University dissertation - Opinions on my topic

[Ayush94]

Hi all,

Just wanted to see what you guys think of my topic for my university dissertation.
I am studying the factors that affect the adoption of B2B e-commerce in UK-based SMEs(comparing manufacturing/distribution SMEs with SaaS SMEs).

It is an exploratory study, so I am conducting interviews with 3-4 SMEs.

Any opinions? Should I just stick with one industry instead of comparing two?

Thanks in advance!

 

[AllUpHere]

What exactly do you mean by adoption of e commerce?

You are unlikely to get statistically significant data interviewing such a small number of businesses. Are you looking for qualitative as well as quantitative data?

 

[The Byre]

Every student and their mothers-in-law is trying to do a dissertation about e-commerce and B2B trade. Do yourself a favour and go for a subject that is not e-commerce and also does not involve another pointless survey (usually with leading questions and badly hosted on Survey-Monkey!)

 

[antropy]

I am studying the factors that affect the adoption of B2B e-commerce in UK-based SMEs(comparing manufacturing/distribution SMEs with SaaS SMEs).

If one of those factors turns out to be that they can't find a reputable company that can build them a b2b ecommerce site, feel free to give them our details

 

[GraemeL]

I am not at all interested in the topic you have suggested.

What would be interesting is to find out how the adoption of e-commerce by manufacturers has allowed them to by-pass traditional routes to market. (i.e. Many manufacturers used to sell through trade distributors of some kind, many still do. But my feeling is that there is an increasing amount of direct selling to consumers).
Has this increased their sales or profitability? etc

 

[Chris Ashdown]

A massive difference to manufacturers is that shops used to place one or two orders a year and the shop sold what they had, and makers quickly sold their stock holdings and waited for the next years orders


The e-commerce now means the manufacturers have had to change their policy and hold massive stock levels as e-commerce sites expect to just order any day to meet their customers orders and normally only carry a token if any stock themselves

This also gives the e-commerce site the freedom to work with many suppliers in the same trade rather than a single manufacturer

Also traditional shops had very limited space to sell their products where as now they can sell as many products as they like there, and only governed by any P&P charges the manufacturers make on small orders, so reduced suppliers mean bigger daily orders to fewer companies

 

[Ayush94]

What exactly do you mean by adoption of e commerce?

You are unlikely to get statistically significant data interviewing such a small number of businesses. Are you looking for qualitative as well as quantitative data?

I was planning on quantitative but decided against it due to the uncertainties of getting enough responses from SMEs. Hence, made it qualitiative(Case study), and decided to explore whether there was any difference in the adoption of EC in two different industries(manuf/wholesales vs service firms).(This is the main thing I wanted opinions on sorry, as to what do you think about comparing two different industries or should I stick with one)

 

[Ayush94]

I am not at all interested in the topic you have suggested.

What would be interesting is to find out how the adoption of e-commerce by manufacturers has allowed them to by-pass traditional routes to market. (i.e. Many manufacturers used to sell through trade distributors of some kind, many still do. But my feeling is that there is an increasing amount of direct selling to consumers).
Has this increased their sales or profitability? etc

I did think about this initially, but decided against it due to adoption being easier(got a lot of other commitments). I may include an area for competitive advantage B2B EC can provide to these SMEs.