Electronic Business, or "e-Business", may be defined broadly as any business process that relies on an
automated information system. Today, this is mostly done with Web-based technologies. The term "e-Business" was coined by Lou
Gerstner, CEO of IBM.
Electronic business methods enable companies to link their internal and external data processing systems more efficiently and
flexibly, to work more closely with suppliers and partners, and to better satisfy the needs and expectations of their
customers.
In practice, e-business is more than just e-commerce. While e-business refers to
more strategic focus with an emphasis on the functions that occur using electronic capabilities, e-commerce is a subset of an overall e-business strategy. E-commerce seeks to add revenue streams
using the World Wide Web or the Internet to build and
enhance relationships with clients and partners and to improve efficiency using the Empty
Vessel strategy. Often, e-commerce involves the application of knowledge
management systems.
E-business involves business processes spanning the entire value chain: electronic
purchasing and supply chain management, processing orders electronically,
handling customer service, and cooperating with business partners. Special technical standards for e-business facilitate the
exchange of data between companies. E-business software solutions allow the integration of intra and inter firm business
processes. E-business can be conducted using the Web, the Internet, intranets, extranets, or some combination of these.
Subsets
Applications can be divided into three categories:
- Internal business systems:
- Enterprise communication and collaboration:
- electronic commerce - business-to-business electronic commerce (B2B) or business-to-consumer electronic commerce (B2C):
Models
When organizations go online, they have to decide which e-business models best suit their goals. [1] A business model is defined as the
organization of product, service and
information flows, and the source of revenues and benefits for suppliers and
customers. The concept of e-business model is the same but used in the online presence. The
following is a list of the currently most adopted e-business models:
Classification by provider and consumer
Roughly dividing the world into providers/producers and consumers/clients one can classify e-businesses into the following
categories:
It is notable that there are comparably less connections pointing "upwards" than "downwards" (few
employee/consumer/citizen-to-X models).
See also
References
- ^ Paul Timmers, (2000), Electronic Commerce - strategies & models for
business-to-business trading, pp.31, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, ISBN 0-471-72029-1
External links
Wikibooks
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