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Dr. Ecommerce,

Please Please Please...can you help me I'm thinking about going into the field of consultancy and making this an on-line venture, please can you answer a few queries about control

Who exercises control in organisations and society and what are the impacts of technology?

Does Technology change the balance of power or does it just reinforce or exacerbate the existing situation? For example, what standards are relevant to e-commerce activities and who controls them?

Who controls costs?

Are there changes which need to be made from which consumers and competing organisation will benefit? How far does the government go to control the success or failure of e-commerce initiatives?

Sunny

Dear Sunny:

Generally, the control of an organisation or society is defined by law. Corporate law broadly defines how certain kinds of companies are controlled and the memorandum/articles of association cover details specific to each company. These laws vary from country to country and also depend on the kind of organisation. In small company with two shareholders (the smallest possible limited liability company structure in most countries), the managing director is usually the majority shareholder and so she effectively has complete control over the company. In a large, publicly listed company, you have shareholders who elect (and can also dismiss) a board of directors and a president. The president generally makes the final decision in companies. But in large organisations, there are departmental directors/managers who are decision makers for their departments and they may have significant control over the activities of their departments.

Each society has its own laws which define who is in control. Much of the world now has embraced democracy to one degree or another and leaders are voted in. But how that democracy works varies a great deal.

Costs are generally controlled by the laws of supply and demand. If there is a small supply and a huge demand, prices are high. If there is a massive supply but not much demand, prices are low. Technology allows prices to follow supply and demand more closely than ever before. This is done because vendors can monitor buying habits in real time and price accordingly. In addition, electronic auctions are becoming an increasingly popular e-commerce tool. And an auction is surely the best tool for pricing according to supply and demand.

Regarding changes that need to be made, I would say yes. Electronic commerce is still very, very new. And companies implementing e-commerce will need to experiment and modify a great deal over the upcoming years as the best business models have yet to be discovered.

In my opinion, the place of the government is to support, but not interfere, with e-commerce. The Internet and e-commerce have grown considerably and very fast without government interference. I believe this has to continue and I believe that the US and most European governments feel the same way and have so far followed such a path.

Finally, these opinions are my own based on my experience in electronic commerce and do not reflect an official European opinion in any way.

The best of luck to you in your consultancy.

Dr.Ecommerce