Business
Part A Whole Role Report
The company in the e-commerce industry chosen for this assignment is Ebay. Ebay is an online ecommerce marketplace that connects the buyers and sellers all over the world that can buy or sell anything using the online platform.
- Workplace Roles and Responsibilities
The workplace roles and responsibilities for the various employees in the online marketplace Ebay include the following:
- Functionality of the Ebay platform including the automatic payment system and order processing. The functionality and technical responsibilities of the employees in the technical team are to ensure that the website is functioning 24 hours without any technical error and loads on time. The servers team maintains the website administration system and ensures that users are able to register and login their accounts and operate their user accounts seamlessly.
- The online marketing team is involved in the maintenance of the website marketing campaigns, social media advertising, online advertising on Search engines and Google Adsense, search engine optimization, affiliate marketing, email marketing activities and online promotional contests.
- The branding team is responsible for creating brand awareness about Ebay through various marketing media such as online media and offline media such as Newspapers, radio and television.
- The logistics team is not involved in Ebay as Ebay does not store its own inventory.
- HR team is responsible for the recruitment, training and development of the employees in the organization. The HR team devises the human resource strategies for the organization including the hiring strategies to fill the vacant positions in the various departments and design compensation plans for the various employees of the organization, devise succession plan for the employees and also design appraisal systems.
- Finance and Budgeting team is responsible for the financial statement analysis, budgeting and feasibility analysis of the organization and also for the processing of sakaries to the employees.
- Long Term SMART Goals
Each department’s long term goals that are SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound) are listed below:
- SMART Goals for Technical Team
- SMART Goals for HR Team
- SMART Goals for Online Marketing Team
- Finance & Budgeting Team
Part B Technology Invention
A modern day technological invention that is highly innovative is a Smartphone.
- The reasons why I chose smartphone as a highly innovative device is due to its capability to allow the users to access the internet through their mobile phones and perform multiple tasks such as listen to music, check emails and reply to mails, operate online chat platforms and software such as Skype, open documents in MS office and Adobe reader, click photographs, do online shopping through apps, record videos, send messages, answer phone calls, do video calling, conference calls and also maintain and schedule appointments and set automatic reminders and alarms.
- The first cellular phone that had adopted smart features was conceptualized in the year 1973 but the term smartphone was used in the year 1997 by Sony when it officially launched GS 88 as a smartphone. IBM prototype developed the first features of the smartphones that contributed significantly to the development of the smartphones.
- The social and technological value brought by smartphones to the ecommerce industry has been immense. With the help of the smartphones technology, the companies such as Ebay are successful in launching mobile based apps through which the users can browse the online products and do shopping and also buy and sell products that are listed on Ebay. Mobile payment platforms have been also initiated that help the users to pay for their online shopping using their smartphones as substitutes for credit cards and debit cards. The mobile apps also allow users to enter their debit card or credit card details and make payments for their online purchases. Smartphones ensure user connectivity with the website in the absence of other digital devices such as laptops, computers and tabs. Users can access the website data anywhere and anytime through their smartphones.
The number of smartphone users is on the rise in the various parts of the world thus providing a growth opportunity for Ebay that can attract more website users that can login and access the website through their smartphones. Ebay has developed mobile apps that can operate on the various smartphone platforms such as Android, Blackberry, Windows and iPhone and allow users to operate the website. The smartphone apps can be downloaded through the mobile internet and also through the internet on the website platform.
