Present status and critical success factors of e-Commerce in Bangladesh

Abstract

Online trading between businesses or individuals has employed attention of corporations worldwide as they are challenged to remain viable through difficult economic conditions. Despite the losses of so many businesses two years ago when the “dot-com bubble” burst, no serious business analyst disagrees that electronic commerce is steadily transforming how business is done, hence changing the business environment globally. Businesses everywhere need to understand if, when and how to use electronic commerce. The organizational factors, which are critical to the success of e-commerce, are investigated in this research. Different pieces of literature report different factors as key to success and generally based on subjective, perceptual data. A synthesis of existing literature is a basis for survey questions. The data is collected from Bangladesh e-commerce based organizations who are offering their goods & services on electronic channels, using postal questionnaires and Interview technique. The top factors found to be most critical for the success in e-commerce are: quick responsive products/services, organizational flexibility, services expansion, systems integration and enhanced customer service. An important lesson from this research is that organizations need to view the e-commerce initiative as a business critical area rather that just a technical issue. They need to give attention to internal integration, which may include channels, technology and business process integration, and improving the overall services to their customers.