(BMG814) Understanding digital enterprise and E-Business in the digital enterprise assignment and noting the implications of E-Business on global trade

Question

Task: Can you conduct a critical appreciation of the process of IT enabled change and the role of the IT manager as a change agent in your digital enterprise assignment?

Answer

Question 1: Does the huge growth in ‘Online shopping’ really mean the extinction of the traditional ‘high street’ store…or can Alibaba’s ‘New Retail’ help them to successfully co-exist? As per the digitalenterprise assignment online shopping has increased in the last five decades which is responsible for the changes in the purchase habits of consumers (Li 2019). It is found in this digital enterprise assignment that people are considering online shopping more convenient than offline shopping and that is why the increasing rate of online purchasing is growing day by day. However it does not mean in the digital enterprise assignment that the entire practice of purchasing goods from traditional shops is completely shuttered. There are a huge number of consumers who still prefer offline shopping but there is a certain decrease in shopping from the offline stores observed. However, the “New Retail” initiative taken by Alibaba is helping the traditional High Street stores to sustain in the era of digitalized activities to safeguard them to be instincts. Some of the initiatives of Alibaba are remarkable which are drawing the attention of online shoppers toward offline shopping (Shucui, Jinjun and Hongli 2020)

Alibaba is a digital platform that is one of the leading e-commerce industries worldwide.
However, in order to incorporate the new retail initiative,digitalenterprise assignment has seen that this organization has changed the monotonous offline shopping experience of the customers into some interesting activities. According to this initiative, the traditional offline shops are remodeled into modern off-line shops where the customers are getting the facilities of some digital technologies (Mancini 2020).

Alibaba has also introduced one of the most modernly quiet grocery shops which is associating offline purchasers with some modern technology-oriented facilities. Here the customers get fresh foods such as sea foods or other fruits and vegetables which are delivered to the hand of the customers in some lucrative recipe and the customers experience a most fascinating offline retail purchase. In this retail shop of Alibaba, the customers can scan the products with the help of their mobile phones and put orders standing in the shop which helps them to visit the entire shopping mall for the search of a single food item (Kim et al. 2019).

On the other hand of the digitalenterprise assignment, the monotonous experience of offline shopping such as standing in a long queue to get the food products from the counter or pay the bill at the cash counter has changed into a digital method inside the retail shop itself. Alibaba is the most famous e-commerce platform. The initiative of this organization to re-modify the offline shops equipped with digital innovation is remarkable and unique. Alibaba is providing the facilities of choosing the fresh seafood from their retail shop and after cooking those purchased sea foods such as fish, crabs, and lobsters at the restaurant of the respective organization cooks that food for the customers and delivers it to the doorstep of the customers which is providing the consumers both the facilities of offline and online purchasing at the same time. Digitalenterprise assignmentis helping the consumers to sustain their purchase habits from offline stores besides buying goods from online platforms (Kim et al. 2019). This is how the online shopping platforms are becoming popular among consumers as well as the big retail stores of the supermarkets are also able to sustain the competition with the online platforms. As per the digitalenterprise assignmentAlibaba is playing a very major role to remodel the offline stores according to the choice of the modern customers.

Question 2: 5 New technologies and advantages and disadvantages of each technologymentioned in the digitalenterprise assignment
The changes in retail shops are majorly observed in the last 10 years and every corner of the retail shop has changed with the help of innovative technologies. The retail stores are themselves modified like websites which is one of the most important reasons for the attention of modern consumers to retail stores. The things which were not possible manually by the retailers have become successful with the implementation of some technologies and some of the technologies are discussed in this digitalenterprise assignment. there are five biggest technology is which are changing the shopping experience of the retail customers and those are discussed in this digitalenterprise assignment:

Beacons:
Beacon is a modern technology that is increasing the shopping experience of the customers with the help of technology while they are physically present at the retail stores. It is a wireless device that is very small and it transmits some radio signals which help to detect the ID of the smartphone of the customers. This technology uses cloud-based servers and the consumers get the entire application of this technology on their smartphones which helps them to reach the retail items directly without wandering here and there inside the shopping mall directly. The advantage of this technology is it helps the customers to specifically search for their needed items (Jayananda et al. 2018). However, there is a disadvantage of this technology as per the digitalenterprise assignment, which is this device has a transmitter in it that can be able to scan the personal documents stored in personal gadgets such as mobile phones of the consumers. It may be the reason for the exposure of confidential documents and other things such as images or personal account details of the customers which is not at all wished by the customers (Jayananda et al. 2018).

Facial recognition
Facial recognition is an application that is used by modern flying retailers to detect regular purchases and to provide them with some facilities while they are physically present in the supermarket or shopping malls. The advantage of this technology mentioned in the digitalenterprise assignmentis that it differentiates the regular practices from rare purchases and also gates some discounts or other facilities such as surprise gifts and rivers from the retailers (Kirkpatrick, 2020). On the contrary the digitalenterprise assignment mentions, there is an extremely dangerous disadvantage of this technology that is being detected by the people with wrong intentions. Sometimes the facial features of the rich customers are tracked and leaked by some of the employees to the criminals. It helps them to detect the particular person from a crowded place which may be the reason for targeting or kidnapping that particular rich person (Kirkpatrick, 2020).

Robot assistants in digitalenterprise assignment
In modern shopping malls or retail stores instead of retail staff, robots are assisting the customers while they are shopping inside the mall. The machine is more efficient and manual effort is limited in front of it which helps offline customers to complete their shopping faster and easier (Mahmoud, Tehseen and Fuxman 2020). This is the advantage of robot assistants as per digitalenterprise assignment. However, there may be some programs that are not installed in the programming system of robots and some of the customers take the advantage of using these loopholes which may be the reason for loss for the retail shop (Mahmoud, Tehseen and Fuxman, 2020).

Smart mirrors in digitalenterprise assignment
Smart mirrors are a technology that helps the customers who are shopping in a retail fashion store to portray their looks without changing clothes with the help of technology when they click on the photograph of apparel. It is an advantage for the purchasers because they do not have to go to the trial room several times to check their looks with the particular cloth (Ogunjimi et al. 2021). It is an advantage of artificial intelligence. The disadvantage of this technology is it can store the virtual picture of the users which can be published on social media or other digital platforms without the permission of the person which can create some disturbance in their personal lives (Ogunjimi et al. 2021).

Auto check out
Auto checks out are a process of payment that is also supported by digital technology such as robot support. A person is able to pay online with the help of this technology without standing in the longest queue at the cash counter. This is advantageous to saving the crucial time of the customers (Mukerjee, Deshmukh, and Prasad 2019). However, it is having some disadvantages because the digital hacking of the personal account of the users makes it very easy for digital hackers. Sometimes as per the digitalenterprise assignmentcollecting information from the auto check out Technology the digital robbers rob the bank accounts of the customers.

Question 3: How the future supermarket would look like and what should it contain
The digital store of 2020 should be completely different from the department stores of the last decade as Technology has conquered the psychology of the customers. On the other hand, the entire design planning and navigation of the stores should be customer-centric so that the entire purchase experience of the customers should be very engaging, drawing their attention to repeat purchases from the digital shopping mall, supermarket, or retail store. The planning of the digital stores of 2020 should be smart and strategic from the aspect of navigation (Liu et al. 2020). The car parking system of these stores as per the digitalenterprise assignmentshould be very smooth for the customers so that there should not be extra charges to park their vehicles while purchasing their necessary goods. The ATM or medical shop should be projected at the first corner of the stores so that the consumer should not wander here and there at the time of monetary or medical emergency (Liu et al. 2020). The center of the digital store should be designed with a beautiful and large food court which will be the main attraction of the mall for the customers of different age groups.

The stores as per the digitalenterprise assignmentshould be equipped with the help of modern technology such as robot assistance online payment systems and home delivery of the products they are purchasing if they are not able to carry the items with them at that respective time (Thomas and Shivani 2020). Moreover, the digital stores of 2020 are supposed to focus on the requirements of the customers more than other necessities because the giant retailers of the UK and the USA are developing digital improvements day by day which is decreasing the effort of the customers. The digitalenterprise assignment suggests, there should be some more facilities for the customers such as theater and play-stations for the kids who draw the attention of the customers towards the shopping malls even if they don't need to visit the store to purchase anything but to take the facilities of these recreations (Thomas and Shivani 2020). Clubs for the adults and gyms for the health freak people should be projected at a particular corner of these stores to increase the popularity of the organizations better than the previous time which are some necessary and unique strategies to be an ideal digital storefor 2020.

Question 4: What are the ethical considerations around businesses knowing every place we visit
Location-based marketing is now a popular digital marketing process that is visible in the marketing activities of almost all small and big organizations (Bleier, Goldfarb and Tucker 2020). People use different types of applications on their smartphones and these applications often ask for the allow option to track the location of the user, especially if it is a case of purchasing or selling. In order to increase the visibility of the application, these organizations randomly ask to allow access to the location of the users and almost 100% of the users allow tracking of their location. According to different survey activities of digitalenterprise assignment, 50% of the users agree with the ethical consideration of accessing their location, 27% of the users focus on the necessity and if it is good and beneficial for them they agree with the policy to consider it ethical (Bleier, Goldfarb and Tucker 2020). The rest of the people do not agree with the policy as it may become the reason for their harassment or their personal information may be revealed in front of strangers. In this digitalenterprise assignment, a discussion is going to be done on location-based marketing is about connecting people places, and media considering the business knows every place people visit.

Some people are very concerned about the privacy of their location and other documents available on their smart-phone and do not want to share them with any other organization. According to digitalenterprise assignment, they do not want to be visible by these media while they are changing their location. A digitalenterprise assignmentexample, if a customer is visiting an offline store of a special brand in a shopping mall and tracking his location the organization is sending a message to his phone number or the application about any lucrative discount on the same product he is purchasing. Sometimes some rewards or special gifts are also offered to the customer whom the offline Store is not providing. This is an unethical sort of marketing which is exploiting the privacy of the customer at the time of his purchase.

Location-based marketing sometimes tracks the psychology of the customers which is considered by them unethical. People often visit restaurants or food courts at the weekend and when they leave the place they get a message from the authority as a token of welcome which is evidence of tracking their personal details as per the digitalenterprise assignment. This is hampering the confidentiality of personal details such as bank account details, personal contacts, and other identity proofs such as passports or licenses. People save these on their phones as they think those documents are supposed to be confidential to them. However, for the random allowance of the location option, these are getting revealed in front of some other community which is not ethical. The autonomy of people is disturbed due to this random digital marketing process due to the interference of the different applications in their personal gadgets or devices. It is seen in the digitalenterprise assignment people store many confidential documents and personal images and videos in their personal gadgets such as mobiles or tablets. Due to this location-based marketing the applications are randomly accessing the confidential data stored in the personal devices of the users which is not only hampering their autonomy but also people facing risks to the chances of licking those documents (Harris, Ciorciari and Gountas 2018). This is unethical to sustain the autonomy of people's personal life as well as confidential documents for location-based digital marketing. People use their mobile phones to access their bank accounts which is their most confidential credential according to the digitalenterprise assignment. The electronic passbook or different kinds of money apps are installed on the mobile phones of the users. Due to the location tracking the digital hackers are getting a huge chance to get access to the bank account details of people and these are robbed by the digital robbers which is the most unfortunate and unethical part of location-based marketing (Harris, Ciorciari and Gountas 2018). It is evident from the digitalenterprise assignment the ethical consideration of location-based marketing is underrated among the users due to this leakage of confidential things.

Location-based marketing is increasing the visibility of the brands in front of the consumers. However, the transparencies of these applications are proved derogatory to the users several times. At the present time people are not very interested in allowing the location because of these unethical activities mentioned in thedigitalenterprise assignment. If the process is performed with more security then it will be a good marketing activity for the organizations.

Reference
Bleier, A., Goldfarb, A. and Tucker, C., 2020. Consumer privacy and the future of data-based innovation and marketing in digitalenterprise assignment. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 37(3), pp.466-480.
Harris, J.M., Ciorciari, J. and Gountas, J., 2018. Consumer neuroscience for marketing researchers. Journal of consumer behaviour, 17(3), pp.239-252.
Jayananda, P.K.V., Seneviratne, D.H.D., Abeygunawardhana, P., Dodampege, L.N. and Lakshani, A.M.B., 2018, December. Augmented Reality Based Smart Supermarket System with Indoor Navigation using Beacon Technology (Easy Shopping Android Mobile App). In 2018 IEEE International Conference on Information and Automation for Sustainability (ICIAfS) (pp. 1-6). IEEE.
Kim, J.R., Chan, S., Huang, X., Ng, K., Fu, L.P. and Zhao, C., 2019, May. Demonstration of refinity: an interactive holographic signage for new retail shopping experience. In Extended Abstracts of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-4).
Kirkpatrick, K., 2020. Tracking shoppers in digitalenterprise assignment. Communications of the ACM, 63(2), pp.19-21. Li, F., 2019. Cloud-native database systems at Alibaba: Opportunities and challenges. Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment, 12(12), pp.2263-2272.
Liu, X., Jiang, Y., Kim, K.H. and Govindan, R., 2020. Grab: Fast and accurate sensor processing for cashier-free shopping. arXiv preprint arXiv:2001.01033.
Mahmoud, A.B., Tehseen, S. and Fuxman, L., 2020. The dark side of artificial intelligence in retail innovation. In Retail Futures (pp. 165-180). Emerald Publishing Limited.
Mancini, D., 2020. New Retail in China: is it really new? An overlook on the Chinese retail sector transformation. Mukerjee, H.S., Deshmukh, G.K. and Prasad, U.D., 2019. Technology readiness and likelihood to use self-checkout services using smartphone in retail grocery stores: Empirical evidences from digitalenterprise assignment. Business Perspectives and Research, 7(1), pp.1-15.

Ogunjimi, A., Rahman, M., Islam, N. and Hasan, R., 2021. Smart mirror fashion technology for the retail chain transformation. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 173, p.121118. Shucui, W., Jinjun, Y. and Hongli, W., 2020. Research on the reconstruction of consumers, goods and scenes in new retail based on new technology. IET Smart Cities, 2(3), pp.122-125. Thomas, M.R. and Shivani, M.P., 2020. Customer Profiling of Alpha: The Next Generation Marketing in digitalenterprise assignment. Ushus Journal of Business Management, 19(1), pp.75-86.