility is distinguished from managerial ethics in that managerial ethics defines a code within which a manager should conduct him/herself in. Management ethics defines the manner which different issues relating to management are supposed to be tackled in regard to the business culture of the organization and the employees of the organization. The impact of managerial ethics on the output of the organization and the performance of individual employees affects the sustainability of development of the organization.
Sustainable development of an organization depends on the number of favorable variables incorporated in the organization through management. Employee motivation results from the relations built with the management and the level of inspiration the management gives to its employees. Ethics, social responsibilities, and sustainable developments are pseudo independent but connected in the overall performance of an organization regarding its influence on customers.
There are different principles and concepts that are associated with decision-making, planning, organizational structure and culture. These concepts and principles are generally referred to as the concepts of organizing. The concepts of organization are used and applied in management models to stabilize working relationships — that is, horizontal and vertical associations between groups and individuals (Fleet, & Peterson 1994). Their importance is to affect the organization’s activities and the order within which they are accomplished by the individuals and the groups. Organization as used in this context means management and relies on the following concepts: work specialization, centralization and decentralization, span of control, chain of command, delegation, and authority. In management, authority is the only legitimate power that a manager has to control, give commands, and guide groups and individuals to accomplishing duties and responsibilities (Stoner, Freeman, and Daniel 2003; Koontz, and Weihrich 1990).