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Introduction

The cutting edge for business today is e-commerce. Most people think e-commerce means online shopping. But web shopping is only a small part of the picture. The term also refers to online stock, bond transactions, buying and downloading software without ever going to a store.

The effects of e-commerce are already appearing in all areas of business, from customer service to new product design. It facilitates new types of information based business processes for reaching and interacting with customers - online advertising and marketing, online order taking and online customer service etc. It can also reduce costs in managing orders and interacting with a wide range of suppliers and trading and trading partners, areas that typically add significant overheads to the cost of products and services.

E-commerce is generally described as a method of buying and selling products and services electronically. The main vehicle of e-commerce remains the Internet and the World Wide Web, but uses of e-mail, fax and telephone orders are also prevalent.

Broadband policy and other initiatives by the IT and Telecom Ministry encourage increased adoption. A monthly broadband subscription costs as little as Rs.199. A second factor is the IT Telecom Ministry initiative to make computers available for purchase under 10,000 rupees. In addition to it, the organization continues to push development of language fonts to remove language and localization of content issues.

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* Contributed by: -
Pankaj Kumar & Sameer S. Saigaonkar,
Batch of 2006-2008,
National Institute of Industrial Engineering, Mumbai.