E-Commerce Soars Above the COVID19 Business-Eco-System

The lockdown and social distancing norms for preventing the spread of the coronavirus have shattered the supply chains and choked the cash flows on a global scale. Consequently, innumerable organizations, especially the SMEs and the MSMEs without the leverage of a digitized process flow have permanently closed their operations. The companies that have emerged unharmed by the dwindling cash flows and broken supply chains are the ones that were already in the e-commerce realm. All they had to do was to minimize the onsite workforce by getting into the work from home (WFH) mode and do business as usual.

The role of e-commerce in redeeming many companies from the hostile business eco-system unfurled by the pandemic is quite a subject for scrutiny. The first thing that appeals to us in this regard is how e-commerce ended up being such a saving grace? This quest takes us to the very beginning of the lockdown, wherein people were confined to their homes at short notice. The confinement left them short of even basic requirements right from food to toilet paper. They were caught unawares by such dire requirements that were uncalled at a time when nothing seemed suspicious.

Haunted by the sudden insecurities triggered by the moment, people became desperate to secure their necessities by all means possible. This panic-buying trend drove them to break the rules and hit the shops only to find them closed. They had nowhere else to go for supplies, and this is when all hands started pointing towards e-Commerce - the only means for procuring their needs from the safety of home. Elucidating the same, an article in The Economic Times aptly states that "E-commerce provides 'safe shopping' experience and access to essential products during the spread of Covid-19", and that "Industry experts have termed e-commerce as the lifeline for cities under lockdown to fight against the pandemic" [1].

Investopedia defines e-Commerce as "a business model that lets firms and individuals buy and sell things over the internet" [2]. Candice V Cunningham, the founder of The Black Ecosystem in Chicago, while stating that e-Commerce and online shopping are not the same, asserts that  "e-commerce refers to all aspects of operating a business online, and online shopping refers to the online selling and purchasing of goods and services"[3]. E-commerce operates predominantly in four of the major market segments, namely Business to Business (B2B), Business to Consumer (B2C), Consumer to Consumer (C2C), and Consumer to Business (C2B).

E-commerce has established and is continuing to reveal its potential to promote unhampered business continuity even amidst the unprecedented uncertainties hurled by the pandemic. While countless businesses are being stunned by the fatal fangs of COVID-19, the organizations that are augmented with an E-commerce enabled business system are continuing operations almost on a normal scale. Encouraged by this, the companies without the benefit of e-commerce are making the right move to go digital and elevate their business online.

Thus, as e-commerce has to be made an integral part of businesses of any size or scope, Digital Transformation is not an extravagance anymore. It is a necessity for the survival of businesses during the pandemic and even beyond. The most appropriate medium to bring about the inevitable Digital Transformation is ERP software. But, not all ERP software could produce the desired effect and make businesses go online with the leverage of e-commerce. A scalable ERP that is e-commerce enabled is required to accomplish the mission by strategically interlinking all the concerned stakeholders and business units.

The e-commerce enabled Roadmap ERP system is fashioned on the most robust software platform to withstand any business environment. This foundation gives unlimited scope to the 450+ IT specialists who relentlessly apply their ingenuity to update the solution and render it relevant to all contemporary business requirements. Roadmap ERP's flexible digital nodes are crafted to cohesively integrate all the internal, external, physical, and digital components of businesses to realize unhampered business progress.

As always, Roadmap ERP is ensuring the uninterrupted business continuity of its clients during the pandemic also. For any organization aspiring to embrace e-commerce and go online with its business, the time tested proven Roadmap ERP is the evergreen solution.