Electronic Commerce : Emerging Patterns and Strategic Implications

Advances in information technologies enable firms to expand electroniccommerce - the exchange of valuable information, goods and services acrosselectronic media. This paper looks at how businesses are adopting and usingtechnologies like the Internet and World Wide Web for electronic commerce.I propose that electronic commerce will dramatically reduce transactions costsrequiring managers to re-develop their firm's strategy to focus on morefundamental sources of competitive advantage. I identify responses requiredto compete in a low transactions cost environment and provide illustrativeexamples of firms executing such a strategy