E-commerce versus E-business
The rapid development of the Internet has caused significant changes in organizational management and design, businesses processes, the ways in which companies compete, new business and revenue models, new products and product delivery channels, marketing processes, customer relations, and other basic processes and activities. Businesses that stay with their current way of conducting business without moving toward the rapid development of the Internet are setting themselves up for failure. Failure can happen as quickly as success in the business world where competitors are always looking for ways to add value to their products, and technologies advances play a major role in adding value to a business.
E-commerce and e-business are terms that are sometimes used interchangeably, but the terms are different, and that difference matters to businesses. E-commerce consists mainly of the selling, purchasing, and exchanging of products and services over computer networks as well as the Internet (Milutinovic & Patricelli, 2002). E-commerce can involve electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, e-marketing, online marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), automated inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. It typically uses electronic communications technology such as the Internet, extranets, e-mail, e-books, databases, catalogues and mobile phones. Furthermore, Ecommerce Digest (2002-2011) indicates that e-commerce can be divided into three key classifications: Business-to-Business (B2B) is wholesale transactions between organizations; Business-to-Consumer (B2C) is retail transactions with individual shoppers; and Consumer-to-Consume...
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...1, from http://www.ecommerce-digest.com/ecommerce-definition.html
McKie, S. (2001). E-business best practices: Leveraging technology for business [E-book Version]. Retrieved on January 31, 2011, from http://www.netlibrary.com.library.capella.edu/
Milutinovic, V., & Patricelli, F. (Eds.). (2002). E-business and e-challenges. [E-book version]. Retrieved on January 31, 2011, from http://site.ebrary.com.library.capella.edu/lib/capella/Doc?id=10116453
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The growth of online business has grown enormously over the years. Cliptomania is a family operated and owned small e-business that primarily sells clip on earrings (Brown, DeHayes, Hoffer, Martin, & Perkins, 2012, p. 308). Cliptomania early developments were very modest, and as such the company experienced copious strategic dilemmas. An initial strategic dilemma that the company encountered when establishing and building their new e-business undertaking was to create a website for the business operations and essentially to have it fully operable. The owners, Jim and Candy elected to hire a vendor to host the website and additionally utilize the IT systems resources of the vendor to sustain their business. At the very beginning they exploited the offerings of the Yahoo Store. However, continuing down this avenue of using the services of the Yahoo Store inevitably became too costly. By using the services and business offerings of a vendor made it convenient and effortless for Jim and Candy to start their e-business store. Unfortunately the couple did not have much in the way of professional help, and so they had to create and put together the website by themselves. Additionally they also had to deal with establishing their online credibility as many customers preferred to call in their orders just to talk with a real person before being comfortable enough to place their orders via the webpage.
Laudon, Kenneth C. Traver, Carol. E-commerce: Business. Technology. Society 3th ed. Pearson Prentice Hall. Upper Saddle NJ, 2007.
In two distinct e-commerce business types, Business-to-business (B2B) and Business-to-Consumer (B2C), there are many differences in the way they operate. Specifically in marketing, differences include how the marketing is driven and the values of the strategies, the size of the target market and length of the sales cycle, and even the buying patterns of the target consumers. Each of these differences will be better defined and explained in the following paragraphs.
In summary, “Internet activities are not most significant in competition, such as informing customers, processing transactions, and procuring inputs”. (Porter, 2001) significant corporate assets--skilled employees, proprietary product, and efficient logistical systems – these factors are the most important to keep competitive advantages. In fact, it is foreseeable that the Internet's evolution will come up in the future involve a shift “in thinking from e-business to business, from e-strategy to strategy”. (Porter, 2001)Only by integrating the Internet into overall strategy will this powerful new technology become an equally powerful force for competitive advantage.
During the last decade, we’ve been to the top of the world—during the dot-com boom of the late 1990s—and back down again, when it all fell apart a few years later. But with the bad came the good: The Web forever changed the business world. The following small-business owners are shining examples of how Web-based technologies can be a businessperson’s best friend.
E-commerce is the use of electronic methods and technologies to sell and purchase either goods, services or information. The e-commerce concept was first introduced in the early 1990’s takes place over the World Wide Web. In this context, there are three distinct levels of integration in e-commerce including vertical integration and cross-business integration. The vertical level of integration involves the linkage between the front end of the website and transaction systems On the other hand, the cross-business integration involves linking a company’s website with the websites of its customers and suppliers. The third and final level of integration is the inclusion of technology to handle customers’ orders, purchases and customer service. Consequently, these three levels of integration give rise to a combination of links, information, websites and e-commerce websites, which are accessible over the internet.
The future of economic competitiveness for most enterprises relies on entrance and active participation in the e-commerce market. An essential problem with e-commerce is that the controls and organization are different for each site. There is no standard way of building t...
E-Business: The Web @ Work/ Bron-Shoe Co. Wall Street Journal; New York, N.Y.; Sep 25, 2000; Patricia Davis
Technology is moving ahead of a rapid pace and reinventing the way business is done. E-business has the potential to affect every part of the value chain, from inbound logistics and operations through to outbound logistics, marketing and after sales support. Forecasts indicate that in 2001 e-business will top U.S. $ 434 billion and much of that will be in business-to-business transactions. The advantages are clear, e- business can help cut costs, link supply chains more efficiently and service markets more effectively. Scalability, flexibility, security, performance and back end integration are all vital issues, getting architect right is the key. While online services are growing, security measures are becoming more of a concern.
Business today is inextricably intertwined with technology, from the smallest home office, to a multinational corporation with multiple monolithic legacy application. It is impossible to be in business today without confronting the issues of technology. The way we do business today is different than 30 years ago. Technology has evolved around the areas of telecommunication, travel, stock market, shipping even around our daily lives. E-commerce a system by which people can buy, sell and deal without even seeing the person on the other side has taken a front seat in improving the economy of countries around the world. Technology today has made it possible for monetary institutions to help locate the customers resources and help solve their problems at any given time through online banking. The Internet, a boon to all business, is playing a part of a catalyst; it links millions of customers to its suppliers and vice versa due to this, manufactures are able to cut the role of middlemen and are able to deal with the customers, giving them the ability for direct input from the customers about their choices and views of their product. The busi...
E-commerce means that the company runs their business online, not like the traditional business way. We have to go the shopping mall or store to get goods that we need, E-Business is the enabling of electronic communication between any two or more participants in a business relationship. It helps companies capture abroad business field, cost saving, and market opportunity. E-commerce is an important factor that is making people’s lives more efficient.
E-commerce is as the world knows the process of buying and selling goods and services over the Internet where in all the activities happen online, These activities includes not only mere generating demand but also factors like customer services with regards o offering after sales services and facilitating communication as well between business partners. The e-commerce structure is such that which not only includes transactions of buying and selling but also generating revenue by selling goods and services by providing the most viable and exciting experience of online shopping
E-business is a wider concept that takes into account all the aspects of use of information technology in business. Apart from buying and selling, it also includes servicing customers, collaboration with business partners, and engages incorporation across business processes and communication within the organisation (Rowley, 2002)
Consequently, e-business and especially online shopping is crucial for retail stores. They should provide necessary infrastructure for selling their products online. By taking advantage of e-business not only they can get competitive advantage of online shopping, but the...
The goal of this report is to analyze the Amazon's e-business strategies and activities. This report also discusses the result of strategies adopted by Amazon and how far it has been successful.