2016 Global Digital and Sharing Economy - The E-commerce and M-Commerce Transformation

The sharing economy movement matures and e-commerce continues to thrive

The “sharing economy” movement is maturing and citizens and corporations alike have accepted that popular business models like Uber and Airbnb seem here to stay. This has caused the traditional industries with vested interests in these markets to make adjustments to their own business models and competition strategies with the sharing economy in mind. This had often resulted in the margins in the initial stages of the sharing economy to have either shrunk or stayed the same.

E-commerce and m-commerce in general continue to rise and rise around the world. Other trends closely linked to this such as e-health and e-government initiatives also continue to gather pace. However, there is a divide occurring with some of the poorest nations around the world still unable to access suitable digital infrastructure to access such services.

Based on the growth of internet and mobile users alone, it is hardly any wonder that e-commerce and m-commerce are thriving. Online spending is proving resilient and even buoyant in most markets. The Asia Pacific region, in particular, is considered a key area for future growth.

In 2017 mobile commerce is expected to grow faster than e-commerce. Some of the large markets expected to see a high growth in m-commerce include China, Japan, India, South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia and the United Kingdom.

Most governments around the world are now well aware of the importance of implementing digital services and solutions such as online services, cloud computing and m-government. The benefits of many of these developments include cutting costs and improving processes and information flow with the primary aim to improve customer service for citizens. Cloud computing has been well received by many government organisations and BuddeComm sees governments around the world continue to deploy cloud platforms and indeed increase spending in this area.

BuddeComm believes the Public Service should be a key driver in creating an innovative digital economy. Some of the public sectors are facing massive cost increases – take healthcare, for instance – that are economically unsustainable. Therefore, governments around the world have a huge role to play in building an innovative culture that could be an example for the rest of the economy and at the same time be an enormous boost to it.

This report explores the maturing global digital sharing economy movement as well as the e-commerce, e-education, e-health and e-government sectors. It provides examples, analyses and statistics.

Key developments:

• BuddeComm has observed that the growth in the Sharing Economy has demonstrated the mounting trust and confidence consumers, businesses and government alike now place in online services.
• It appears that now, as a collective society, we are beginning to embrace the digital tools and services and finally begin to use them to our advantage.  
• Two areas of the sharing economy that still require resolution include issues surrounding regulations and insurances.
• With high-speed broadband connections increasing, the digital economy has been again in a growth phase. The industry is proving very resilient despite the economic downturn and the long-term prospects for the digital economy are very positive.