Effects of Technology on Business

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To what extent have technological advances affected businesses?

Written by Courtney Cox

Contents:

• Introduction
• E-Commerce
• Communication
• Self-Service Checkouts
• Conclusion
• Bibliography

Introduction:

The complexities of technology and the ways in which it affects the ever-changing business industry is, to me, a very intriguing aspect. This is why during this assignment I will be discussing the uses of E-commerce (‘A method of buying and selling goods and services over the internet’)^[1], Web conferencing (‘A form of real time communication, RTC, in which multiple computer users, all connected to the internet see the same at all times in their web browsers‘)^[2], social media (‘Websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking. ‘)^[3] and a variety of other technological advances and the ways in which they have affected the day-to-day running and development of businesses.

E-commerce:

Firstly, I would like to mention the idea that the public has become more reliant on the use of technology which is shown by the percentage of adults using the internet in order to purchase goods and services online which has risen from 53% in 2008 to 74% during 2014^[4].  In the meantime, a total of 5,839 high street stores have shut down with only 4,852 opening. The stores amongst those most affected were mobile phone shops which had 419 closures and outlets for cheque cashing were also affected with 117 closures. 

Reasons for this may be due to the increased availability to research and order mobiles online, as well as the increased use of online banking which means that people are less reliant on visiting stores for processing cheques as money can be transferred easily over the internet.[pic 3]

Within some market sectors, stores did open with the largest being  charity shops with 64 stores opening, followed closely by the opening of 62 coffee shops^[5], this may be due to more items being donated to charities for them to sell and, coffee shops are becoming more desirable within society with Starbucks coffee being 52nd on the list of the world’s top 100 brands^[6].This suggests that high street retailers are finding it increasingly difficult to compete with the continually growing number of online retailers.