Dissertation Paper on The impact of e-commerce in two contrasting African nations: South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire

(19500 words)

Abstract

Distinctions between old media appear to be eroding as different forms of new media evolve. The name of the game goes by the buzzword convergence, the blending of the media, telecommunications and computer industries, and the coming together of all forms of mediated communication in digital form. The Internet provided the means to make a more active and engaged public that would allow a new era of truer and greater democracy. The shift to digital communication is breaking down the barriers between traditional media industries and the telecommunications sector. The shift to digital transmission of all forms of data has been increasing at an accelerated rate. In the very near future almost all forms of data and information could conceivably be produced and stored in digital bits. This shift is redefining the way music, film, radio, television, newspapers and books are produced, manufactured, distributed and consumed (Burnett & Marshall 2002).  The Web offered a wide array of dimensions that promised a better world: e-commerce provided better business solutions; and its transnational quality allowed for greater global communication (Burnett & Marshall 2002). The shift to digital technologies has created wonders for countries, businesses and people. The shift to digital technologies brought out various situation altering improvements on technologies. One improvement in the technology is the use of the internet and E-commerce. The use of internet and e-commerce impacted the development of countries. The paper is a study that will discuss about the impact of e-commerce in two contrasting African nations, South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast).

Chapter 1: Introductory part

Introduction

Money was one of the major themes of the century, but no real resolution of the problems raised was possible until late in the century when computers and the Internet emerged. With them came a flood of ideas for replacing money with information as the store of value and knowledge as the medium of exchange (Sullivan 2002). The use of network-oriented communication soared in such forms as electronic funds transfer, electronic data interchange, and financial data services. No one claimed that these tools for rapidly transferring information would change society as we know it. Then internet then came, followed by the World Wide Web, and a standard coding system (HTML) (Sullivan 2002). These differed from the older networks in being based on nonproprietary protocols (TCP/IP) rather than proprietary; being open to all users rather than closed to most; being able to accommodate data, text, audio, and video rather than just data and text; being interactive rather than not; and being able to connect computers, telephones, mobile phones, televisions, cable systems, and electronic appliances (Sullivan 2002).

 

Universal connectivity at low cost has encouraged millions of people and organizations to become users, and stable, widely agreed-on standards have encouraged investors to pour billions into system development in the hope of profits from the sales of products, network services, operating systems, hardware, and software applications (Sullivan 2002). For the poor countries get on and stay connected on the Internet, they will need a large amount of capital investment. Funding can best be achieved through strategic alliances or partnerships with international partners who have the technology, financing, and management know-how. In addition, they need to worry about two other things: maintaining reliable and high-quality technical support services and protecting the electronic system from fraud and sabotage (Kiggundu 2002). For developing countries, security problems go beyond the normal problems of teenage hackers breaking into corporate Internet Web sites, sometimes just for the fun of it. For developing countries, it is also important to provide tight electronic security against fraud, corruption, and sabotage. Many of these countries have weak national integrity systems with weak institutions and weak enforcement mechanisms (Kiggundu 2002).

 

The internet has reached various regions and it continues to make changes regarding businesses and the society as a whole. The internet affects all forms of life and its reach has become wider, covering not only industrialized businesses but developing countries as well. The study will concentrate on the impact of e-commerce in two contrasting African nations, South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast).The paper will analyze the history and growth of the internet. The paper will determine the impact of the Internet on a global basis.  The paper will undergo analysis of e-commerce, its features and benefits. Moreover the paper will compare e-commerce with the traditional business activities.

 

Problem statement

There are different factors that contribute for a country to be successful. One factor is the strategies the country use; another factor is its image to local and international people, moreover a factor can be the quality of the exports and lastly a factor that contribute for a business to be successful can be the technologies used to provide service. For a country to be a success it has to satisfy the needs of its citizens. The public has different needs and are very particular in making sure that the products or service they receive are in the best shape or form. The consumers rely on the government for the best delivery services. Consumers have different criteria that must be satisfied before they avail the service that is offered by the country. Consumers also need to have satisfaction of the requirements they made before they will avail of any kind of product and services.

 

Client’s requirements can be satisfied through various means, one way for companies to satisfy the needs of clients is through making the delivery of service faster and more efficient. One technology that has changed the face of service delivery worldwide is the internet. The use of the internet and e-commerce makes the delivery of service faster and it helps the client increase their idea about the product or service they want to avail. This study concentrates on determining what other things the e-commerce technology can do for the two African nations and the business in those nations. It will take a look at how the new technology impacted the African nations and their delivery of service.

 

Research questions

In order to complete the goals of this particular academic activity as well as to set the objectives of the study, the following research questions will be presented and discussed in the entirety of the research paper focusing on the impact of e-commerce in two contrasting African nations, South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). The impact of e- commerce can be known through gathering e-commerce related information. Such information can be acquired through answering the following questions:

1. What is the history of the Internet? How did it grow and develop into the technology that we know today?
2. What are the impacts of the Internet in the entire global communication system?
3. What are the features of e-commerce? How do business organizations benefit from the utility of e-commerce?
4. What are the differences as well as similarities of the traditional business practices and approaches and the e-commerce business framework?
5. What are the underlying issues on security policies as well as individual privacy standards that influence the continuing utilization of the Internet and the practice of e-commerce?
6. What are the barriers of entry or the limitations in implementing the e-commerce business framework?
7. What does the future hold for e-commerce in the global and local sense?
8. Will e-commerce be replaced by other technologies after a few years?

Aims and objectives

The research questions referred to the information that the researcher intended to question while the objectives will focus on the problems that should be clarified in order to gather the intended information. The aims and objectives of the study include

1. Determine the history of the Internet, how did it grow and how did it develop into the technology that we know today.
2. Determine the impact of the Internet on global communication and commerce.
3. Determine current levels of usage in South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire?
4. Identify the differences as well as similarities between the approach of the South African Government and that of the Government of Cote d’Ivoire to the development of e-commerce in each nation?
5. Identify barriers to entry and/or the limitations to using e-commerce in economically developing nations such as South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire?

Importance of the Study

The study is important to both nations since they can compare difference of the time they were not using the internet and the e-commerce technologies with the time they began using such concepts. This study can provide to the government of the two nations, the ability to gauge how satisfied and motivated the public is with the use of e-commerce technologies. The study can help the government of the two nations know whether their public is still motivated with the current technologies they use and it will provide the government information about the level of satisfaction the clients have.  With the establishment of the goals given, this study may also be of importance to the goals that have been set. By fulfilling the aims that were stated in the previous section, this study will be helpful for other researchers who may be focusing on the current strategies on technologies, and other researchers who believe that innovation is ultimately helpful to the principles of sustainability or of other areas especially with regards to the method of providing effective service. Such data will hopefully be helpful for researchers in establishing their own means of conducting their study. As such, the notable significance of this study is the possibility that it may be able to use the findings for the other studies that may wish to analyze the factors for the success or demise of a particular study.

 

The methods that this study will take must also be credible and help researchers in knowing how to look for particular information and know how to analyze them. It is through this that researchers will then be able to find out how they will be able to focus on their particular investigation and also know the possible methods that they may choose in the possible time that they may choose to already conduct their study. Thus, another significance of this study is to serve as a guide for researches that focus on the analysis of the success of certain corporations as they venture into globalization, and especially focus on the possible factors that may have affected these companies’ success or downfall.

 

Research design and methodology

This research is partly based on quantitative research method. To determine the number of respondents that will be asked to participate and give information regarding the study random sampling will be used. Based from the random sampling a minimum of 30 respondents will be the participants for the stuffy. Primary research will be used. In the primary research, the researchers will look for individuals who they believe have an idea on the impact of e-commerce in two contrasting African nations, South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). The researcher will scout for Africans that they see as someone who can give appropriate response to the questionnaire The researcher will go send emailed questionnaires to people that lived in the above mentioned African Nations.  The researcher will include a letter and it will narrate the study’s contents to each perspective respondent. The letter contained the purpose of the study, the study’s goals and the intention of the researcher to keep the divulged information hidden from other people. If the perspective respondent agrees to take part in the survey, the survey part will then proceed.

 

As the questionnaire is being conducted with the respondents, they will be given ample time to provide answers to the different questions. While the rendezvous with the respondents is ongoing the researchers will provide follow up questions related to the study that was not included in the list. This will help in clearing some ideas related to the study.  The researcher will try to ask questions that will not give the respondent a hard time but will provide the needed responses for the research. After answering all the questions the researcher will thank the respondents for their time and participation in the study Majority of those emailed for the survey were accommodating and gave some of their time in answering some questions.  The research will be done because it is vital to understand the impact of e-commerce in two contrasting African nations, South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). The research will give a clearer view of the e-commerce situation in South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) and how the e-commerce technologies have changed the industry. Moreover the research will assist in determining the common concerns in the use of e-commerce technologies.

 

Methods for Data analysis

With relation to data analysis, the indicators that will be used in evaluating the study aside from the response of the respondents include the age of the respondent; the gender of the respondent, the social status of the respondent; the educational attainment of the respondents.

 

Structure of dissertation

There are different chapters for this project. Each chapter has a different focus for a specific course of action that will benefit the study. Each chapter will bring the study closer to gathering information about the goal of the study. The different chapters will contribute to the success of the study and it can be used as a starting point for further studies. The first chapter was the introduction part wherein general ideas and goals of the study were discussed.  The second chapter will be the literature review part. The second chapter used various resources to gather necessary data. This data have a relation to the goal of the paper which is to determine the impact of e-commerce in two contrasting African nations, South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast).

 

The literatures presented will come from books and other sources that are deemed to be helpful in the advancement of awareness concerning the subject. The third chapter will feature the Methodology, Type of research, Research Strategy, Data Collection and Analysis, Primary Data, Secondary Data, Sampling, Data analysis and Time frame. The third chapter will focus on discussing the instruments and methods used for the study to be a success. The fourth chapter will focus on the presentation of demographic data, the ideas of the respondents, and analysis of data. The fifth chapter will demonstrate how the results from the surveys and Interviews link to the literature review results. The last chapter will focus on discussing the Summary of the data acquired, Conclusions and Recommendations.

 

Conclusion for the chapter

This chapter focused on the background for the study and the materials that will be used to gather data. The next chapter will focus on the reviewed literatures that has something to do with the paper. In this chapter the researcher will give insights of agreement or disagreement on what the literature says.

 

Chapter 2

Review of related literature

This section of the study primarily focuses on the different researches and other literatures that focused on several aspects that will help with the progression of this study. The study will be mainly concentrating on evaluating the impact of e-commerce in two contrasting African nations, South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast).The literatures presented will come from books, journals, and reports that are deemed to be helpful in the advancement of awareness concerning the subject.

 

South Africa and its technology

In a world where the gap in communications access and technology is actually widening between rich and poor South Africa, which in technological terms lies halfway between the two, has immense possibilities for rapid technology improvements for itself while also being in a position to become a principal source of such telecommunications advances in the rest of Africa. A country that does not have a proper command of modern telecommunications will find it also lacks access to the rapidly developing information markets upon which, increasingly, world business depends. The telecommunications market is expanding at an enormous rate world-wide and by the early 1990s South African companies were seeking major new outlets on the continent as a whole as restraints upon their activities outside South Africa disappeared. According to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to increase the number of telephone lines per 100 population in sub-Saharan Africa to one line per 100 people would cost about US$ 28 billion and in terms of current economic conditions in Africa such a sum can only be raised from the private sector. Here was an area where African companies could make a huge contribution to continental growth and in the process put themselves at the top end of the market. Competition between African companies for new business has become acute and the South African state-controlled Telkom has been pushing for new business throughout the continent (Arnold 2000).

 

In March 1998 the black empowerment group, Vula Communications, signed a R600 million telecommunications satellite deal with the US Mobile Communications Holdings (MCHI) and the company then invited South African institutional investors to invest in Vula. At the same time the European commercial space transportation company, Arianespace, moved into South Africa hoping to establish the country’s first satellite-based telecommunications system. South Africa had the fastest Internet growth on the continent with 600 000 users, Egypt came in second place, followed by Morocco, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Ghana and Tanzania (Arnold 2000). In the said article by Arnold the researchers agree that South Africa can be the source for rapid technology improvements for itself. The researchers also agree that it is in a position to become a principal source of such telecommunications advances in the rest of Africa. South Africa and its technologies are currently being improved to meet the changing environment, with such rate of improvement there is a big chance that this nation will provide the spark for technological innovation in the region.

Cote D’ Ivoire

The West African record is diverse and illustrative. Starting with its normative consensus that rooted sociopolitical hierarchy in the system of economic development and established material allocation as a legitimate basis for conflict management, Côte d’Ivoire built a centralized, co optive, single-party state that captured loyalties and managed conflicts. Although this regime was most effective when the fortunes of the state were high, even under the world recession of the 1980s it provided a legitimate framework for politics, allowing the opening of the institutional structure at the end of the decade to multiparty competition and presidential succession within a well-socialized political class (Zartman 1997).  The case of Côte d’Ivoire is unique for several reasons. This is a country which was considered authoritarian. It had the same president for over thirty years; yet, the economy kept booming. The country has remained stable throughout its history which is marked by very few attempted coups. The country is a model in terms of its economic success, which is based on agricultural production and authoritarian political leadership (Edoho 1997).

 

The country had the highest  GNP per capita in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) in 1979, and without the benefit of mineral resources or the advantage of high-technology industrialization, the country has been able to secure foreign exchange, accumulate capital, and promote employment rates largely through the growth of commodity exports of timber, cocoa, and coffee (Edoho 1997).  Côte d’Ivoire has been characterized as a “pillar of political moderation and stability in a general environment of coups and military establishments. The economy of Côte d’Ivoire was shaken by the decline in cocoa and coffee prices between 1977 and 1981, the rise in petroleum prices, and the fall in value of the franc in relation to the dollar. Consequently, from 1980 Côte d’Ivoire started to experience adverse trade balance as well as adverse balance of payments. After 1977, the economy never recovered from the vicissitudes present in the export world market and export-oriented economy (Edoho 1997).

 

What went wrong in Côte d’Ivoire was neither political instability nor inept political leadership; it stemmed from external factors, notably, the dependence of the economy of the periphery on the world capitalist economic system. This outcome lays credence to the dependency theory and the limitations of the inherited colonial economic and social structures which inhibited accumulation of sufficient capital essential for development. Unable to meet the capital requirements of the economy, the country had to borrow abroad, thereby putting itself at the mercy the World Bank and the IMF (Edoho 1997). Cote D’ Ivoire is a country in West Africa that  made sure that it maintained close ties to the West, the closeness of  ties helped the country to maintain economic development and political stability.  The researchers agree with Zatman’s article pertaining to Cote D’ Ivore’s political system did not prevent it from achieving its economic goals.  The researchers also agree with Edoho’s article that mentioned about Cote D’ Ivoire not being able to introduce much technological development because it depends too much on  the world’s capitalist economic system.

 

Information systems

The early stage of development of an information system is called systems analysis. An information system development project is divided up into a number of different stages. This is called the system life cycle. There are a number of different approaches to the development of computer-based information systems, but the principles behind each are similar. After a number of years in operation, business needs will have changed, so that there is a fundamental need for change and therefore the cycle will start again. By adopting this life cycle approach the project can be better managed (Tansey 2002). Information systems are not created for their own sake. They serve or support people engaged in what for them is meaningful action. Now, when one system is thought of as serving another, it is a fundamental principle of systems thinking that in order to think carefully about, and conceptualize the system which provides the support, it is first necessary to define carefully the nature of the system served. This is necessary because how people see the system served will define what counts as support to it. The information systems needed to support a manufacturing operation will be very different if it is conceptualized as a system to optimize the use of a production facility rather than as a system to meet a market need (Currie & Galliers1999).

 

Any information system will deliver output which is meaningful in the way the designers of the system defined, users of the system will, as autonomous human beings, still be free to assign their own meanings to it. The output from the organizational information system which consists of collated information about sales of the new product will mean different things to the managing director concerned with the company’s share price, the salesmen on the road seeking bonus payments, the production planner working on raw material requirements, and the director whose private agenda is to subvert the whole project (Currie & Galliers1999). Information systems are designed to create reports, report-generating systems, decision systems, work flow systems, group systems, and enquiry systems of all sorts. The categories, classifications, measurements, codings, and summarizing techniques employed by a particular information system are a function of its design, and the direction of research in information systems is towards making the possibilities for creating representations as open ended and flexible as possible (Currie & Galliers1999).

 

The article by Currie and Galliers illustrated what information systems can do to change the procedure of providing service. The article by Currie and Galliers provided an insight on how the use of information system can create changes to society. Information systems were developed from various desires to improve service and improve the life of people in a certain region. Information systems process the data and information in a certain company. It provides value to users through the interchange of messages. It makes information be accessible to people in an organization when such need arises.  The information systems have helped businesses improve their services, it made life easier for businesses and their clients.

 

Growth of Information systems

Change management consultants will need to be there with the appropriate interventions to help both old and new organizations become more streamlined and flexible. Additionally, they must become more capable of improving themselves continuously in response to trends in the economy, the work force, and the technology (Hart & Prakash 2000). There is, however, every indication that many organizations are not aware of these practices; still others will resist the help that change management consultants can offer them. For example, despite the attention given to the growth of e-commerce in an economy that knows no boundaries, many organizations have not begun to prepare themselves to be active players in e-commerce and are not prepared to organize into networks or to successfully manage strategic alliances. But these are the organizations of the future, and they will, with the assistance of change management specialists, invent entirely new entrepreneurial structures capable of exploiting new ideas and technologies quickly (Hart & Prakash 2000).

 

The full impact of the ICT revolution clearly has some distance to go and a fourth phase of global integration is now visible in the growth of electronic commerce. Reflective of the underlying movement in the technology trajectory from hard to soft, and the growing importance of network markets, especially telecommunications, this new world of cyberspace literally eliminates borders so that the term domestic policy could become an oxymoron (Hart & Prakash, 2000). Convergence-harmonization of domestic policies and institutions and the erosion of national sovereignty-will be fed by locational competition for investment and regulatory arbitrage by MNEs; global rivalry for finance and markets; and rapidly changing communications modes which are transforming market power dynamics and creating newly empowered global actors. These are all natural forces for convergence. But, of course, governments are part of the game and international economic policy in both multilateral and regional fora reflect the deeper-integration momentum (Hart & Prakash 2000).

 

The growth of e-commerce has been one of the most exciting developments in the competitive intelligence (CI) profession in recent history. This growth has benefited CI professionals by improving access to myriad sources of public information. To wade through all of this information, however, a CI professional must be e-commerce savvy and practice effective electronic competitive intelligence (E-CI). There is much hidden information available on networks such as the Internet and various tools and services can help CI professionals navigate through the vast amounts of data available (Blenkhorn & Fleisher 2003).  The researcher agrees with Hart and Prakash’s article that pertains to the information systems and related technologies as creating a huge impact to how people live.  Information systems are something that is constantly evolving and being improved over the course of time. It grows and adapts to the changes in the society Information systems can be in the form of Internet and E-commerce technologies.

 

Internet and some of its history

Although the history of the Internet itself can be traced to the 1960s or perhaps even earlier, the development of the international regime for the Internet began with the acceptance of the first Transmission Control Protocol/Internet work Protocol (TCP/IP) as a de facto worldwide standard in the 1980s and 1990s. In its earliest years before it became international the Internet was a single experimental network serving a dozen sites in the United States and a related set of innovative computer based communications techniques that made possible some networking experiments with advanced computer sites in Europe (Franda 2001). By the early 1970s computer networking capabilities had expanded to the point where many founders of the Internet could conceive of building a worldwide network of subsidiary computer networks and even individual computers (Franda 2001).

 

The major problems involved in building an overall international network had to do with, first, the lack of a practical design for a universal host protocol that would work on both reliable and unreliable networks and, second, methods of attaching specific networks to each other. Although communication by e-mail among computer users was becoming more common in the mid-1970s, a person could still only send a message to another person who was connected to a single discrete network. The key breakthrough in creating the possibility of connecting all networks and computers throughout the world occurred at a meeting organized at Stanford University in 1973 when all academic, government, military, and commercial groups with substantial interest in computer networking at that time were able to assemble in one place (Franda 2001). Agreement to use the original TCP protocol was further refined at a January 1978 meeting at the University of Southern California (USC) when experts proposed that the then-existing TCP protocol be split into two separate parts: a host-to-host protocol (TCP) and an Inter network Protocol (IP). The pair of protocols, known collectively as TCP/IP and now used almost universally throughout the world, allowed a streamlined overall system in which the IP protocols passed individual packets between machines while the TCP ordered packets into reliable connections between pairs of hosts (Franda 2001).

 

As new versions of Internet protocols were developed in subsequent years, gateways became increasingly easier to connect and could be located faster because they ran only IP and did not have to duplicate host functions (Franda 2001). Franda’s article gave a description of how the internet developed. The internet is a connection of network systems from all over the world. This project created a program that aims to interconnect radar systems in the country. Those responsible in the program saw the potential of interconnecting systems as a unifying factor for human beings located in different places.  After careful studies and advancements in technologies, the internets reach grew wider and wider. The researcher agreed with Franda’s article that pertains to the internet having various capacities and capabilities changed the way some things are done internationally and locally.

 

Impact of the internet

The merger between the Internet, corporate and co-operative networks introduced changes in all three. This must be kept in mind when assessing the nature of cyberspace that develops with the Internet, as many find it easy to dismiss the Internet because of its origins in military funding. There are two main social forces that have driven the Internet to its present position. The first is the military-industrial complex, which has provided the main funding for some of the more grandiose projects that make up cyberspace and which provides an important cultural background to certain technological choices that have been made (Jordan 1999). The second influence is a grassroots and populist attempt to create networks and computers that place the power of computers in the hands of individuals, precisely so that the establishment and elites can be undermined. Here can be found the enthusiasts who created the personal computer, the programmers who have created and shared free software and an ethic of free and open use of networks that still dominates many parts of cyberspace. It is impossible to predict precisely the future of the Internet and the cyberspace it supports (Jordan 1999).

 

However, the success of a packet-switching distributed network of computers is undoubted and will form the basis of future networks. Those on the Internet use it extensively, usually at least once a day, and use it for a range of activities that include work and entertainment in equal measure. Internet and Web users are, then, not only from the most privileged sections of society; they are also committed to cyberspace and use it extensively. A world-wide computer network that allows people to communicate with each other exists. It has been created not in fiction but in fact through the efforts of governments, individuals and corporations. Its users have a clear and now largely stable demographic profile, with the sole exception of some uncertainty over whether gender equality lies in the future. This is a world not of disembodied consciousnesses having access to the sum total of human information, but of myriad acronyms, corporate rivalries and gradually growing sources of information and opportunities to communicate with other humans (Jordan 1999).

 

An enterprise might be very strongly affected by the Internet through other institutions even though it itself did not connect or utilize the technology. If, for example, its competitors use the Internet to obtain advantages in input and output markets and to increase productivity, a firm not using the Internet may find itself at a severe competitive disadvantage, and indeed be forced out of business. Institutions are seen as permeable. Each person participates in many institutions, and the experience with the Internet in one institutional role can affect other institutional roles (Nicholas & Rowlands 2000). The worker who learns to use the Internet at the office may subsequently use the Internet to participate in activities of his professional society, to communicate with members of his family, and to participate in chat rooms discussing politics. Increased labor mobility engendered by intra-family use of the Internet could affect enterprises by changing labor markets. Understanding of the overall impact of the Internet will develop from understanding many individual studies of specific impacts, and how they fit together. The direct impact of the Internet on the individual user seems to be the most commonly discussed, probably because it is the simplest to conceptualize and to measure. It seems unlikely to be the most important. Few people spend large part of their income on the Internet, and one must assume that the marginal net benefits of such use are comparable to the cost of Internet connectivity (Nicholas & Rowlands 2000).

 

The indirect impact of the Internet on a participant in an institution may be quite significant. Consider, for example, the employee who loses his job because his company is unable to compete with others that use the Internet more effectively and goes out of business (Nicholas & Rowlands 2000). Or consider the stockholders in those companies that used the Internet effectively to increase productivity and profits, and thus enhanced their stock values, or the bonuses likely to have gone to managers of such companies (Nicholas & Rowlands 2000). Jordan and Nicholas and Rowlands provided their ideas on how the internet impacted society. The researchers agree with the three authors on their ideas of how the internet created changes in the environment and what is the value of the internet to society.  The internet has created an impact to almost everything in this world. It changed the way business operates; it also created changes in the way people do their work in the organization. Although it is believed that internet is being used by individuals to gain power and prestige, it cannot be ignored that the internet made sure that services can be done on a faster time.

E-commerce

All estimates concerning the growth of e-commerce have one thing in common. They point to phenomenal growth over a very short period of time. Categories such as cars or flowers ordered over the Internet and delivered physically may be included in wider estimates. Companies that adapt and exploit the new opportunities will gain competitive advantage and others will be left behind. On a larger scale, existing indications show a widening gap between developing and developed economies in terms of competitiveness in this area. The absence of important and far-reaching policies in the developing economies could lead to the loss of existing industry and failure to attract new industries. This would mean a reduction in employment and tax revenue, with obvious negative consequences for overall economic performance in these countries (Karake-Shalhoub 2002).

 

In order to create the right environment to assist and to promote widespread use of information and communication technologies (ICTs), a number of areas need to be addressed: the provision of adequate telecommunications infrastructure; procedures to promote the development of e-commerce and business prospects; the placement of appropriate enabling measures to smooth the progress and development of, and access to applications using ICTs; adoption of legislative arrangements to support those enabling measures; development of electronic delivery methods for public services; and a variety of support activities (Karake-Shalhoub 2002). Many of the developments related to the information or knowledge society, such as Internet growth and the emergence of e-commerce, have arisen only over the last five or six years. The nature of these developments and the speed with which they occur impose new demands on the ability of government departments to keep abreast of them and to seek to influence and respond to them. The sheer pace of development and the absolute necessity to respond rapidly mean that additional resources are required in key areas if people are to deal adequately with the range of issues identified and help accomplish the objective of any country being a key player in the information or knowledge society (Karake-Shalhoub 2002).

 

Just as the internal combustion engine and jet engine have radically changed people’s lives, the Internet is beginning to do the same. In the short time of its existence the Internet has greatly affected business and society. The Internet’s evolution and future development are set to continue. The Internet has fundamentally changed business activity. The buying and selling of products and services, market making, the forging of relationships between companies and customers or between two or more organizations; all these activities are increasingly being digitized (Eckersley, Harris & Jackson 2001).  Although the success of these efforts is not guaranteed, the business landscape is now truly digitized. Some types of e-Commerce are not likely to succeed. The digital technology that enables e-Commerce is progressing and will continue to offer companies opportunities for further changing their business activities. Firms looking to remain competitive in the e-Business arena have to be prepared to reorganize and restructure themselves more or less continuously. If the restructuring of traditional businesses really is so central to their development of successful e-Business strategies, it is essential to understand how to manage change effectively in order to sustain competitive advantage (Eckersley, Harris & Jackson 2001).

 

While there are undoubtedly many firms that have an established tradition of successful inter-organizational networking, Internet developments have made such initiatives increasingly central to e-Business strategy. One of the first challenges companies face when attempting to embrace e-Business and its corresponding technologies is how to move from being a physical or bricks and mortar organization to being a digital or virtual organization (Eckersley, Harris & Jackson 2001).  It is here that a company encounters its first problem, which is one of technology. The particular difficulty relates to the attempt to evolve their legacy systems to an infrastructure that will support e-Business. Few businesses find themselves in the position where they can throw away the old and introduce new, customized computer systems. Legacy systems often perform essential activities upon which daily business processes depend (Eckersley, Harris & Jackson 2001). The researchers agree more with the article of Karake-Shalhoub since it discussed more about e-commerce and what will happen once e- commerce technology grow and develop. The researchers agree with Karake-Shalhoub in how they explained what triggered how the internet and its related systems developed.

The growth of e-commerce

When the internet emerged, it offered investors new opportunities for capital gains on their stock holdings. To the extent that this medium promised a huge number of investment opportunities and efficiency gains, it boosted already high valuations of corporations, especially those firms standing to benefit the most from the growth of e-commerce (Guttmann 2002). Investors, whether individual or institutional, were more than ready to apply nontraditional valuation standards to the growth sectors of the new economy. The competitive and innovation-rich nature of the internet put a premium on having good ideas and the skill pool to realize those ideas through fast-paced product development. their perennial rush to get ahead of others, internet-based producers depend heavily on new forms of productive capital, such as customer and supplier relationships, links to other sites, brand names, intellectual property rights, flexible organizational structures, entrepreneurial and technological skill pools and teamwork spirit (Guttmann 2002).

 

Attracted by the magical powers of the internet, investors were willing to value these unconventional and relatively scarce forms of productive capital at a high premium. To the extent that all these inputs are intangible in nature, they are difficult to measure. Deprived of standard measurement criteria developed by accounting and economics for physical capital, valuations of intangible capital will be more exposed to the mood swings of the investor community until it works out how to value those resources with reasonable accuracy. When e-commerce began to emerge in 1996, its first wave of applications concerned business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions which took off with amazing speed. For instance, book selling moved rapidly online, with Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble slugging it out in the virtual marketplace. The same proved true for airline tickets, allowing airline companies to reduce ticket processing costs (Guttmann 2002). These early successes triggered an explosion of B2C-oriented online suppliers, as more and more firms specializing in consumer goods or services made it their primary concern to create attractive web sites and get customers to spend online. Merchant networks, a sort of electronic shopping mall, have sprung up all across the web to enjoy the fruits of co branding, jointly organized sales-promotion schemes, centralized payment facilities and other advantages from belonging to a large network (Guttmann 2002).

 

Their rapid spread was taken as sign that B2C commerce had the potential of maturing rapidly into a viable alternative to traditional retail trade conducted in brick-and-mortar stores. A related e-commerce segment with similarly explosive growth potential, so-called peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions emerged with the phenomenal success of eBay. Specializing in online auctions, this internet company has turned millions of Americans into avid buyers and sellers of new or used goods on the internet (Guttmann 2002). The researchers agree with Guttmann in his article that mentioned how e-commerce has grown and developed and how it changed the way people transact their business with organizations that offer a product they want.

E-commerce trends

Internet Banking

Electronic banking is one of the first things that come to mind when one thinks about the future of banking. It includes automated teller machines (ATMs), automated call centers, digital cash, Internet banking, screen telephones, and so on. These channels of delivery can be used for presenting and paying bills, buying and selling securities, transferring funds, and providing other financial products and services (Gup 2003).However, they accounted for 90 percent of the national banking system assets. Few very large banks were the most active in offering Internet services. These banks served a small but growing number of their customers (Gup 2003).The low percentage of customers and the modest cost of setting up an Internet banking web site make it unlikely that Internet banking is having a major influence on the profitability of most institutions, with the exception of the largest ones (Gup 2003).

 

This may help to explain why some small banks, particularly new banks, are unprofitable. Those banks that rely primarily on Internet banking must absorb the full cost, making that cost disproportionately large when compared to that of the large banks (Gup 2003). Although virtual banks can provide a wide range of financial services, they are at a disadvantage compared with brick and mortar banks when it comes to customers making deposits and withdrawing cash which raises the issue of convenience. Nevertheless, advocates of Internet banking claim that it is faster, better, and cheaper than brick and mortar. Four basic characteristics are quite unique to e-banking and help to explain why it has become such an important part of the banking strategic planning process. First, the customer has anonymity when making transactions over the Internet, forcing banks to find methods to authenticate who the users are (Gup 2003).Speed of transactions, access to global markets, and strong reliance on third parties to develop and maintain the technology-based systems are the other important components of e-banking’s popularity and success.

 

In addition, e-banking is made up of a broad category of systems and devices, including one of its first and perhaps most common forms that include credit and debit card development (Gup 2003). Unfortunately most customers do not want to totally relinquish use of the branch and phone. Thus, banks have been unable to close as many branches as they had originally anticipated. Added to this is the cost of hiring technologically astute personnel capable of running the more advanced operating systems, not to mention the need for additional advertising promoting the Internet banking system (Gup 2003).  The researchers agree with Gup that e-banking provides clients with the capability to do business with the bank even after working hours and the clients can do it in places they deem comfortable to use the computer and the internet. In this e-commerce trend no specific software is needed by the client in operating the internet banking technology but there are major risks in terms of security of the information divulged by the client since the internet can at times be prone to attacks and hacking.

 Secure electronic transaction

The combination of technology and commercial self-interest is normally able to overcome most problems and so it is likely to be with delivering the above requirements. The first development to provide a technical foundation upon which electronic commerce can be built is reaching the point of entering widespread implementation. The Secure Electronic Transaction specification (SET) has been created to define the way that credit card transactions will be processed (Stroud 1998). Unless the consumer is convinced that they can entrust their personal credit card information to be transmitted via the Internet it is unlikely that electronic commerce will move beyond first base. If someone were selecting a group of companies to devise and implement a standard for processing credit card transactions via the Internet then a consortium including MasterCard, Visa, American Express, IBM, Microsoft, Netscape and the other major payments and computing companies would be a good starting point (Stroud 1998).

 

These companies have declared their support for the SET standard. By creating a set of standards that are open to any organization to use it has been possible to stop the processing of credit card transactions from becoming an element of competition. Ensuring electronic commerce becomes a reality far outweighs any of the short-term competitive advantage that a single company might gain from creating a proprietary standard. The purpose of SET, as described in the official specification, is to provide confidentiality of information, ensure payment integrity and authenticate both merchants and cardholders (Stroud 1998).  Any information that is transmitted must remain confidential and only be accessible by the intended recipient. SET provides the standards for encrypting the transaction to retain its confidentiality. The content of any transaction must remain unaltered during transmission. By using the SET standards to produce digital signatures it makes it possible to detect if any part of the message has been changed. Merchants need to be able to verify that a cardholder is the legitimate owner of the payment card account number (Stroud 1998).

 

In the same way the cardholder must be able to confirm the identity of the merchant and be confident that they can conduct the financial transaction in a secure manner. SET provides the standards to generate ‘electronic certificates’ to authenticate the identity the members involved in the electronic transaction. There must be a wide range of devices capable of processing electronic commerce and no one type of hardware or software should be particularly favored. The SET standards must be capable of being implemented over a wide range of electronic devices (Stroud 1998). SET is an e-commerce trend that provides a secure transaction over the internet. The researchers agree with the Stroud that SET makes use of various techniques that helps in making sure that clients and businesses have the ability to identify themselves and conduct business transactions in a secure way. SET makes sure that the information sent from one person to another person will be done in the safest way possible.

Electronic Learning

A critical component of a business or academic organization’s distance learning imitative, an electronic learning environment is a distributed network system, a corporate electronic campus, where knowledge workers and learners gain and share information from and among each other. It typically and most currently employs digital media, such as multimedia and hypermedia for Web-based knowledge transfer and Web-based training to provide an enterprise-wide knowledge management system for all of the employees within the organization, whether they are located in Tennessee or Tibet. Within a corporate electronic learning environment, interactions occur between experts and novices across multiple locations over a wide access information and communicate with each other via chat, e-mail, and mail lists (Leonard 2004). Often an important component of the electronic learning environment is a digital library, where the knowledge objects of the organization are stored. Within current knowledge management circles, enterprise-wide learning is a much-touted, much-repeated reference to building a Web-based knowledge transfer system, to building an electronic learning environment that promotes business transformation, organizational learning, and the achievement of a state of corporate Meta cognition (Leonard 2004).

 

Through agents, electronic performance support systems, and other just-in-time training approaches, organizations can move from the industrial age educational paradigm to the digital age educational paradigm. With the advent of the Internet, organizations can now build and maintain a distributed network system for enterprise-wide learning, which includes a digital library that contains multimedia and hypermedia components to support the learning organization. As such, organizations create an infrastructure for a virtual learning environment that is used by internal employees, customers, and even the public, while being entirely separate from the brick-and-mortar organization. With the rise of the digital economy and the Web, organizations are better able to disseminate and share information within and outside of the corporation on a global scale by means of the knowledge base (Leonard 2004).

 

In doing so, these organizations become more cognizant of who they are and who their customers are. They achieve a state of meta cognition. Knowledge managers, industry trainers, and school educators are focusing more and more of their attention on the evolution of knowledge objects from analog to digital, from paper-based information to electronic information that is indexed and cataloged in order to facilitate knowledge sharing by means of the corporate knowledge base (Leonard 2004).   The researchers agree with Leonard that through electronic learning system business can acquire the information they need about a certain product.  Aspects of the business located in places that are far away from the main branch can use the electronic learning to gather the information they need from the main branch for them to use in their daily operations. E learning also provides additional information and skills to employees from different branches.

 

E-commerce in developing Countries

Access to the Internet requires access to a telephone, which is still an urban and developed country phenomenon. Even where telephone access is assured, the capacity of that telephone line varies enormously, the call charges vary hugely, and terminal equipment is needed. Users of the Internet will know that access to the global information system (GIS) requires a PC. The investment required for the developed world to achieve high-speed access to an always-on Internet is enormous (Marsden 2000). The further investment for all consumers to so do, not simply the rich and technologically literate, is an even greater challenge.  For developing countries, particularly those with limited physical infrastructure and great geographical size the challenge is far greater even than this. With the benefits of the Industrial Revolution so clustered within regions of the world, and regions within those regions, the Information Revolution risks further separating the affluent few from the desperate many (Marsden 2000).

 

After 150 years of shaping the organization of the global marketplace and facilitating the expansion of networks and services, the international telecommunications regime is now on a seemingly irreversible path of decline. The international telecommunication Union (ITU) still plays very important roles in other aspects of global communications, most notably radio frequency spectrum regulation and technical assistance to developing countries (Marsden 2000). But today, it is the WTO that sets the multilateral rules of the game on the economic organization of global communications, and private standards bodies-especially in the Internet environment-are increasingly driving the interconnection of technologies into a seamless global information fabric (Marsden 2000). Deregulation for e-commerce and its related systems is largely a consequence of the diffusion of new ICTs, which, in easing international access and provision, helped firms to bypass the limitations set by the old national regulatory frameworks. Deregulation forced at national levels has also been pushed forward and co-ordinated within regional agreements. The privatization that often followed deregulation opened the doors to foreign multinational firms. But it also strongly induced the old monopolies to develop some global reach, in particular, by taking advantage of newly opened markets in developing countries. This all led, in some cases at least, to the creation of large international conglomerates or networks of allied multinational firms (Archibugi & Lundvall 2001).

 

In some developing countries the process is only starting; its pace, regarding external relations or domestic activities, depends on the outcomes of its policies, on the economic successes and financial difficulties of countries. Furthermore, invisible barriers to trade in advanced countries may be all the more lasting as product markets have become more complex, more differentiated (Archibugi & Lundvall 2001). The researchers agree with Marsden and Archibugi & Lundvall in their articles that mentioned that e-commerce implementation in developing countries will be affected by the budgets, policies, situation and other external factors. This things has hampered the use of such technologies in areas such as South Africa and to Cote D’ Ivore.

 

Opportunity of E-commerce

Companies can determine which elements of e-commerce are core to their business strategy and often keep these elements from becoming commoditized. Most companies may find some low-value processes to be potential candidates for commoditized e-commerce solutions. Many hardware and software packages have come into the market recently to help with the transition and maintenance of e-commerce. However, companies should not rely on these purchases for their e-commerce solution. Businesses with significant e-commerce aspirations must continually reevaluate the efficacy even of previously implemented e-commerce solutions (Epstein 2004). They must determine whether or not newer e-commerce solutions might better fit the firm’s e-commerce strategy and whether or not the company might be better served by an in-house replacement for the commoditized solution. Without such considerations, companies run the risk that commoditized solutions will dictate their business structure, by limitations in design. Some have argued that the short-term advantages afforded by technological advances and unique uses of technology are not worthwhile, as they can easily be copied at a lower cost at a later time. However, such short-term advantages are often important for market positioning (Epstein 2004).

 

Although other companies may be able to mimic such advantages, waiting for the technology to reach an acceptable price level permits the first mover the opportunity to further establish itself with its customers, thereby turning a short-term advantage into a longer-term customer base. The long-term advantages afforded by unique uses of e-commerce are less dependent on finding uses of technology that could potentially benefit any similar company in the market. Rather, long-term advantages are derived from finding unique applications of e-commerce to the company’s specific business strategies (Epstein 2004). The e-commerce strategies of companies such as Dell, Cisco, and Wal-Mart are known to the business community. However, their long-term success has not relied solely upon e-commerce. Rather, their previous business strategies were already uniquely suited to the advantages they were able to derive from e-commerce (Epstein 2004).

 

Not many e-commerce success stories have relied entirely upon commoditized solutions. It is the ability to recognize the complexities of the opportunities, and the threats, afforded by e-commerce for their business that has enabled some companies to excel at e-commerce. E-commerce opportunities, while numerous, need to be tailored to the strengths and weaknesses of particular company characteristics (Epstein 2004). The researchers agree with Epstein that E-commerce can still be improved for it to provide better services to clients around the world. E-Commerce can use more precautionary measures to ensure that people who use such technology will be sure that information they divulge will be kept private. Firms that use e-commerce should be protected from hackers that intend to gather data they can abuse. Through an improved internet system the hackers cannot gather information.

 

Limitations to using e-commerce in economically developing nations

The Internet/e-commerce has been aptly called an accidental superhighway, reflecting the chaotic, decentralized, and even haphazard nature of its evolution. It is not the result of some grand design or coherent plan. Rather, the Internet as we know it today emerged from a loose confederation of networks that relied on leased telephone lines. From these unremarkable and sometimes chaotic beginnings the Internet has experienced explosive international growth, especially within the last ten years. Yet the Internet’s rapid growth is not completely a fluke, but a triumph of creativity and innovation (Spinello 2002). The evolution of the Internet is not only a fascinating story about technical genius and ingenuity; it also offers a glimpse into the nature and complexities of the deepest controversies that surround the Net today. The Internet’s impact on privacy is certainly beyond dispute, but the loss of privacy at the hands of computer technology has happened in discrete stages. During the 1960s and 1970s personal and financial data were selectively collected and stored in massive mainframe systems. These data were fairly expensive to maintain, and were never easy to access except by the highly technical data managers and systems operators who controlled black box systems (Spinello 2002).

 

But the steady migration to personal computers, distributed technologies, and local area networks eventually made these data much more accessible. Most of the mainframe data could be reproduced on the desktop with relative ease and made readily available throughout the corporate hierarchy. Since expensive mainframes were no longer a requirement, smaller organizations could also get into the act. Thus, the power to gather and disseminate electronic data had now become decentralized. The Web, of course, makes it even easier to get at this information. The Web seamlessly links together organizational data from remote sources, making possible asynchronous access for users throughout the world, and the Web is only part of a pervasive and widening global network that seems almost omniscient in its knowledge and voracious in its appetite. These advances in information technology, then, have made it easier to collect information that was at one time unrecorded (Spinello 2002).

 

The researchers agree with Spinello on his article that mentions that the internet has evolved a long way but the main limitation it has when used by both developing and industrialized countries is the privacy issues.  Privacy limits e-commerce use in developing countries since such kind of countries doesn’t have the needed systems to counter privacy threats.

 

Conclusion to the chapter

The second chapter focused on the reviewed literatures that has something to do with the paper. In this chapter the researcher will give insights of agreement or disagreement on what the literature says.  The third chapter will describe the methodologies used in gathering the data needed for the study.  The third chapter will give information on how the data is acquired and what instruments were used to gather such data.

 

Chapter 3

Methods and Procedures

This chapter will focus on evaluating the implications of evaluating the impact of e-commerce in two contrasting African nations, South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). This chapter will give a discussion of the different methods and procedures used and done in the study; this chapter will discuss the research method; this chapter will also give a description of the research method, the different techniques used in the research method will be discussed to give explanation of its purpose and application to the study.

 

Research method

The research will make use of the descriptive method to evaluate the impact of e-commerce in two contrasting African nations, South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). The descriptive approach is quicker and more practical in terms of financing (Potter 1996). This research is partly based on quantitative research method so as to permit a flexible approach. The choice and design of methods are constantly modified during data gathering based on continuing analysis. This will give way for creation of an investigation of important new issues, concerns, probabilities and questions as they arose (Anderson 1998).  In addition, this study also employed partly qualitative research method, since this research intends to find theories that would explain the relationship of one variable with another variable through qualitative elements in research. The research will also use the statistical research method in carrying out this research project.

 

Research Design

The research process onion of Saunders et al (2003) will be used in the entirety of the study in order to formulate the most suitable research approaches and doable strategies for this study. The first layer raises the question of the research philosophy to adopt, the second considers the subject of research approach that flows from the research philosophy, the third examines the research strategy most applicable, the fourth layer refers to the time horizon a researcher applies to his research, and the fifth layer is the data collection methods to be used (Saunders et al 2003). The research process onion assists the study in gathering detailed information on evaluating the impact of e-commerce in two contrasting African nations, South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). The research process onion will act as a guide and it will provide the step by step procedure that will make sure that the goals of the study will be met. Each step or layer of the onion will be met before making other moves.

 

Ethical Issues

Informed Consent

Worries about protecting clients’ rights to privacy can similarly be understood as concerns about issues of autonomy. The right to privacy follows from the assumption that autonomous individuals have the right to make decisions about their own lives and the information relevant to it, including to whom that information is confided. Thus, for example, although students and supervisees may not have the right to confidentiality in a strict sense when they confide information to professors or supervisors, they do have a right to expect that the information will be treated with respect and kept private to the extent that it is possible (Kitchener 2000). The use of informed consent in research, practice, and teaching is certainly no panacea for the ethical problems psychologists face. On the other hand, informing consumers or participants ahead of time about the aspects of the experience that may cause them discomfort or clarifying misconceptions could go a long way to helping psychologists avoid ethical mistakes (Kitchener 2000).Whether in practice or in research attending, to the competence of the participant to give consent, the clear disclosure of necessary information, the participant’s understanding of the information, the voluntariness of the decision, and the right of the person to authorize consent helps fulfill the spirit of consent. It may be necessary to experiment with different methods of providing consent depending on the group involved (Kitchener 2000).

 

From an ethical perspective, maintaining confidentiality is grounded in the principles of autonomy and fidelity. Respect for autonomy, or the right to self-governance, implies that individuals have the right to make decisions about those with whom they wish to share private information and those from whom they wish to withhold it (Kitchener 2000). Without control over who has access to information about themselves, individuals could not protect private information or guard against dangerous disclosures (Kitchener 2000).Second, respecting the privacy of intimate human interactions and the personal secrets others share is at the core of human relationships, thus, the principle of fidelity adds further justification for keeping confidences. Third, when consumers or research participants share private information about themselves after a psychologist has extended a professional promise of confidentiality, a fiduciary relationship has been formed (Kitchener, 2000).Any person asked to participate in a certain research should be given enough information on why the research is important and how the information acquired for the research will be used. It will give the respondents the assurance that the information will be used in accordance with proper respect and within boundaries and limitations set by the society. It will also assure them that the information that they divulge will not be used against them. The research about the impact of e-commerce in two contrasting African nations, South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) will ensure that proper information about the need, objectives and future implications for the research will be given to the respondents.

 

Issues on Confidentiality

This extends to the way in which researchers treat people involved in their study. It is tempting to slip into a mode of seeing informants as sources of data rather than as interesting human beings. Violating their person through disrespect in this way may scar them for a long time, and cause them to see future research in a cynical or negative light. In some instances, researchers may be collecting data from people who cannot take complete responsibility for their own decisions, such as children or consumers with learning difficulties. They need special protection (Daymon & Holloway 2002) .Privacy and protection from harm is closely related ethical principles because, if a researcher betrays participants’ rights of privacy, then they are failing to protect them from harm. Rights of privacy are neglected if they publish research findings which present confidential information, or if they expose confidences which can be traced back to participants (Daymon & Holloway 2002). Confidentiality refers not only to how someone eventually use the data, such as in the writing of a research report, but also to how someone conduct oneself in interviews. Many informants share confidential information that could jeopardize their careers or even the future of their organization. It is vital that researchers honor their trust and do not release this information to other members of the organization. It is sometimes tempting when interviewing to let something slip especially if you are keen to gain the confidences of subsequent interviewees (Daymon & Holloway 2002).

 

Confidentiality is an important aspect of qualitative research because it can help in making sure that participants will have the trust and confidence to indulge in research undertakings in the future. If confidentiality is violated, participants may not want to share information that can be valuable to future research. The research will not disclose personal information of the respondents; there will be a cover letter to explain the research and this will be included in the questionnaire. This will result in lesser ethical problems.  It is necessary for the researchers to explain to the respondents that the information collected will be used solely for assessment. The researchers will inform the participants that the study will allow them access to the designed results.

Data Gathering and Participants

To gather data questionnaire will be used by the researchers because it is less time consuming and it will not require the respondents to engage with lengthy conversations with the researchers. One method to gather data is an interview but it requires good conversational and listening skills that require lots of time from both the researcher and the respondents thus questionnaire method was preferred. The questionnaire is divided in two parts the first part feature the demographic information of respondents. This will provide information on some personal attributes of the respondents. The second part features the response of the respondents. In this part the respondents have choices of whether they agree or disagree to a certain statement.  The questions are asked in a way the researchers will have a clear idea on the impact of e-commerce to the two contrasting African nations, South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). The sample size was a minimum of 30 participants. The researchers will scout for Africans that they see as someone who can give appropriate response to the questionnaire. The participants were carefully chosen so that the study can distinguish all the characteristics and issues by the participants.  The rationale for the use of such participants is based on the fact that Africans have an idea on how the two contrasting African nations, South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) has been affected by e-commerce. This part of the research about the impact of e-commerce in two contrasting African nations, South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) is important because the data needed to fulfill the objectives of the research will only be supplied by the participants.

Time frame

The first thing to be done is to collect necessary data and information. This includes colleting data from primary and secondary sources. Within this time frame the questionnaire has been formulated and ready for use. After gathering such data the next thing to be done is analyzing it to use it in the study. This will be done for a month. One activity in the study is formulating the results chapters of the study wherein the data gathered from the survey is integrated and the analysis of the data is included in the research. This will be done for at least 3 weeks to ensure that the study is done well.

 

Validation of the questionnaire

To validate the instrument used, the researcher pre-tested a draft of the set survey questionnaires. This was done through an initial survey of five participants. After the respondents have given their answers to the questionnaire, they were asked to cite the parts of the questionnaire that needed amendment. Afterwards, the content of the survey questions was reanalyzed by the researcher to find out unnecessary questions that have to be removed.  After the initial survey the questionnaire was evaluated and then validated and changed accordingly.

 

Conclusion for the chapter

The third chapter focused on the methodologies used in gathers data. The next chapter will focus on presenting and giving analysis to the acquired data.

Chapter 4

Presentation, interpretation and analysis of data

After data collected the next thing to be done is data presentation, interpretation and analysis. In this chapter the goal is to present the results of the data gathering. Through this chapter analysis of the results of the study can be done. The research output or the gathered data needs to be properly presented. It is important that the research output be presented in an organized, coherent and understandable manner so that those who will read the research can propose important decisions about the results of the study. This chapter intends to discuss the information acquired from the survey and interview done for the research. The main objective of the study is directed towards determining the impact of e-commerce in two contrasting African nations, South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast).

 

This part of the study is divided into two parts. The first part intends to give information about the respondents particularly with regards to their gender, position in the company and years of stay in the company. The second part intends to give information about the ideas of the respondents with regards to the impact of e-commerce in two contrasting African nations, South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). The results will be analyzed on who amongst the participants agree or disagree on a certain issue that has something to do with the study.   After this part summary then analysis of the results will be done as well as a concluding part of the study and recommendations for the country. This part takes a look at the results and what it implies within the study.

 

Part 1 Presentation of Demographic Data

In this part of the study the responses of the respondents will be presented and be given attention and analysis. The participant’s responses will give the necessary information to find a logical solution for the study’s problem; it can also assist in providing a reachable recommendation and course of action. Such responses will be represented by figures or graph to make it clear and to achieve greater understanding. Lastly these graphs helps in making the study more visual oriented for greater appreciation by the reader. The first question will focus on the age group the respondents belong to. The participant’s age was divided into different groups. The groups include 52 up; 46 to 52; 39 to 45; 32 to 38; 25 to 31; and 18 to 24. The succeeding figure will give the response of the participants.

Figure 1

Percentage distribution of respondent’s age

The figure shows that majority of the respondents were aged around 32 to 38. They were 31% of the total number of the respondents. This shows that majority of the respondents presumably because of their age were wise enough to decide on the impact of e-commerce in two contrasting African nations, South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). A big part of the respondents were aged 25 to 32 years old. They were 26% of the total number of respondents. Some of the respondents are 39 to 45 years old. They were 16% of the total number of respondents. There is a small group of respondents aged 45 to 52. They were 12% of the total number of respondents. Moreover another small group of respondents were aged 52 and above. This group of respondents was 8% of the total number of respondents. The smallest group of respondents was 18 to 24 years old. They were 7% of the total number of respondents. It shows that majority of the respondents are well experienced to give answers to the questions thus giving the information needed for the research. Getting information from an older person gives some assurance that the information received came from the experience of the person.

Figure 2

Percentage distribution of respondents ‘Gender

The figure shows that 52% of the respondents were female while 48% are male. There is a small difference in the participation of male and female participants. It shows that in determining the impact of e-commerce in two contrasting African nations, South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), both gender were willing and have the interest to give their opinion. It also means that the perception in the study will not be biased but instead it will be based on both gender’s point of view.

 Figure 3

Percentage distribution of respondents’ civil status

In this figure majority of the respondents were married. They were 48% of the total number of respondents. 32% of the respondents were divorced. 11& of the respondents were widowers. Lastly 9% the respondents was single. Most of the respondents are married and had gained a lot of maturity and experience. In getting the necessary information it is important to ask persons who are more maturity to prevent being misled.

Figure 4

Percentage distribution of respondents’ Educational attainment

In this figure 55% of the respondents finished a college degree. The other respondents or 45% of the group had a post college degree. The educational attainment helps in the scope of knowledge and experience the respondents has. It also helps in adjusting to the level of thinking the respondent has. The respondents being in college makes sure that they have a certain level of thinking that can be of great help in the research.

Figure 5

Percentage distribution of respondents’ length of service in the company

The figure shows that 55% of the respondents have been serving their respective companies for more than 5 years. 26% of the respondents have been serving their companies for 4 years. 19% of the respondents have been serving their company for 3 years. Respondents who had worked with the company for more than 5 years have observed things that happened in their company and the industry.  They know the effects of certain changes to the industry. They also have an idea on what technologies can be good for the industry.

 

Part 2 Ideas of the respondents

The participants’ responses are vital and much needed to achieve the objectives of the study. To achieve the objectives is to get the necessary and reliable information and data regarding the impact of e-commerce in two contrasting African nations, South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). The participant’s responses will give the necessary information to find a logical solution for the study’s problem; it can also assist in providing a reachable conclusion, recommendation and course of action. Such responses will be represented by figures or graph to make it clear and to achieve greater understanding.

Figure 6

Lesser need for additional technologies to deliver products/service

The figure shows that majority of the respondents agreed that the e- commerce provides lesser need for the people in South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire to use additional technologies to provide product or service. This group of respondents is 43.20% of the respondents. Another group of respondents strongly agreed with the statement. They were 34.95% of the respondents. The smallest group of respondents was undecided with the statement. They were 21.84% of the respondents.  This shows that the respondents believe that with the use of E-commerce the need for newer technologies may be lessened. E-commerce erases the need for determining newer technologies that may cost a lot for the company. This result can be attributed to the literature review on the impact of internet and e-commerce.

Figure 7

Operational effectiveness

This figure shows that majority of the respondents disagreed with the idea that e-commerce doesn’t promote operational effectiveness. 50.87% of the respondents had this in mind. Another group of respondents strongly disagreed with the statement. They were 40.87%. A smaller number of respondents were undecided on the statement. They were 6.09%. Those who agreed with the statement were 2.17%. Having operational effectiveness means that e-commerce can make positive changes to the one using it. It can be attributed to the literature review of what can happen once the internet grows and develops.

 

Figure 8

Financial and Maintenance cost

49. 14% of the respondents disagreed with the idea that e- commerce increased financial and maintenance cost.  34.91% of the respondents agree that e-commerce didn’t increase financial and maintenance cost. 15.95% of the respondents are undecided on such statement. The respondents think that e-commerce helps in maintaining the financial and maintenance cost. Since E-commerce needs lesser budget for maintenance the country South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire can save more finances without neglecting to improve their technologies.  It makes use of limited cost that enables businesses to save more finances for other parts of their budget.

Figure 9

User friendly

57.41% of the respondents agreed that e-commerce is more user friendly for South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire than other technologies. 35.65% of the respondents disagreed that e-commerce is more user friendly. 6.94% of the respondents were undecided on the statement. User friendliness is one of the good characteristic of e-commerce. Other technologies will have to be given careful study by the business before its full potential can be used while e- commerce is popular and more easy to use thus lesser time will be wasted on determining how to use such technology. The e-commerce is also adaptable to the needs of its users thus the business doesn’t have to adjust to this kind of technology.

 

Figure 10

Accuracy

60.54% of respondents were undecided on e-commerce have high levels of accuracy. 17.01% of the respondents disagreed that e-commerce have high levels of accuracy. 11.56% of the respondents agreed that e-commerce have high levels of accuracy.  6.12% strongly agreed that e-commerce have high levels of accuracy. 4.76% disagreed with the statement that e-commerce have high levels of accuracy. Due to various factors and barriers, e-commerce is not necessarily accurate. There are certain times wherein e-commerce doesn’t live up to its expectation.  E-commerce may create flaws brought about by the user and other aspects of the environment.

Figure 11

Privacy

54.98% of the respondents agreed that e-commerce is good for keeping the data private. 41.99% of the respondents strongly agreed with the statement. 3.03% of the respondents are undecided with the statement. The respondents believe that e-commerce can provide a safer location for data that is important to South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire. They believe that the data entered into any e-commerce transaction can be protected from any hackers.  This can contradict the literature review on the security issues and problems once e-commerce and the internet is used.

Figure 12

Security

44.84% of the respondents agreed that e-commerce have a more powerful security measure. 39.68% strongly agreed with the statement. 15.48% of the respondents are undecided on this statement. The result of the study shows that although e-commerce has its flaws, advances in technologies can counter such flaws. This result can contradict the literature review with regards to internet, e-commerce and the security problems.

Figure 13

Stability

71.64% of the respondents disagreed with the statement that e-commerce has more stability issues. 17.16% of the respondents agreed with the statement. 11.19% of the respondents were undecided on the statement.  This shows that the respondents believe that when it comes to stability e-commerce is the one that should be used by South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire because it has lesser tendency to commit faults or create malfunctions.

Figure 14

Easier transaction

 

 

 

 

 

The figure showed that 50% of the respondents believe that the e-commerce will make it easier for South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire to conduct their transactions. 30%of respondent strongly agrees with the question 20% of the respondents are neutral or undecided on the statement. The respondents believe that e-commerce helps in making faster business transactions. They think that e-commerce will help in solving South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire’s problems on conducting business transactions and it will help them in solving the transaction related woes they have.  The result can be attributed to the literature review on how e-commerce helps in altering the way business transpires and it can be attributed to the literature review on how the use of e-commerce leads to faster delivery of services.

Figure 15

Saves time for clients

The figure showed that 43% of the respondents believe that E commerce helps in making sure clients save time from visiting branches to handle business activities without having to wait for the company’s staff at service counters. 37 % of the respondents strongly agree to such statement. 20% of the respondents were neutral or undecided on the question. The respondents believe that with the use of e- commerce time will not be wasted. They can transact their business with business without thinking about the different activities that they have to go through in a certain business. They also don’t have to waste some of their time in going to a certain branch and go through long lines. They also don’t have to worry about waiting for the business staff at service counters if the staffs are attending to other people or are busy doing something else. This result can be attributed to the literature review on the opportunities of e-commerce. It adds to the literature on how the internet and e-commerce will provide unlimited opportunities for people using it.

Figure 16

Better management of account

37% of the respondents believe that the e-commerce allows businesses in South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire to manage clients’ account 24 hours a day from anywhere. 33% of the respondents strongly agreed with the statement. 30% of the respondents were undecided or neutral with the statement. The result shows that the respondents believe that e-commerce is helpful and reliable for businesses in South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire to manage clients’ account 24 hours a day from anywhere. This shows that e-commerce is vital for people since people can use it whether they are home or in some other place. They don’t have to look for the places where a business is located; people can just surf the net to transact business with a company and they don’t have to leave the comfort of their homes just to transact.

Figure 17

Easy to learn

47% of the respondents disagreed that E- commerce is not easy to learn. 30% of the respondents strongly disagreed with the question. 20% of the respondents were undecided with the statement. In every street or corner there is an internet shop that people use, this internet shops help in training the people to use such technology. It also gives them ideas on the changes that happen on such technology.  The respondents believe that E- commerce is easy to learn. The respondents believe that the popularity and availability of internet and e-commerce makes it easy to learn.  This result is connected to the literatures in the sense that the e-commerce has been a prominent figure in most activities.

Figure 18

Keeping data safe

The figure showed that 60% of the respondents disagree that E- commerce does not help in keeping data safe. 30% of the respondents strongly disagreed with the question.  10% of the respondents were undecided with the question. The respondents don’t believe that data owned by clients and businesses will not be safe when e- commerce technologies is used. The internet can be a dangerous place for files to be transmitted or kept. It can be easily corrupted by different people but certain files can be used to counter such threats. The e-commerce can have protective systems that prevent files to be acquired by unauthorized people. The stealing of files can be prevented by certain systems, softwares and programs that can be used to block unauthorized transactions.  This kind of programs can be easily found on different venues and different companies offer anti spy ware programs with various capacities. Anti hacking systems can block any attempts by other people to get information from the business or their client.   This result contradicts the literature claim on the problems brought about by the use of the internet and e-commerce technologies. Though e-commerce may have bugs or issues that cause the security problems, newer technologies have made it a point to prevent the issue from becoming difficult to solve.

Figure 19

Needed data can be easily acquired

The figure shows that 50% of the respondents believe that through e-commerce needed data can be easily acquired. 31% of the respondents disagreed with this statement. Moreover 19% of the respondents were undecided with the idea. This shows that majority of the respondents believe that through e-commerce needed data can be easily acquired. They believe that such factor will help them save time and energy. The businesses in South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire don’t have to waste time and energy just to gather the data pertaining to either supplies, number of clients or others; they can use e-commerce to gather the data they need to make decisions pertaining to the company. South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire can use e-commerce to gather data that they can use in making economic decisions. Both countries can use e-commerce to transact with citizens for their needs may it be birth records or other important papers.

Figure 20

Innovative tool for competitive advantage

The figure showed that 36% of the respondents believe that e-commerce could serve as an innovative tool for acquiring competitive advantage for businesses in the African nations and South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire themselves. 31% of the respondents disagree with the idea. 16% of the respondents strongly agreed with the idea. Moreover 10% of the respondents strongly disagreed with the statement.  There were 7% of the respondents who were undecided with the question. The respondents know that e-commerce could serve as an innovative tool for acquiring competitive advantage. They have seen the purpose of such technology and they believe that through it the company can gain competitive advantage.

Figure 21

Increase in transaction speed

The figure showed that 82% of the participants believe that e- commerce helps in increasing transaction speed. 10% of the respondents strongly agreed with the idea. 8% of the respondents were undecided with the statement. This shows that the e-commerce can boost the speed of transaction and it leads to more clients being served and less cost for businesses and the government of South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire. The use of e-commerce in transactions results to reduction of expenses in preventing problems and accidents brought about by long lines.

Interview results

The participants stated that they believe that the directors and managers of South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire are facing one common problem and that is their finances. They stated that e-commerce serve as a big solution to such problem.  E-commerce helped in solving caused businesses in South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire’s to have lesser costs. The researchers noted that regarding industry changing marketing modes that South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire tend to use, the respondents have different answers ranging from internet, e-commerce, magazines, websites, exhibitions, e-mail, brochures, displays, seminars, and other advertising strategies. There was one common in all of their answers and that is the use of internet and e-commerce. This means that they believe that these 2 technologies helped in promoting the company and its products well.

 

This also means that the respondents believe that the directors and managers of businesses in South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire are open to the different marketing modes that can be used to promote their respective companies. With regards to the major advertising mode the respondents were united in saying that the internet and e-commerce is considered to be a major advertising mode, this means they were really convinced that the internet and ecommerce can help the company and its products. Although the respondents stated that some of the managers have an alternative major advertising mode which is leaflets they agreed that the internet and e-commerce is a major advertising mode that can help the company achieve the goals it has.

With regards to the major factors that made businesses in South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire go for e-commerce the respondents stated that the director believed that the competition is South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire’s main reason for engaging in e-commerce. The respondents also stated that some of the managers believed that their company used e-commerce because it is a business trend and they had to follow the trend to survive in the market. The respondents said that other managers believed that their company used e-commerce because it costs lower and there was saturation in the market. With regards to the factors taken into account before engaging in e-commerce the respondents stated that cost and advertisement coverage were factors taken into account in using e-commerce. The respondents also added that the graphics and the graphics designer of the e-commerce website is a factor since they have to make sure that the e-commerce website will look good.

 

On the other hand the some of the respondents added other factors such as content of the site, user friendliness of the site and others. One thing the respondents mentioned is that the e-commerce website should not be too complex and it needs to be simple for people to appreciate it more.  The E-commerce website should have lesser instances of improper categorization of the products because it creates difficulties and wastage of time for the customers.  This means that the respondents although having different ideas and desires with regards to the e-commerce are united in saying that any adaptation of e-commerce technologies should be within the company’s cost.

 

Analysis of data

With the use of E-commerce the need for newer technologies may be lessened. This helps South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire minimize its expenses and add more budget to other important things. E-commerce can bring to operational effectiveness to South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire.  E-commerce helps in maintaining the financial and maintenance cost of South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire. Since E-commerce needs lesser budget for maintenance a company can save more finance for other need. E-commerce is more user friendly for South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire than other technologies. Due to various factors and barriers, e-commerce is not necessarily accurate. There are certain times wherein e-commerce doesn’t live up to its expectation. E-commerce may create flaws brought about by the user and other aspects of the environment. There is a higher chance of privacy of data for South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire when e-commerce is used. The respondents believe that e-commerce can provide a safer location for data that is important to the South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire. E-commerce has higher levels of security and privacy that can be used to counter any threats from its environment.

 

When it comes to stability e-commerce is the one that should be used by South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire because it has lesser tendency to commit faults or create malfunctions. E-commerce helps in solving the businesses in South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire’s problems on conducting business transactions and it will help them in solving the transaction related woes they have.  With the use of e- commerce time will not be wasted. E-commerce is helpful and reliable for business in South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire to manage their clients account. E-commerce is vital for people since people can use it whether they are home or in some other place. They don’t have to look for the places where a business is located; people can just surf the net to transact business with a company and they don’t have to leave the comfort of their homes just to transact. E-commerce is easy to learn. The respondents believe that the popularity and availability of internet and e-commerce makes it easy to learn for South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire. The respondents don’t believe that data owned by clients and businesses will not be safe when e- commerce technologies is used. It can be easily corrupted by different people but certain files can be used to counter such threats.   Businesses in South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire don’t have to waste time and energy just to gather data they can use e-commerce to gather the data they need to make decisions pertaining to the company. With e-commerce the process in transaction is lessened thus businesses in South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire can go to other clients while one transaction process with another client is nearing its end.

 

Conclusion for the chapter

The fourth chapter provided a description of the respondent’s idea on various issues that pertains to the impact of e-commerce to South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire. The next chapter will focus on summarizing, concluding and giving recommendation to the study.

 

Chapter 5

Summary, Conclusions and Recommendations

 

This chapter is dedicated to the summarization of the results presented in the previous chapter, as well as the conclusions that can be derived from the gathered and collated data. Recommendations for actions as well as further studies are also included in this chapter. The main objective of the study is directed towards the impact of e-commerce in two contrasting African nations, South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast In the succeeding parts of this chapter the cause of the problems will be discussed and a corresponding recommendation can come out from it.

 

Summary

1. Demographic Data

Majority of the respondents were aged around 32 to 38. This shows that majority of the respondents presumably because of their age were wise enough to decide on the impact of e-commerce in two contrasting African nations, South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast).  A big part of the respondents were aged 25 to 32 years old. Some of the respondents are 39 to 45 years old. There is a small group of respondents aged 45 to 52. Moreover another small group of respondents were aged 52 and above. The smallest group of respondents was 18 to 24 years old. It shows that majority of the respondents are well experienced to give answers to the questions thus giving the information needed for the research. Getting information from an older person gives some assurance that the information received came from the experience of the person. There is a small difference in the participation of male and female participants. It shows that in determining the impact of e-commerce in two contrasting African nations, South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire both gender were willing and have the interest to give their opinion. It also means that the perception in the study will not be biased but instead it will be based on both gender’s point of view. Most of the respondents are married and had gained a lot of maturity and experience. In getting the necessary information it is important to ask persons who are more maturity to prevent being misled.  Most married people are matured and experienced enough to provide necessary information for the study.

 

Majority of the respondents have a college degree. The educational attainment helps in the scope of knowledge and experience the respondents has. It also helps in adjusting to the level of thinking the respondent has. The respondents being in college makes sure that they have a certain level of thinking that can be of great help in the research. Most the respondents have been serving their respective companies for more than 5 years. Some of the respondents have been serving their companies for 4 years. A group of the respondents have been serving their company for 3 years. Respondents who had worked with the company for more than 5 years have observed things that happened in their company and the industry.  They know the effects of certain changes to the industry. They also have an idea on what technologies can be good or bad for the industry. The respondents have an idea on the feelings and ideas of the mangers and other high ranking officials of the company.

1. Respondent’s ideas

Majority of the respondents agreed that the e- commerce provides lesser need for the South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire to use additional technologies to provide product or service. Another group of respondents strongly agreed with the statement. The smallest group of respondents was undecided with the statement. This shows that the respondents believe that with the use of E-commerce the need for newer technologies may be lessened. E-commerce erases the need for determining newer technologies that may cost a lot for the company. This helps the company minimize its expenses and add more budget to other important things in the company. Majority of the respondents disagreed with the idea that e-commerce doesn’t promote operational effectiveness. Another group of respondents strongly disagreed with the statement. A smaller number of respondents were undecided on the statement. Those who agreed with the statement had a lesser number.  This shows that e-commerce can bring to operational effectiveness to South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire.  It shows how valuable such technology is if it is used properly.

 

Majority of the respondents disagreed with the idea that e- commerce increased financial and maintenance cost of South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire.  Another group of respondents agree that e-commerce didn’t increase financial and maintenance cost of UK businesses. A small group of the respondents are undecided on such statement. The respondents think that e-commerce helps in maintaining the financial and maintenance cost of UK businesses. Since E-commerce needs lesser budget for maintenance a company can save more finance for other need.  It makes use of limited cost that enables businesses to save more finances for other parts of their budget. Majority of the respondents agreed that e-commerce is more user friendly for South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire than other technologies. A group of respondents disagreed that e-commerce is more user friendly for South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire than other technologies. A small group of the respondents were undecided on the statement.  The respondents believe that e-commerce is more user friendly for South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire than other technologies. The other technologies will have to be given careful study by the business before its full potential can be used while e- commerce is popular and more easy to use thus lesser time will be wasted on determining how to use such technology. The e-commerce is also adaptable to the needs of its users thus the business doesn’t have to adjust to this kind of technology.

 

Majority of the respondents were undecided on e-commerce have high levels of accuracy. A group of respondents disagreed that e-commerce have high levels of accuracy. A small group of the respondents agreed that e-commerce have high levels of accuracy. A smaller group of respondents strongly agreed that e-commerce have high levels of accuracy. The smallest group of respondents disagreed with the statement that e-commerce have high levels of accuracy. Due to various factors and barriers, e-commerce is not necessarily accurate. There are certain times wherein e-commerce doesn’t live up to its expectation.  E-commerce may create flaws brought about by the user and other aspects of the environment. Majority of the respondents agreed that e-commerce is good for keeping the data of businesses in South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire private. A group of respondents strongly agreed with the statement. A small group of the respondents are undecided with the statement. The respondents believe that there is a higher chance of privacy of data for businesses in South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire when e-commerce is used. The respondents believe that e-commerce can provide a safer location for data that is important to the business. Majority of the respondents agreed that e-commerce have a more powerful security measure. A group of respondents strongly agreed with the statement that e-commerce have a more reliable security measure. A smaller group of respondents are undecided on this statement.  The respondents believe that e-commerce has higher levels of security and privacy that can be used to counter any threats from its environment.

 

Majority of the respondents disagreed with the statement that e-commerce has more stability issues. A group of respondents agreed with the statement. A smaller group of the respondents were undecided on the statement.  This shows that the respondents believe that when it comes to stability e-commerce is the one that should be used by businesses in South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire because it has lesser tendency to commit faults or create malfunctions. Majority of the respondents believe that the e-commerce will make it easier for South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire to conduct their transactions. A group of respondent strongly agrees that the e-commerce will make it easier for businesses to conduct their business transactions. A part of the respondents are neutral or undecided on the statement. E-commerce can help the South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire alter the way business transpires; this leads to faster delivery of services. Majority of the respondents believe that E commerce helps in making sure clients save time from visiting branches to handle business activities without having to wait for the company’s staff at service counters. A group of respondents strongly agree to such statement. A smaller group of the respondents were neutral or undecided on the idea that that E commerce helps in making sure clients save time from visiting branches to handle business activities without having to wait for the company’s staff at service counters.

 

The respondents believe that with the use of e- commerce time will not be wasted. They can transact their business with business without thinking about the different activities that they have to go through in a certain business. They also don’t have to waste some of their time in going to a certain branch and go through long lines. They also don’t have to worry about waiting for the business staff at service counters if the staffs are attending to other people or are busy doing something else. Majority of the respondents believe that the e-commerce allows business in South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire to manage a clients’ account 24 hours a day from anywhere. Some of the respondents strongly agreed with the statement. A smaller group of the respondents were undecided or neutral with the statement. The result shows that the respondents believe that e-commerce is helpful and reliable for business in South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire to manage their clients account. It also shows that e-commerce can help business in South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire to manage the account of their clients 24 hours a day without worrying about the different problems they might face. This shows that e-commerce is vital for people since people can use it whether they are home or in some other place. They don’t have to look for the places where a business is located; people can just surf the net to transact business with a company and they don’t have to leave the comfort of their homes just to transact. Majority of the respondents disagreed that E- commerce is not easy to learn. Some of the respondents strongly disagreed with the idea that E-commerce is easy to learn. A smaller group of respondents were undecided with the statement. In every street or corner there is an internet shop that people use, this internet shops help in training the people to use such technology. It also gives them ideas on the changes that happen on such technology.

 

The respondents believe that E- commerce is easy to learn. The respondents believe that the popularity and availability of internet and e-commerce makes it easy to learn for South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire. They don’t have to adjust when using the said technology. Majority of the respondents disagree that E- commerce does not help in keeping data safe. A group of respondents strongly disagreed with the question. A smaller group of the respondents were undecided with the question. The respondents don’t believe that data owned by clients and businesses will not be safe when e- commerce technologies is used. The internet can be a dangerous place for files to be transmitted or kept. It can be easily corrupted by different people but certain files can be used to counter such threats.  Businesses and their clients have many kinds of files that are important and when it is placed online some unscrupulous persons might attempt to steal it for their own satisfaction or need. The e-commerce can have protective systems that prevent files to be acquired by unauthorized people. The stealing of files can be prevented by certain Soft wares and programs that can be used to block unauthorized transactions.  This kind of programs can be easily found on different venues and different companies offer anti spy ware programs with various capacities. Anti hacking systems can block any attempts by other people to get information from the business or their client. It has certain functions that block suspicious codes and it warns the owner of the files about the suspicious codes.

 

Majority of the respondents believe that through e-commerce needed data can be easily acquired. A group of respondents disagreed with this statement. Moreover a smaller group of the respondents were undecided with the idea. This shows that majority of the respondents believe that through e-commerce needed data can be easily acquired. They believe that such factor will help them save time and energy.  South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire don’t have to waste time and energy just to gather the all kinds of data they need; they can use e-commerce to gather the data they need to make decisions pertaining to local and international issues. The businesses in South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire can use e-commerce to gather information from their clients, this information will be used to correct any misunderstanding towards the client and this can help the company provide a better service to their clients.   Majority of the respondents believe that e-commerce could serve as an innovative tool for acquiring competitive advantage. Some of the respondents disagree with the idea. A small group of respondents strongly agreed with the idea. Moreover a smaller group of respondents strongly disagreed with the statement. The smallest group of respondents were undecided with the belief that e-commerce could serve as an innovative tool for acquiring competitive advantage.

 

The respondents know that e-commerce could serve as an innovative tool for acquiring competitive advantage. The respondents believe that through e-commerce a company and the state can gain competitive advantage not only when it comes to local business competition but to international competition as well.  Majority of the participants believe that e- commerce helps in increasing transaction speed. Some of the respondents strongly agreed with the idea. The smallest group of the respondents was undecided with the statement. This shows that the e-commerce can boost the speed of transaction and it leads to more clients being served. With e-commerce the process in transaction is lessened thus the company can go to other clients while one transaction process with another client is nearing its end. With this process more clients get to be satisfied by the company because there will be smaller waiting time for the clients thus their time will not be wasted.

Conclusion

The impact of e-commerce  in two contrasting African nations, South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire involves the reduced need for newer technologies; operational effectiveness to South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire and the businesses in those two countries; improved ways to maintain the financial and maintenance cost of South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire and the businesses in those two countries; higher chance of privacy of data; higher levels of security and privacy that can be used to counter any threats from its environment, the reduction of the problems on conducting transactions; the reduced wastage of  time; the ability of businesses in South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire to manage their clients account; the capacity for South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire to easily acquire needed data; the chance for South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire to save time and energy; and the chance to speed up transaction and serve the needs of more people. These impacts of e-commerce to the two contrasting African nations, South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire are a big factor in changing the identity of both nations. Through the abovementioned impacts both countries are steering away from the negative implications of them and it attracts investors to put up businesses that will help South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire in acquiring economic development. The impacts of e-commerce to the two African nations prove that the literatures on the impact of information systems, the internet and e-commerce are really transpiring in developing countries.  The literatures gave theoretical examples of how the internet created changes while the result of the study gave actual accounts of the changes.

 

Recommendations

The findings of the study as well as the suggestions of the respondents helped in preparing the following recommendations:

1. Since this is a pilot study further study should be done to dig deeper into the issues and determine the other impacts of e-commerce to South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire.
2. South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire and businesses in those countries should take advantage of the benefits of E-commerce and make optimum use of its capabilities. This technology in general can help the company achieve its goals and provide better services to the clients.
3. E-commerce continues to improve and its capacities continue to widen, South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire and businesses in those countries should take advantage of this phenomena so that they can reach for their maximum potential as a state and organization.
4. Future research should be done on other systems that can be useful to most South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire and businesses in those countries; these systems should create drastic changes to the procedures and operations of the countries and businesses operating in that region.
5. Future research should also be done to strategies that are used to counter the negative effects of using E-commerce technology.

 

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