Daniel Cross
Dr. Virginia Rae
BUS 100-100F
10/6/2015
Necessity of Internet
World Wide Web: “The service that allows computer users to easily access and share information on the internet in the form of text, graphics, video, apps, and animations” (Kelly & Williams, 2015 p. 10).
General Agreement of the Tariffs and Trade: “An international trade agreement that has taken bold steps to lower tariffs and promote free trade worldwide” (Kelly & Williams, 2015 p. 14).
E-commerce: “Business transactions conducted online, typically via the Internet” (Kelly & Williams, 2015 p. 10).
For the past two decades businesses all over the world have been constantly adapting to the growing global e-commerce and the staggering power of computers. No other development in history has offered the globalized free trade market that the internet has to offer. A global free trade is a great thing for the consumer as well as the businesses because a global free trade network means global competition, which in turn means better product for less. With capitalism as the driving force, competition between businesses is constant. As a necessity of survival among the cut throat competition every business is constantly searching for a better, faster, and easier way to conduct their affairs. The connectivity that was created by the internet and power of the common personal computer become an essential for any aspiring or afloat business. This way of globally communicating and conducting business has created a job market, made current businesses more profitable and proficient than ever before, and offered the best conditions and opportunities for the fastest growing businesses ever. Cisco recently released its annual visual networking index, which a broadcast computed from the information they gather while tracking internet traffic patterns and broadband usage throughout the world. They predict that by the year 2016, global IP traffic will surpass 1.3 zettabytes (Garber, 2012). To put that number into perspective the average high quality laptop has anywhere from two terabytes to 500 gigabytes. A terabyte, 1000 gigabytes, is unbelievably huge. Ten terabytes could hold the entire printed collection of the Library of Congress. A zettabyte holds 1,000,000,000 terabytes (Megabytes, Gigabytes, Terabytes… What Are They?, 2015). The fact of life for all businesses in today’s world is simple, adapt or die. Any business that chooses to ignore the one billion gigabytes worth of customer traffic will watch their profit margins fall as their competition, an internet friendly company, puts them out of business. It is impossible to ignore the global free-trade and global competition produced by the internet. The internet and computing as a whole continues to revolutionize every aspect of business and will continue to turn the business world upside down and exponentially increase the amount of internet based companies.
Internet and computers reinvented the world, as a result, the need for technical support has never been more fruitful. Numerous jobs have been created with the entire purpose of helping companies get online, stay online, and stay up to date. A huge contributing factor to the success of the internet was the renegotiation of the General Agreement of the Tariffs and Trade, better known as the GATT. This agreement took huge steps that made worldwide transactions much less expensive by reducing the global trade tax (Kelly & Williams, 2015 p. 14). With the need to be connected at an all-time high, the job market for internet technicians and computer scientists has become incredibly frugal.
The impact that internet has had was not limited to just changing dynamics of every business on the planet but has created its very own job market. From 2000-2009 the internet created 1.2 million jobs directly and an additional 1.5 million jobs were created as a result to support the other 1.2 million workers. Many of those directly created jobs also had above average income with benefits. Internet transactions alone accounted for 300 billion dollars’ worth of the United States gross domestic product in 2009. While that number may seem huge that is only 2 point one percent of the GDP. Internet based advertising had increased four-fold since 2002, an estimated 20 billion was spent on internet advertisements in 2009 (Thibodeau, 2009). As of today, the job market is still growing with no sign of stopping, hiring trends are indicating that 54% of information technology business intend to expand and hire more of both full time employees and part time employees (Ferguson, 2015).
Computers made the work place more efficient than ever before through the World Wide Web. While there are some inherent safety concerns when doing business over the internet, the pros outweigh the cons tenfold. There have been alternative strategies for marketing products that gives the consumer a more personalized buying experience with some companies offering custom products built to the specifications they desire (Kelly & Williams, 2015 p. 10). Inventory tracking becomes effortless and mindless, scan a product and let the computer do the rest of the work through automated ordering and through fail safes a company can operate without ever calling an order in. There is no longer a drawing board for product design just an engineer on a computer. Communication becomes instant and free, no long distant phone charges or over sea rates (Chinonso, 2013). Also the global atmosphere allows for a company to get the best available employees regardless of distance leading to more work place diversity. Going digital also is environmentally friendly, a paperless office is healthier for the earth. With this in mind going digital is the best thing to do ethical, environmental, and economically.