Global Business and Tech Trends in Ecommerce: Insights from Top MBA Colleges in Greater Noida

At one of the top MBA Colleges in Greater Noida, Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, the last year has been exciting and happening for both academicians and students. We have been collaborating in researching on different aspects of the ecommerce industry both at the national and global levels. At the global level ecommerce has evolved better and thus grown faster and better than in India. Given that ecommerce is a technology driven vertical, it gives the impression to many people in business schools that the key driver of business growth is technology. As business academicians at one top MBA colleges in Greater Noida, we beg to differ. Based on the empirical evidence that our students and fellow academicians have collected we assert that the synchronization of technology with the business and revenue models matters the most. Technology in isolation does not achieve the desired targets of business growth. As such we have based this piece on business and technological trends that are shaping the contours of the ecommerce vertical at the global level.

Global Rankings of Ecommerce Companies

Based on the net product sales, Deloitte has published the findings of its research. Amazon stands right at the top of the global rankings with net product sales of U.S $ 61 billion. The other big global company JD.com INC from China comes in second position followed by Walmart and Apple both from the U.S. The complete list of the top ten global companies in ecommerce is given below.

How Does India Compare to the Global Ecommerce Market?

As an MBA College in Greater Noida, we get to interact and learn about the ecommerce industry best practices being followed by their business executives in the markets of Delhi NCR. Again, we have also collected data from our alumni working in the ecommerce vertical in the overseas markets. We have tallied the differences that we have observed. Our students who are pursuing PGDM and MBA courses have also engaged in researches to identify the differences between ecommerce in India and the rest of the world. Here is a list of the major technological and business trends that we have observed.

Global Ecommerce Market Runs on Non-Price Competition

The global ecommerce market is more into the market morphology of imperfect competition and has evolved tremendously over the years. The pattern of competition in the global ecommerce market is based on non-price competition. Companies operating at the global level have looked to focus on customer retention and profitability by building key product and brand differentiators Non-price competition has enabled these companies to compete against each other and yet grow organically in terms of gross merchandise value and net product sales without having to sacrifice their profitability. This has been possible through focus and innovation in process and product development, embracing of technological platforms like big data, internet of things, machine learning, artificial intelligence and cloud computing solutions. On the other hand companies in India like Flipkart, Amazon India, Snapdeal, Jabong and others have looked to build on market share and new client acquisition in the B2C segment. This has allowed them to grow in terms of sales volumes but the gross revenues have been compromises on by means of offering heavy discounts, offers and loyalty programs.

Business and Revenue Models in Vogue

Companies in India are trying out multiple business models to stay afloat in a market that is becoming increasingly crowded. Some of the top Indian ecommerce companies and their business model types are mentioned below:

To survive and sustain in the market, companies are also taking advantage of multiple revenue models.

Yet another interesting observation about the ecommerce market in India is that it is witnessing very aggressive mergers and acquisitions that in the near future should lead to consolidation fragmented market share and a steady increase in revenue streams owing to the gain of product specific SBUs. In the year 2014, the acquisition of Myntra by Flipkart was worth INR20 billion and was the biggest in that year in India. This deal was closely followed by the acquisition of Pilani Softbus that used to run the online ticket booking portal redbus.in by the South Africa based Ibibo Group for INR 135million and the acquisition of TaxiForSure by Ola Cabs for INR200 million. The observation that emerges here is that most of the M&A activities have taken place in specific product led verticals. The rise of vertical specific companies in India and at the global level shows the dominance of vertical specific e-tailers over multibrand online retailers. A complete list of vertical specific ecommerce firms in India and the world as given below points to the insight.

At Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, one of the top MBA Colleges in Delhi NCR our students have worked on more than 200 research projects on ecommerce till now and have attended 7 workshops on best practices in ecommerce vertical. The clips of data offered in this piece are fragments of research projects done by students under the mentoring of academicians of the faculty of business administration and top business executives from ecommerce industry in India.