The world of business is changing. e-business and outsourcing are the two most obvious expressions of this change. The trigger for the change owes its origin to both internal and external forces.
Internally, it is the business firm’s own quest for improvement and efficiency that has propelled it into e-business and outsourcing. Externally, the ever mounting competitive pressures and ever demanding customers have been the force behind the change.
Electronic mode of doing business, or e-business as it is referred to, presents the firm with promising opportunities for anything, anywhere and anytime to its customers, thereby, dismantling the time and space or locational constraints on its performance. Though e-business is high-tech, it suffers from the limitation of being low in personal touch. The customers as a result do not get attended to on an interpersonal basis. Besides, there are concerns over security of e-transactions and privacy of those who transact business over the internet. The benefits of e-commerce also seem to have accrued unevenly across countries and across regions within a country.
Apart from becoming digital, the firms are also resorting to a departure from the erstwhile do it all by yourself mindset. They are increasingly contracting out manufacturing, R and D as well as of business processes irrespective of whether these are IT enabled or not. India is riding high on the global outsourcing business and has gained considerably in terms of employment generation, capability building and contribution to exports and GDP.
Together, the two trends of e-business and outsourcing are reshaping the way business is and will be conducted. Interestingly, both e-business and outsourcing are continuing to evolve, and that is why these are referred to as the emerging modes of business.