Utilization of Communication Technology for Business

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A B S T R A C T S A R T I C L E I N F O
Advances in technology, computers, and telecommunications support the development of internet technology.Currently, the IT function in society has begun to change.Initially, the IT function as a means of exchanging electronic information to an application that is used to implement corporate business strategies such as marketing, sales, and customer service activities.The purpose of this study is to get empirical evidence of the benefits of using communication technology for business people.This research used a descriptive method by conducting a survey in the form of a questionnaire and conducting several further interviews.The results showed that using communication technology such as the Digital Platform can make it easier for sellers to market products and make it easier to interact with buyers.This research discusses that using communication technology such as the Digital Platform is one of the best business strategies.The conclusion obtained in this study is that the Digital Platform is the best solution to expand business networks and make it easier for sellers and buyers to make transactions.The benefit of doing this research is to find out the meaning and purpose of developing business communication by involving digital technology in marketing products or services.(Müller, J M. 2019).

INTRODUCTION
This study aims to get empirical evidence of the benefits of use communication technology for business.The data in the study were collected by conducting interviews with business people in the city of Bandung.This research refers to previous research conducted by (Hagiu, A., & Wright, J. 2015;Arnold, et al., 2016), (Gawer, A., & Cusumano MA. 2014;Müller, et al., 2018;Koskinen, et al., 2019;Soegoto, E. S., & Akbar, R. 2018), and (Ruggieri, et al., 2018), succeeded in providing empirical evidence that the use of digital platforms has a role in increasing business prospects for various types of businesses.

METHOD
This study used a descriptive method with a quantitative approach, in which a survey was conducted through a questionnaire with 17 respondents and conducted further interviews with several respondents.All respondents are Universitas Komputer Indonesia students who have a business, which utilizes communication technology, namely the Digital Platform, to apply business strategies.The period for filling out the questionnaire and interviewing was conducted for 2 days, from 19 to 20 January 2021.

Definition of Digital Platform
Digital Platform is one result of the development of communication technology today.The digital platform is a technology that enables companies to uniform, edit and distribute data on an unprecedented scale (Yoo, Henfridsson, & Lyytinen, 2010).Companies use the digital platform as a prayer of one way to build a competitive advantage (Parker, Van Alstyne, & Choudary, 2016).By collecting, managing, and analyzing data, a unified platform, for example, partners, customers, and suppliers on one platform that serves the interests of multiple users (Kiel, et al., 2017;Hagiu, A., & Wright, J. 2015;Arnold, et al., 2016).It can open up new perspectives and new forms of interaction and relationships.They provide the basis to create new business models (Xie, et al., 2016).In the study, digital platforms are understood as "products, services, and technology that are arranged in a common structure.Where companies can create derivative products, services, and technology" (Gawer, A., & Cusumano MA. 2014); in this respect, digital platforms are different from traditional technology platforms.Such technology is usually characterized by providing several products and services by the platform provider to its customers (Müller, J M. 2019).The combination of several customer groups can also serve partly as a provider; for example, data for other customers and their interconnection in real-time is not visible on the platform's traditional technology (Hagiu, A., & Wright, J. 2015;Gawer, A., & Cusumano MA. 2014;Müller, et al., 2018).There are three types of digital platforms as follow (Koskinen et al., 2019):

Transaction Platform Type
The transaction platform is a digital platform concentrated on transactions or commonly called a multi-sided market (exchange platform).This type of platform's main purpose is to facilitate transactions between different organizations, entities, and individuals, such as connecting sellers and buyers, drivers and passengers, and others.This type of platform will be very useful in reducing transaction costs, where this platform can allow groups of users to search until they can find each other easily, and overall can reduce some problems in the transaction process (Soegoto, E. S., & Akbar, R. 2018).

Innovation Platform
Innovation platforms provide a technology platform, often covering a common set of standards, by which an ecosystem of third parties can develop complementary products and services for resale to consumers and other businesses (Soegoto, E. S., & Akbar, R. 2018).The Innovation Platform provides third-party developer tools and resources that developers combine and use legacy methods to enable new applications for commercial or other types of use.

Platform Integration
The integration platform combines aspects of two types of platforms: transaction and innovation platforms (Soegoto, E. S., & Akbar, R. 2018).The transaction and innovation platform's key points also apply to the integration platform and are therefore not discussed again.

How the Digital Platform Works
As previously explained, the digital platform collects, manages, and analyzes data.It is shown in Fig. 1.
It is shown that the digital platform collects data from customers, producers, and providers.It can be in the form of product data, services, and personal information.After all the data is obtained, the digital platform will manage and analyze the data until the digital platform can unite and connect all users by simply searching to easily connect, such as connecting sellers with buyers and others.

Uses of the Digital Platform
Based on the questionnaires that have been distributed and in-depth interviews, there are uses for the digital platform that respondents felt by respondents, namely business actors, which is shown in Table 1.Based on Table 1, we can see the various uses that business people feel by using the Digital Platform as a medium for applying business strategies.

Reasons for Using the Digital Platform
Using the Digital Platform is currently an obligation for businesses and customers.According to the interviews conducted for business actors, the reason they use the Digital Platform is that most of them do not have their shops / offline stores.Meanwhile, if they use the digital platform, they do not have to own offline stores to market products or services.Besides, the customers prefer the digital platform because they can easily find products or something they need.

Digital Platform used and the Features Provided
Based on the results of questionnaires, it shows several digital platforms that business people use for their business interests.It is shown in Fig. 2 Based on Fig. 2, it is known that 70.6 % of users used digital platforms in Instagram.In addition, there are 0% on Twitter, 5.9% on Youtube, 47.1% on WhatsApp, and 23.5% on Facebook.From these digital platforms, we compare the features available on the top three platforms selected as a consideration for which platforms provide features that make it easier for business actors.It is described in Table 2 as follows: Then, we explained the results of the level of respondent satisfaction with the digital platform.It is shown in Fig. 3 as follows.
Fig. 3 shows that not all respondents feel that the digital platform is very useful, but no respondent feels that the digital platform is useless.Therefore, further interviews were conducted with two respondents who felt less satisfied with the Digital Platform.Furthermore, the result is that they feel that to run the Digital Platform at this time, besides being required the best business strategy, business actors must also face the existing challenges, one of which is building customer trust in the products/services they offer.

CONCLUSION
Based on research results, the digital platform most widely used by people every day is Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp.Therefore, the conclusion obtained in this research is that Communication Technology such as the Digital Platform is the best solution to expand business networks and make it easier for sellers and buyers to make transactions.

Fig. 2 .
Fig. 2. Digital Platforms Used by Business Actors