How e-commerce and big data are shaping postgraduate degrees
Master’s degree courses help students keep pace with rapid advances in everyday uses of digital technology
The flow of innovation around digital technology seems to be gathering pace and reaching further and further – not only into the way we do business, but also the way we lead our lives. Keeping pace with these developments, and with their practical applications, is a challenge for anyone, let alone a busy professional or executive.
Two master’s degree programmes offered by Hong Kong universities focus on applications having, or promising to have, the biggest impact on both the economy and on wider society.
The master’s degree in e-commerce, run by the Polytechnic University (PolyU), was launched in 2000. Over the past 17 years, shopping habits have been transformed, with the range of products and services predominantly bought through online channels increasing all the time.
It has often been noted that local consumers have tended to lag behind those in other developed economies in this regard. But Professor George Baciu, of PolyU’s department of computing, and the programme leader for the e-commerce programme, believes this no longer holds true.
“Hong Kong consumers are already embracing e-commerce platforms for product purchases, product rankings and customer feedback, as can be seen from the abundance of apps that are developed in Hong Kong,” he says.
With electronic payment now so widely used in retail and B2B (business to business) transactions, and with the strong growth of businesses operating primarily in this field, such as Amazon and Alibaba Group Holdings – owner of the South China Morning Post – Baciu sees e-commerce already firmly established as a fundamental part of our commercial lives.
