8/11/2025

Course:
E – commerce Strategy

3 credits

Learning outcome

• Understand about uncertainty impact on process of making

strategies
• Understand digital/e –commerce strategy
• How to develop e – commerce strategy
• Analyze internet environment impacts on company’s
business
• Apply internal, external environment analysis framework

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Chapters
• Chapter 1: Overview of business strategies in e-commerce
• Chapter 2: Defining tasks and goals in e-commerce
business strategy
• Chapter 3: Impact of the Internet and modern electronic
media on the e-business environment
• Chapter 4: Identifying core competencies and competitive
advantages in e-commerce business strategy
• Chapter 5: Market and business strategy in e-commerce
• Chapter 6: Value chain and business strategy in e-commerce
• Chapter 7: Planning, selecting and implementing business
strategies in e-commerce

Reading materials
• M. Porter, 2001, Strategy and the Internet, Havard Business
Review
• Enders, Alberecht. J,T. Matinezes, F. Joses; 2014,
Strategies for e – business: creating value through
electronic commerce, Publisher:
• Chafley, Dave, 2015, Digital business and E – commerce
management _ Strategy, Implementation and practice,
Pearson Education
• Report (updated industry data) (follow EC framework)
 Logistics sector
 Hail riding sector
 Online payment method
 IT infrastructure
 E/C industry (google temasek, iprice…)

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Course evaluation

• Midterm test (individual): 20%

• Group assignment: 20%
• Attendance: 10%
• Final exam: 50%

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Group assignment guide

• 06/08 groups
• Select E-C company
• Develop strategy
• Develop business strategy

The EC Framework

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Source of data
• Digital economy reports 2024
• Google Temasek report
• EBI (vecom)
• Import – export reports (for cross border commerce)
• Digital marketing reports
• Internet statistic reports 2024

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Overview of business strategy in

EC
Chapter 1

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What is strategy
• What is strategy
 Defines how company will meet objectives
 Sets allocation of resources to meet goals
 Selects preferred strategic option to compete within a
market
 Provide a long-term plan for the development of the
organization
• Strategy: DO THE RIGHT THING
• Operational excellent: Doing something well

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What is strategy?
• Strategy is concerned with the long-term direction of the
firm
• Strategy deals with the overall plan for deploying the
resources that a firm possesses.
• Strategy entails the willingness to make trade-offs, to
choose between different directions and between different
ways of deploying resources
• Strategy is about achieving unique positioning vis-à-vis
competitors
• The central goal of strategy is to achieve sustainable
competitive advantage over rivals and thereby to ensure
lasting profitability

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Digital business strategy

• Digital business strategies share much in common with
corporate, business and marketing strategies. These
quotes summarising the essence of strategy could
equally apply to each strategy:
 ‘Is based on current performance in the marketplace.’
 ‘Defines how we will meet our objectives.’
 ‘Sets allocation of resources to meet goals.’
 Selects preferred strategic options to compete within a market
 Provides a long-term plan for the development of the
organization
 Identifies competitive advantage through developing an
appropriate positioning relative to competitors defining a value
proposition delivered to customer segments.’

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Digital commerce strategy

A digital commerce strategy is a comprehensive plan that

guides a business in leveraging online channels to sell
products or services, improve customer experience, and
expand market reach. It involves making strategic decisions
about various aspects of online sales, including choosing the
right platform, optimizing product pages, managing marketing
activities, and analyzing performance. Essentially, it's a
blueprint for maximizing online sales and achieving overall
business goals
Developing an e-business strategy requires a fusion of existing
approaches to business, marketing, supply chain management
and information systems strategy development

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Digital channel strategies

• Digital channel strategies: Define how a company should set
specific objectives and develop specific differential strategies for
communicating with its customers and partners through electronic
media
• An important aspect of digital business strategies is that they create
new ‘e-channel strategies’ for organisations
• E-channel strategies define specific goals and approaches for using
electronic channels.
• Examples of digital channel strategies include:
 Overarching digital channel or multichannel strategy with specific channel
strategies
 Mobile commerce strategy
 Social media strategy
 Social CRM strategy
 Supply chain or enterprise resource planning strategy
 E-procurement strategy
 OMNI channel

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Relationship between digital business strategy

with other strategies

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Strategy levels

4 levels of strategy

• Corporate strategy which is concerned with the overall purpose and

scope of the organization
• Business unit strategy which defines how to compete successfully in
a particular market
• Operational strategies which are concerned with achieving corporate
and business unit strategies
• Functional strategies describe how the corporate and business unit
strategies will be operationalised in different functional areas or
business processes
• Functional or process strategies refer to marketing, supply chain
management, human resources, finance and information systems
strategies

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Business level strategies

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• Strategic decisions involve choices that might not take effect until sometime in
the future
• High degree of uncertainty regarding future developments, especially in the e-
business environment where technologies and business models change rapidly,
making long-term commitments to a strategy is a difficult challenge
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Using internet to support different growth

strategies

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E – business strategy framework

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Example of EC strategy

• user-generated content has become a critical success factor of some of

the well-known e-business companies, such as YouTube, MySpace,
Facebook and Twitter
• Microsoft was accused of violat ing its dominant position in the
operating systems market by leveraging it to move into other software
markets at the expense of competitors
• Google has been criticised for a similar dominance in the online
advertising market

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Example of strategy by group

• Work in group
• Find company in the area of E-commerce
 Company follow B2B commerce (Alibaba, global source…)
 Company follow advertising revenue model (google,
facebook..)
 Company follow subscription revenue model (Netflix,
Spotify…)
 Company follow sharing economy model (grab, uber…)
 Company follow B2C e-marketplace
 …..
• Note down their strategy

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What happens if there is no digital business strategy

• Missed opportunities for additional sale

• Fall behind competitors (cost, service…)
• Poor customer experience, customer journey

• Digital business creates business value

 Adding value
 Reduce costs
 Manage risks
 Create new reality

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A generic strategy process model

Our world today

VUCA, BANI, TUNA, RUPT

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VUCA

BANI

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