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Electronic Commerce & E-Business
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Overview: E-commerce are transactions conducted over networks across organizational boundaries. The traditional types of e-commerce are those that involve transactions between business and consumers (B2C) and between business partners (B2B).4 Information and Communications Technology (ICT) has changed the rules of the global economy. The idea that many of today's business successes in world are small companies with flexible and high speed responses to the demands of markets and their clients is in stark contrast to the traditional factors related to a company's size and capital. In the new global economy ICT is considered an essential tool in linking Mongolia, particularly business community with the global economy. This makes Mongolia more competitive in both local and international markets. ICT is turning the country's disadvantages; landlocked, remote areas with small population into advantages. Advantages are possible as we continue to develop an economy based on knowledge and information technology. The Government of Mongolia pays serious attention to ICT sector by considering it as an economic key sector in the 21st century. ICT Committee represented by members from the Government, science organizations, and business community chaired by Prime Minister have been formed and been working on the long term program on development of ICT sector in Mongolia. E-commerce in Mongolia In 1997, government program on Establishment of Wholesale Network has been developed to be a B2B e-commerce system that supplies consumer goods to the people in the rural areas and raw materials to the industry. Success of the Government program for establishing the wholesale network will depend on the development of its B2B e-commerce. E-commerce development will bring its input in implementation of national priorities that could foster and emulate the human development outcomes and will render assistance in improving living standards of Mongolian citizens and also in reducing economic vulnerabilities. This in affect will increase the living standards of Mongolian population in rural area. The project objective is to ensure that there will be a formed operational wholesale information network connecting provinces, cities, and rural areas that provide real time trade. The trade is related to data exchange between suppliers and buyers and e-commerce environment with its appropriate components with gateway to international network. The project is to establish inter-media oriented market placing B2B e-commerce service centre that would support e-commerce trading actions. Participating companies in wholesale trading actions would have accesses to B2B service centre database through the Internet. B2B Service Centre will be a business organization financed with membership fees of registered companies at the centre and transaction commissions. It is estimated that $120,000 (USD) is necessary for establishment of B2B Service Centre as an initial investment for a year term. The Centre will have an international Internet access. Some of the business entities have set up e-commerce system of B2C for their commercial actions. For instance, approximately 10 companies created their online shopping for their retail sales. Since August 2002, banks of Golomt and Capitron have commenced providing Internet banking services to the customers in Mongolia. Over the last couple of years, the growth of the Mongolian domestic IT industry has led more and more firms to use ICT in their business activities, enabling them to move into e-commerce and e-banking.7 Software and Hardware Current
status and prospects of e-commerce ICT Committee represented by members from the Government, science organizations and business community and chaired by Prime Minister have been formed and been working on the medium term program on development of ICT sector in the country. Government program on Establishment of Wholesale Network is a supply chain or B2B e-commerce system that supplies consumer goods to the rural people and raw materials to the industry. Success of the Government program for establishing the
wholesale network will depend on development of its information component or in
other word its B2B e-commerce. E-commerce development will bring its input in
implementation of national priorities that could foster and emulate the
excellent human development outcomes and will render assistance in improving
living standards of Mongolian citizens and in reducing economic
vulnerabilities. Some of the business entities have set up e-commerce
system of B2C for their commercial actions. For instance around 10 companies
created their online shopping for their retail sales. Since August 2002, banks
of Golomt and Capitron have
commenced providing Internet banking services to the customers.15 |
hese kinds of goods are low due to the ICT policies of the government. Hence, purchasing IT products in the country is easy and prices are relatively low. The majority of small businesses have at least one computer which is used for word processing and spreadsheet purposes and in retail related businesses as cheap point of sales terminals. On the other hand mid-size to large-size businesses tend to have a computer for each employee and servers running e-mail systems as well as departmental databases. The majority of PCs owned by small and mid-sized businesses are “generic”, i.e., assembled from purchased parts. At the same time, larger businesses tend to buy brand name computers. Computer networks are very common in mid-sized to large size businesses, while they are almost non-existent in small businesses. There are very few mainframes in operation in the country which are owned by government institutions and state universities.