Introduction to E-Business

Internet, digital technology, or information and communications technologies create the  term “new economy”.  In other words e-business reveals the term “the new economy”

New economy has three main characteristics that can be summarized as below:
1. First of all, it is global.

2. It enables intangible things such as ideas, information, and relationships.

3. It consists of a  new marketplace and society which is based on electronic networks.

The Internet can be defined as a term used for the physical network that links computers across the globe. The Internet  consists of the infrastructure of network servers and communication links between them that are used to hold and transport information between the client PCs and web servers .

In intranet system access to the information is restricted. For example If an access to sensitive company information is required by an e-business application, access should be limited to qualified individuals or partners. If there is a restriction to employees in an organization for accessing the information
needed, this is called intranet . 

Extranet is needed.  If the access to information is extended to some others (customers, suppliers and collaborators), but not everyone beyond the organization, it is called extranet.

 Hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) enabled access to particular parts of documents or even to other relevant documents held on other servers by extending the functionality of the internet.  As in the servers, each document, or pages are given a unique address, the addresses are called as universal
resource locators (URL’s). With the ability to access pages, documents and servers from many different websites gave rise to the term the World Wide Web.

In e-business the word “electronic” is used for interactive, inter organizational processes.  Therefore “electronic” is defined as a combination of telecommunications and computing capabilities.

Electronic business includes  all of the activities along with the supply chain from suppliers to consumers and to conduct business internally and/or externally.

Electronic commerce (e-commerce) can be defined  as buying and selling via computer networks.  It includes   the process of transacting with suppliers and customers , so it is also  defined as a particular form of e-business.

There are 4 perspectives about e-commerce. 
1. A communications perspective includes the delivery of information, products or services or payment by electronic means.
2. A business process perspective means the application of technology towards the automation of business transactions and workflows.
3. A service perspective enables  cost cutting at the same time  increasing the speed and quality of service delivery.
4. An online perspective includes the buying and selling of products and information online.

Sell-side e-commerce refers to selling the products of the organization to its customers. Like selling products through its own website or through sales platforms like Trendyol or Amazon.

Buy-side e-commerce refers to electronic transactions to procure, purchase  resources needed by the organization from its suppliers. A factory's purchasing department that is buying supplies and raw materials  from different companies  is an example of buy-side perspective. 

There are some differences between e-commerce and e-business.

E-commerce primarily focus on buying and selling activities through the internet. E-commerce mainly  focus  on the customer side. On the other hand e-Business is  broader than e-Commerce. It encompasses the integration of electronic processes beyond buying and selling activities, e.g. full integration into organizations’ ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems or equivalent business tools, to undertake business processes by electronic communications end-to end.

It is easier for companies to enter to e-commerce compared to the traditional endustries. The cost of entry and exit is low relative to traditional industries, as firms do not require large sales teams, costly investment in infrastructure or high sunk costs in order to compete effectively. 

E-Business is divided  divided into different  categories. These categories are; 
Business-to-Business (B2B), Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C), Government-to-Government (G2G),Business-to-Consumer (B2C) or Consumer-to-Business (C2B), Business-to-Administration (B2A) or Administration-to-Business (A2B, and  Consumer-to-Administration (C2A) or Administration-to-Consumer (A2C).

Consumer-to-consumer business model brings consumers together for a specific purpose.  Well-known examples of C2C models include consumer e-auctions and blogs. Instagram is an other example in which consumers share their views about products, suggest products and even make sales. 

Consumer-to-government model enables consumers to post their concerns, to request feedback, or information directly from their  government. The applications of C2G include e-democracy, e-voting, information about public services and e-health. For example consumers may ask for doctor appoinment from hospitals. 

Key characteristics of e-business can be listed like the followings:

1. The speed of  transactions,
2. The ability to connect multiple parties at the same time,
3. The ability to gather and manipulate information in new ways,
4. The absence of traditional business tools such as paper forms and face-to-face retail contact.

E-Business is improves the operational efficiency. Since e-Business technologies enable organizations to interact with their trading partners, they can streamline their operations and increase the effectiveness at the same time. It eliminates waste in operations and automate the inefficient business processes so that  organizations can also improve their productivity. 

The biggest challenge of e-business is  internal, in other words about the existing organizational structure and business processes. Organizations also have to  determine their customers’ changing needs. Ensuring security for e-business is also a big challenge. Another challenge is about the legal framework. The legal issues may be unclear and may be hard to interpret. Also telecommunications infrasturucture may be very expensive which provides a challege for e-business companies.