Impact of Internet on Business – Importance and Significance of Internet in the Business aspects

Regards to all! Well, as you all know Internet plays a major role in our lives. Nowadays, The harsh reality is that people can live without their families but can’t live without the internet. But speaking of its pros. The worldwide influence of the internet is well-established and acknowledged. In recent times, the penetration rate of the internet has been phenomenal. As almost 1/3rd of the human population is connected with the internet daily. The impact of internet on business, both positive and negative, is phenomenal. Do you agree? Well, 90% of the businessmen agreed to this fact!

Whether you are a startup or a small business, an online store or an enterprise, the internet or social media is vital for your business marketing strategy. The conduction of business in this digital era has changed due to the fair amount of people logged on to the Internet. Nowadays, a business is no longer dependent on its local customer base for survival, it has a worldwide audience available for its goods and services.

The Internet has not only changed its business customer base. But also how a business communicates with its employees and manages the competition. With the internet becoming a powerful tool day by day for its user, the impact of internet on business is undeniable. Let’s start analyzing the facts that impact the business through the Internet.

Impact of Internet on Business

1. Marketing Opportunities

Internet is majorly used by businesses for marketing and selling. Businesses can use a search engine, social media, email, websites, and blogs to promote products and services on the Internet, and this type of business is known as Digital marketing.

A businessman must know what their customer wants. Anyone can start an online business from home. E-Commerce, affiliate marketing, publishing, content creation, web/app development, blogging, etc. are some business ideas to go for due to easy access to the internet.

2. Using Digital Advertising

Including the Internet in a business advertising budget extends a business’s ability to attract customers from their backyard to all corners of the globe. Websites, banner placement, and search engine optimization are referred to as SEO, allowing businesses to have a presence on the web and reaches millions of potential customers.

3. Business Automation

Business automation is the process in which daily business tasks, operations, management are programmed in apps, websites, software, and hardware to run the business automatically. The process of business automation is important in more complicated and challenging works.

The goals are to decrease human interaction with high-risk works and replace it with a robotic interface. When most of the things are automated in businesses and factories. It reduces the cost of managing large teams of the workforce and will increase productivity in business.

 4. Competitive Advantages

 The impact of the internet on market competition is high. Businesses using digital marketing, cloud computing, online automation tools, online accounting, eCommerce, and artificial intelligence applications, and getting more benefits than competitors.

Economic growth in any country is possible if the policies and principles are covering, or open the business for 90% of citizens. Many businesses are unable to integrate internet strategies and technology into their business models due to the lack of funds, innovation, ideas, risk management, and a skilled workforce. Internet impacts positively for those businesses who are prepared for innovation and change.

 5. Social media improves user engagement

Nowadays, everybody is on social media and are rigorously active on it. Studies show that an average person spends approximately two hours per day on social media.

Social media engagement is essential to make sure that your brand is catching enough attention. Setting up a social media presence, building and engaging on it effectively with quality content requires a big effort. But the biggest benefit you can get from this investment in social media is that you reach out to every potential customer, wherever they can be across the globe.

Social media engagement is both positive and negative. It helps to generate a reputation for your brand but on the other hand, one single negative tweet can bring bad publicity overnight, which is difficult to reverse.

 6. Social media boosts your brand loyalty

The last point of impact of internet on business. Social media helps you to build relationships with your customers through online presence, which increases loyalty and advocacy between you and them. Building and maintaining brand loyalty is one of the fundamental themes of any business. In this competitive market, any kind of brand loyalty is hard to come by.

   “A brand is nothing but an expression of the customer’s loyalty and trust.”

Customers have multiple options accessible that can divert them from your business easily. But, Loyal social media followers are more likely to interact with your posts and create meaningful conversations. Also, real engagement is more valuable to your online image. Whereas, developing brand loyalty ensures long-term engagement over social media. Study shows that 66% of users between the ages of 18 and 24 years old are more loyal to the brands they follow on social media.

Internet and Porter’s Five Force Model

Porter’s five force model is a framework for industry analysis, study competition and business strategy development. The five forces of the model are the threat from upcoming and future competition or threats from existing substitutes, the bargaining power of consumers, negotiating power of suppliers, and the threat of competition. The Internet has a great impact on all five forces of the model:

The threat of new entrants: The internet has considerably lowered the entry barrier in setting up a new enterprise. The setting up of a new online venture does not require much capital investment. For example, online retail sites, etc. Ever-increasing competition has lowered the margins.

The threat of new substitutes: The Internet has reduced the product life cycle, shelf life of products and encouraged innovation in customer service.

Bargaining power of customers: Due to the Internet the customers are well informed about products and available substitutes. Which have made companies careful in presenting differentiation and pricing.

Bargaining power of suppliers: Suppliers are well informed about happenings in the industry thanks to the internet.

The threat of competition: The internet has created a sort of transparency and honesty in the success of the company. Customers can know more about the company. The internet has lowered the cost of searching for newly available products. Well, The impact of internet on business has opened the gates of competition against each other.

Final thoughts 

The use of social media platforms to increase your customer base, engage with your audience, and build brand awareness are some of the positive impacts that social media has on business. However, to avoid the negative aspects of social media on your business, you can follow the aforementioned tips and be careful while sharing your content over social media.

Well, that’s it. Hope you find my article “Impact of Internet on Business” interesting. If yes, do offer us feedback too.

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