The Indian E-commerce

E-commerce has transformed the way business is done in India. With attractive and convenient shopping options at the core of the consumer facing business, the e-commerce industry offers the power to create innovative, sustainable, consistent and seamless shopping experience across all channels.

India's e-commerce market was worth about $3.9 billion in 2009, it went up to $12.6 billion in 2013. In 2013, the e-retail segment was worth US$2.3 billion. About 70% of India's e-commerce market is travel related. According to Google India, there were 35 million online shoppers in India in 2014 Q1 and is expected to cross 100 million mark by end of year 2016. CAGR vis-à- vis a global growth rate of 8–10%. Electronics and Apparel are the biggest categories in terms of sales.

According to a study conducted by the Internet and Mobile Association of India, the e-commerce sector is estimated to reach Rs. 211,005 crore by December 2016. The study also stated that online travel accounts for 61% of the e-commerce market.

By 2020, India is expected to generate $100 billion online retail revenue out of which $35 billion will be through fashion e-commerce. Online apparel sales are set to grow four times in coming years.

Many of things said that the Demonetisation will cut down the growth speed of E-commerce market in India. The extent it affects the e-commerce business as well but that doesn’t mean it will slows down the growth speed. Why is it so? Let’s see; in the year 2016 in the nine months to September, the ecommerce sector pulled in just $1.4 billion in fresh funding. Big-ticket deals have become a thing of the past. Grocery e-tailer BigBasket, ticketing platform Bookmyshow and eyewear e-tailer Lenskart were the only three firms that pulled in serious money. BigBasket raised $150 million in March from an investor consortium led by Dubai’s Abraaj Group; Bookmyshow closed a $81.5 million growth round in May from a group of investors led by New York-based private equity firm Stripes Group, and Lenskart raised $60 million from International Finance Corp., TPG Growth and other investors. Another potentially large deal this year was e-commerce marketplace Shopclues’ growth round in January. The company didn’t disclose the size of the round, but it is estimated at between $100 million and $140 million.

Although the demonetisation has impacted on Cash on Delivery policy of many of big giants likes Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal,etc. but they all agree that demonetisation is good for e-commerce industry. To tackle the after-effects of demonetization, e-commerce platforms have added credit card on delivery as one of the payment options to put customers running out of cash at some ease. Amazon witnessed 10 times growth in credit card delivery mode. Websites like Snapdeal and Flipkart have also been offering more discounts on online payments and zero cost EMI schemes. CCAvenue company got 40% increase online transaction while Paytm has more 7 million transactions per day claiming more than $1.2 billion. Mobile payment transaction value in India is also likely to register over 150 per cent CAGR and cross Rs 2,000 trillion by FY 2021-22 from just over Rs 8 trillion as of FY 2015-16, the study titled Indian M-wallet market said.

The major factor driving e-commerce growth in India is the country's huge uptake of mobile phones. India is the world's biggest consumer of mobile phones, with the price of data plans running two times cheaper than in China and three times cheaper than in the United States. As the country's middle-class switches over to 3G and 4G networks, both offered at affordable prices, India is expected to see more mobile shopping, especially amongst millennials. Young people shopping via smartphones are already responsible for sharp increases in India's online spend; and with70 per cent of the population below the age of 35, millennials are expected to continue driving rapid digitisation even further.

To position their business for future success, merchants must recognise not only India'senormous potential for e-commerce growth but also its unique payment preferences. Transfers and cash currently dominate the online payment landscape, with 27 per cent of the market preferring bank transfers, followed by cash on delivery at 22 per cent. However, as the country's payment infrastructure develops, new methods are expected to rise in popularity. E-wallets, the most popular payment method worldwide, are slated for rapid growth in India. Although just eight per cent of India's online shoppers use an e-wallet today, the country's mobile wallet market is projected to reach $5.1 billion in 2020, according to Worldpay.

Business Management Software

Business Management Software (BMS/ERP)

ERP integrate all data and processes of an organization into a unified system. A typical ERP system will use multiple components of computer software and hardware to achieve the integration. A key ingredient of most ERP systems is the use of a unified database to store data for the various system modules. The stored data is a shared database that supports multiple functions used by different business units. In practice, this means that employees in different divisions—for example, accounting and sales—can rely on the same information for their specific needs.

A Brief History of BMS/ERP The term ERP was coined in 1990 by Gartner1, but its roots date to the 1960s. Back then, the concept applied to inventory management and control in the manufacturing sector. Software engineers created programs to monitor inventory, reconcile balances, and report on status. By the 1970s, this had evolved into Material Requirements Planning (MRP) systems for scheduling production processes.
In the 1980s, MRP grew to encompass more manufacturing processes, prompting many to call it MRP-II or Manufacturing Resource Planning. By 1990, these systems had expanded beyond inventory control and other operational processes to other back-office functions like accounting and human resources, setting the stage for ERP as we've come to know it.
Today, ERP has expanded to encompass business intelligence (BI) while also handling "front-office" functions such as sales force automation (SFA), marketing automation and ecommerce. With these product advancements and the success stories coming out of these systems, companies in a broad range of industries—from wholesale distribution to ecommerce—use ERP solutions.
Moreover, even though the "e" in ERP stands for "enterprise," high-growth and mid-size companies are now rapidly adopting ERP systems. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions—also referred to as "cloud computing"—have helped fuel this growth. Cloud-based solutions not only make ERP software more affordable, they also make these systems easier to implement and manage. Perhaps even more importantly, cloud ERP enables real-time reporting and BI, making them even valuable to executives and staff seeking visibility into the business.
As a result, companies of all sizes and a wide range of industries are transitioning to cloud ERP systems. In fact, Forrester predicts that SaaS-based ERP adoption will rise 21 percent annually through 2015.2 When you stop to consider the benefits of ERP, it's easy to see why it's become so popular and why its use will continue to grow so rapidly.

Enterprise ERP Trends The ERP field can be slow to change, but the last couple of years have unleashed forces which are fundamentally shifting the entire area. The following new and continuing trends affect enterprise ERP software:

1. Mobile ERP Executives and employees want real-time access to information, regardless of where they are. It is expected that businesses will embrace mobile ERP for the reports, dashboards and to conduct key business processes.
2. Cloud ERP The cloud has been advancing steadily into the enterprise for some time, but many ERP users have been reluctant to place data cloud. Those reservations have gradually been evaporating, however, as the advantages of the cloud become apparent.
3. Social ERP There has been much hype around social media and how important —or not — it is to add to ERP systems. Certainly, vendors have been quick to seize the initiative, adding social media packages to their ERP systems with much fanfare. But some wonder if there is really much gain to be had by integrating social media with ERP.
4. Two-tier ERP Enterprises once attempted to build an all-encompassing ERP system to take care of every aspect of organizational systems. But some expensive failures have gradually brought about a change in strategy – adopting two tiers of ERP.

The Business Value of ERP At its core, ERP helps employees do their jobs more efficiently by breaking down barriers between business units. More specifically, an ERP solution:

• Gives a global, real-time view of data that can enable companies to address concerns proactively and drive improvements
• Improves financial compliance with regulatory standards and reduces risk
• Automates core business operations such as lead-to-cash, order-to-fulfillment, and procure-to-pay processes
• Enhances customer service by providing one source for billing and relationship tracking.

ERP for the small and medium segments A few years back, ERP was a distant concept, perceived as applicable for the most elite of companies, with deep pockets, who are ready to experiment with new ideas. Today, the scene has significantly changed and ERP is considered as a desirable tool for most organizations, in the medium and small sectors.
Entrepreneurs now seriously consider ERP as panacea for all their present day ills and as an imperative to retain their competitive edge. Some of the factors that have catalyzed this process are globalization, competition, need for faster response to the market place and the pressure to contain costs and improve efficiencies.
While ERP implementation can be undertaken by a well-run organization as a proactive measure to be ahead in the race, the normal symptoms that would suggest the need for ERP would be high levels of inventory, mismatched stock, lack of coordinated activity, excessive need for reconciliation, flouting of controls, poor customer response levels and operations falling short of industry benchmarks in terms of cost controls, and general efficiency.
ERP is often considered synonymous with enterprise computerization, which significantly dilutes the concept. It is really a business tool, which seamlessly integrates the strategic initiatives and policies of the organization with the operations, thus providing an effective means of translating strategic business goals to real time planning and control.
ERP, hence, means much more than computerizing the existing operations and is really an integrated change process, which encompasses all levels and elevates the total organization to a higher level of information, expertise and intelligence.
The SME segment is large and offers substantial potential to the ERP vendor. However, this segment is also extremely price-sensitive and is generally intolerant of high gestations on realizations from investment.
Hence, this segment would be keen on an effective but low priced solution, which can be speedily implemented and vendors have realized the potential of this segment and are working out ways to meet this requirement.

ERP Solutions for Small Businesses As sales of ERP systems to large manufacturing companies began to slow, some vendors changed their focus to smaller companies. According to a survey by AMR research reported in Modern Materials Handling, the overall market for ERP systems grew 21 percent in 1998, despite the fact that sales to companies with greater than $1 billion in revenues declined 14 percent during the same period. "ERP applications are no longer just the stuff of huge corporations," Constance Loizos noted in Industry Week. "While billion-dollar manufacturing companies are now completing their ERP implementations, mid-size customers—witness to the improved business processes of manufacturing market leaders—are beginning to refine their own operations…. Invariably the most substantial reason for companies to implement ERP is that without it, staying competitive is a practical impossibility. The business world is moving ever closer toward a completely collaborative model, and that means companies must increasingly share with their suppliers, distributors, and customers the in-house information that they once so vigorously protected."
Of course, small and medium-sized companies—as well as those involved in service rather than manufacturing industries—have different resources, infrastructure, and needs than the large industrial corporations who provided the original market for ERP systems. Vendors had to create a new generation of ERP software that was easier to install, more manageable, required less implementation time, and entailed lower startup costs. Many of these new systems were more modular, which allowed installation to proceed in smaller increments with less support from information technology professionals. Other small businesses elected to outsource their ERP needs to vendors. For a fixed amount of money, the vendor would supply the technology and the support staff needed to implement and maintain it. This option often proved easier and cheaper than buying and implementing a whole system, particularly when the software and technology seemed likely to become outdated within a few years.
Benefits

• Eases decision making
• Increases efficiency of business
• Increases data security
• Makes work transparent
• Increase co-ordination between diverse departments
• Improves the relationship between customer and business
• Lowers the cost operation
• Provides a competitive advantage

Business Management Software (BMS/ERP)

ERP integrate all data and processes of an organization into a unified system. A typical ERP system will use multiple components of computer software and hardware to achieve the integration. A key ingredient of most ERP systems is the use of a unified database to store data for the various system modules. The stored data is a shared database that supports multiple functions used by different business units. In practice, this means that employees in different divisions—for example, accounting and sales—can rely on the same information for their specific needs.

A Brief History of BMS/ERP

The term ERP was coined in 1990 by Gartner1, but its roots date to the 1960s. Back then, the concept applied to inventory management and control in the manufacturing sector. Software engineers created programs to monitor inventory, reconcile balances, and report on status. By the 1970s, this had evolved into Material Requirements Planning (MRP) systems for scheduling production processes.

In the 1980s, MRP grew to encompass more manufacturing processes, prompting many to call it MRP-II or Manufacturing Resource Planning. By 1990, these systems had expanded beyond inventory control and other operational processes to other back-office functions like accounting and human resources, setting the stage for ERP as we've come to know it.

Today, ERP has expanded to encompass business intelligence (BI) while also handling "front-office" functions such as sales force automation (SFA), marketing automation and ecommerce. With these product advancements and the success stories coming out of these systems, companies in a broad range of industries—from wholesale distribution to ecommerce—use ERP solutions.

Moreover, even though the "e" in ERP stands for "enterprise," high-growth and mid-size companies are now rapidly adopting ERP systems. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions—also referred to as "cloud computing"—have helped fuel this growth. Cloud-based solutions not only make ERP software more affordable, they also make these systems easier to implement and manage. Perhaps even more importantly, cloud ERP enables real-time reporting and BI, making them even valuable to executives and staff seeking visibility into the business.

As a result, companies of all sizes and a wide range of industries are transitioning to cloud ERP systems. In fact, Forrester predicts that SaaS-based ERP adoption will rise 21 percent annually through 2015.2 When you stop to consider the benefits of ERP, it's easy to see why it's become so popular and why its use will continue to grow so rapidly.

Enterprise ERP Trends

The ERP field can be slow to change, but the last couple of years have unleashed forces which are fundamentally shifting the entire area. The following new and continuing trends affect enterprise ERP software:

1. Mobile ERP
   Executives and employees want real-time access to information, regardless of where they are. It is expected that businesses will embrace mobile ERP for the reports, dashboards and to conduct key business processes.
2. Cloud ERP
   The cloud has been advancing steadily into the enterprise for some time, but many ERP users have been reluctant to place data cloud. Those reservations have gradually been evaporating, however, as the advantages of the cloud become apparent.
3. Social ERP
   There has been much hype around social media and how important —or not — it is to add to ERP systems. Certainly, vendors have been quick to seize the initiative, adding social media packages to their ERP systems with much fanfare. But some wonder if there is really much gain to be had by integrating social media with ERP.
4. Two-tier ERP
   Enterprises once attempted to build an all-encompassing ERP system to take care of every aspect of organizational systems. But some expensive failures have gradually brought about a change in strategy – adopting two tiers of ERP.

The Business Value of ERP

At its core, ERP helps employees do their jobs more efficiently by breaking down barriers between business units. More specifically, an ERP solution:

•  Gives a global, real-time view of data that can enable companies to address concerns proactively and drive improvements
•  Improves financial compliance with regulatory standards and reduces risk
•  Automates core business operations such as lead-to-cash, order-to-fulfillment, and procure-to-pay processes
•  Enhances customer service by providing one source for billing and relationship tracking.

ERP for the small and medium segments

A few years back, ERP was a distant concept, perceived as applicable for the most elite of companies, with deep pockets, who are ready to experiment with new ideas. Today, the scene has significantly changed and ERP is considered as a desirable tool for most organizations, in the medium and small sectors.

Entrepreneurs now seriously consider ERP as panacea for all their present day ills and as an imperative to retain their competitive edge. Some of the factors that have catalyzed this process are globalization, competition, need for faster response to the market place and the pressure to contain costs and improve efficiencies.

While ERP implementation can be undertaken by a well-run organization as a proactive measure to be ahead in the race, the normal symptoms that would suggest the need for ERP would be high levels of inventory, mismatched stock, lack of coordinated activity, excessive need for reconciliation, flouting of controls, poor customer response levels and operations falling short of industry benchmarks in terms of cost controls, and general efficiency.

ERP is often considered synonymous with enterprise computerization, which significantly dilutes the concept. It is really a business tool, which seamlessly integrates the strategic initiatives and policies of the organization with the operations, thus providing an effective means of translating strategic business goals to real time planning and control.

ERP, hence, means much more than computerizing the existing operations and is really an integrated change process, which encompasses all levels and elevates the total organization to a higher level of information, expertise and intelligence.

The SME segment is large and offers substantial potential to the ERP vendor. However, this segment is also extremely price-sensitive and is generally intolerant of high gestations on realizations from investment.

Hence, this segment would be keen on an effective but low priced solution, which can be speedily implemented and vendors have realized the potential of this segment and are working out ways to meet this requirement.

ERP Solutions for Small Businesses

As sales of ERP systems to large manufacturing companies began to slow, some vendors changed their focus to smaller companies. According to a survey by AMR research reported in Modern Materials Handling, the overall market for ERP systems grew 21 percent in 1998, despite the fact that sales to companies with greater than $1 billion in revenues declined 14 percent during the same period. "ERP applications are no longer just the stuff of huge corporations," Constance Loizos noted in Industry Week. "While billion-dollar manufacturing companies are now completing their ERP implementations, mid-size customers—witness to the improved business processes of manufacturing market leaders—are beginning to refine their own operations…. Invariably the most substantial reason for companies to implement ERP is that without it, staying competitive is a practical impossibility. The business world is moving ever closer toward a completely collaborative model, and that means companies must increasingly share with their suppliers, distributors, and customers the in-house information that they once so vigorously protected."

Of course, small and medium-sized companies—as well as those involved in service rather than manufacturing industries—have different resources, infrastructure, and needs than the large industrial corporations who provided the original market for ERP systems. Vendors had to create a new generation of ERP software that was easier to install, more manageable, required less implementation time, and entailed lower startup costs. Many of these new systems were more modular, which allowed installation to proceed in smaller increments with less support from information technology professionals. Other small businesses elected to outsource their ERP needs to vendors. For a fixed amount of money, the vendor would supply the technology and the support staff needed to implement and maintain it. This option often proved easier and cheaper than buying and implementing a whole system, particularly when the software and technology seemed likely to become outdated within a few years.

Benefits

•  Eases decision making
•  Increases efficiency of business
•  Increases data security
•  Makes work transparent
•  Increase co-ordination between diverse departments
•  Improves the relationship between customer and business
•  Lowers the cost operation
•  Provides a competitive advantage