تاثیر فناوری اطلاعات بر روی بازارگرایی در کسب و کار الکترونیکی

This study presents how information technology (IT) contributes to market orientation (MO). The authors analyze the way companies deal with market intelligence to facilitate the identification of customer needs and to generate the appropriate response to such needs. Research methodology includes multiple case studies of retail companies with e-business operations (the three largest in Brazil). The findings indicate that investment in interorganizational systems strongly supports the development of MO capabilities. The article develops a framework to help companies in assessing how IT applications support their MO behaviors; as an academic contribution, the study presents two hypotheses for future studies.

Different sources of literature recognize the relevance of e-business for companies across the world. According to e-bit (a Brazilian research institute focused on e-commerce), the number of e-commerce users has grown 36% in 2007, going up from 7 million to 9.5 million. The growth of the Brazilian GNP did not exceed 5% in 2007, while the e-commerce sector grew 45% in the same period – representing more than US$ 3.5 billion in transactions. Market orientation (MO) is a fundamental practice for an organization that intends to adapt its strategies to the market – to achieve better understanding of the market and more effective responses. According to Kohli and Jaworski (1990), MO means the generation and dissemination of market intelligence by the firm and its response to the market (responsiveness). Since managers have to strengthen the companies MO, the electronic channels and internet-based technologies facilitate market information gathering their internal dissemination through information systems (IS). IS support the strategic decision making process by ensuring greater agility, information availability, information security and interactivity. E-commerce technologies surpass the internal limits of organizations and exert direct impact on their attitude to the market and on their profitability by providing new solutions, widening access to consumers and allowing the emergence of new, previously unthinkable, business models. The implementation of IT in e-business context, undoubtedly, influences the development of distinct capabilities, including the way the company performs activities and manages external information, facilitating experimentation and innovation. Based on these elements, this study aims to explore and describe how IT can contribute to strengthen MO in e-business by examining three case studies of retail companies in Brazil that make intensive use of IT and of e-business as strategic resources.

IT does not represent a competitive advantage for companies (Carr, 2003). The understanding of the best way to use IT, strategically, is what produces a competitive advantage. As to e-business, Saini and Johnson (2005) conclude that IT capabilities positively influence these businesses performances, if they have an adequate MO. MO behaviors are a focus for IT investments in e-businesses, enabling IT to develop distinct capabilities. E-commerce applications have an above average potential for using IT to improve MO capabilities, contributing to meet the main business goals (Phan, 2003). This IT potential occurs because e-commerce systems are more likely to capture and disseminate information about customers and suppliers, and to offer some automatic responses to customers based on the collected information. One notices that the emphasis given to certain kinds of IS in an organization is a result of its way of understanding the market and the responsiveness of the organization. The better the company deals with the market, the more corporate IS will support activities that add value in the customer perspective. To foster e-businesses success, managers should focus IT use on stimulating activities related to the market intelligence generation and dissemination through the company. Based upon its analytical capability to understand this market intelligence, the company will be able to define more adequate responses to the market that can also use IT to add value to the customers. Table 3 presents a reference guide to IT strategic application to foster organizational MO. The findings of this research may be useful to other companies and the framework presented in Table 3 is a useful tool to assess the relationships between their IS and MO behaviors. Each company should, then, build up its own table, keeping its strategic profile in mind, since different strategic perspectives result in different emphasis toward the company MO behaviors. In conclusion, the study supports two propositions suggesting the following hypotheses for future studies. Hypothesis 1: The use of IT to support the components of MO (market intelligence generation, dissemination and responsiveness) results in a higher MO. Hypothesis 2: A higher MO, with IT strengthening its components, is an antecedent of the critical success factors in e-business.