eCommerce and Organisational Leadership

Introduction

Unarguably, leadership and management at higher educational institutions and business organisations have come to realise the imperativeness in investing in enterprise electronic commerce or enterprise electronic business, and have thus, all embarked on the deployment of enterprise electronic business or enterprise electronic commerce solutions in their venture to bolster business operations in competitive manner in this global economy. These efforts are ones that have called for significant investment in electronic commerce or electronic business. Leaders at higher educational institutions and business organisations must possess leadership qualities that enhance the fulfilment and accomplishments of the goals of their institutions. Furthermore, to realise meaningful and significant returns on their investments, organisations and higher educational institutions have included electronic business or electronic commerce implementations in their strategic mission.

In this chapter, readers are driven through the essence of today’s leadership and how a critical factor it is for institutions and business organisations to have leaders who are willing and able to embrace, adopt, and lead them in this era. Obviously, more and more organisation executives and leadership are making this transition by attending more workshops, seminars, and conferences for pertinent illumination. Sections and subtopics tackled in this chapter include:

• •

  The Motivation: In this chapter, the relationship between information technology and organisational leadership or the impact of the former on the latter was dealt with. It included shedding light on how higher echelons at business organisations and institutions are embracing the wave of technology or information technology. This chapter, in a similar vein sheds light is on electronic commerce and leadership at business organisations and institutions.

• •

  The Assimilation of Information Technology into the Organisational Fabric: Organisations and institutions have assimilated information technology into their strategic missions and this strategic move evidently has played a significant role in shaping businesses and of course, organisations and institutions that have ignored this information technology rash or assimilations are left uncompetitive.

• •

  The Quest for Efficacy in Organisational Operations: The modern trend of globalisation has definitely called for effect ways for smooth business operations at higher educational institutions and business organisations. And of noteworthy is the infiltration of electronic commerce in all aspects of business operations at higher educational institution and business organisations.

• •

  A Brief Look at Leadership and Their Tackling of eCommerce Implementations at the Institutions: Historically black colleges and universities are catching up with many traditionally white higher educational institutions in their electronic commerce solutions for human resources, procurements, account receivables and payables, admissions, registrations, alumni database, and capital campaign. This section delves into issues dealing with where all these electronic commerce solutions lead historically black colleges and universities from both customer and business perspectives and including issues such as how successful and effective these historically black colleges and universities’ electronic commerce solutions.

• •

  A Note on the Importance of Security With Respect to eCommerce: This section makes note on the critically needed due diligence for secured electronic commerce or electronic business. Additionally, it is imperative to note how institutions ensure or affect their eSecurity—consistency, integrity, and effectiveness in the application of electronic commerce solutions.

• •

  Leadership and Management at Institutions and Organisations at a Race to eCommerce Implementations: This section delineates the epiphany of leaders at institutions and business organisations to gravitate towards electronic commerce. Leaders at higher educational institutions and business organisations must possess leadership qualities that enhance the fulfilment and accomplishments of the goals of their institutions.

• •

  The eCommerce Momentum at Organisations and Institutions: Electronic commerce has become a driving force for higher education in a fairly short period of time, helping students and staff with a myriad of tasks and functions from streamlining paper work, paying bills online and getting alumni donations to more accurately forecast future cash flow.

• •

  Summary: The summary section encapsulates the chapter.

• •

  Key Terms and Definitions: Some of the key words together with their definitions are presented under this section.