Taslim Ahammad :
In the present day the new technologies, in particular access to the internet, tend to modify communication between the different players in the professional world, notably: relationships between a business and its clients. It is believed that a company only actually implements an e-business project as soon as it implements an organisation based on technologies. Electronic business (e-business) is a broader term, it refers to the use of the Web, Internet, intranets, extranets or some combination thereof to conduct business. E-business is similar to e-commerce, but it goes beyond the simple buying and selling of products and services online. E-business includes a much wider range of businesses processes, such as supply chain management, electronic order processing and customer relationship management. The history of e-business is closely tangled with the history of the internet. Online shopping only became possible when the internet was opened to the public in 1991. Early online sales -With the advent of the secured socket layer, developed by Netscape in 1994, websites developed the ability to encrypt sessions, thus making credit card transactions over the internet safer. With an encrypted connection between a company’s server and a client computer, credit numbers could be masked so they could not be intercepted by a third party, thus making theft of card information less likely. This security led to an increased number of businesses offering products for sale via the web. Modern web sales – developments in server technology, including the ability to build websites from product databases, resulted in creation of large internet-only businesses. In previous product-sales websites, each product had to be manually posted on a web page. With database-driven sites, companies could use web-page templates to display tens of thousands of products on-the-fly. As the number of available products increased, so did traffic and sales on these websites.
Current state of e-Business: Currently, e-business ranges from simple sites providing corporate information to sites offering goods and services for sale online. Innovative uses for new voice and video communication technologies include online language tutoring. Large commercial information repositories are growing and use of the Internet for research is now common. Online sales from web-based storefronts continue to grow. Sales of digital information, in the form of eBooks and digital music files, are more recent offerings by e-businesses.
Features of Online Business: It is easy to set up. There are no geographical boundaries. E-business is much cheaper than traditional business. There are flexible business hours. Marketing strategies cost less. Online business receive subsidies from the government. There are a few security and integrity issues. There is no personal touch. Buyer and seller don’t meet. Delivery of products takes time. There is a transaction risk. Anyone can buy anything from anywhere at any time. The transaction risk is higher than traditional business.
Characterization of the e-Business: The functioning of a company can be roughly modelled in accordance with a set of interacting functions, which are commonly classified in three categories: performance functions, management functions, and support functions. Performance functions represent the core of its activity, i.e. the production of goods or services. They pertain to activities of production, stock management, and purchasing function. Management functions cover all strategic functions of management of the company. They cover general management of the company, the human resources (HR) management functions, as well as the financial and account management functions. Support functions group all activities related to sales as well as all activities that are transversal to the organization, such as management of technological infrastructures. Companies are generally characterized by the type of commercial relationships they maintain.
Some of the types of e-commerce:
Business-to-Business (B2B) – Transactions that take place between two organizations come under Business to business. Producers and traditional commerce wholesalers typically operate with this type of electronic commerce. Business-to-Consumer (B2C) – When a consumer buys products from a seller then it is business to consumer transaction. People shopping from Flipkart, Amazon, etc. is an example of business to consumer transaction. In such a transaction the final consumer himself is directly buying from the seller. Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) – A consumer selling product or service to another consumer is a consumer to consumer transaction. C2C type of transactions generally occurs for second-hand products.
Consumer-to-Business (C2B): In C2B there is a complete reversal of the traditional sense of exchanging goods. This type of e-commerce is very common in crowd sourcing based projects. Consumer-to-Administration (C2A) – The Consumer-to-Administration model encompasses all electronic transactions conducted between individuals and public administration. Such as; Education – disseminating information, distance learning, etc. Social Security – through the distribution of information, making payments, etc. Taxes – filing tax returns, payments, etc. Health – appointments, information about illnesses, and payment of health services, etc.
Business-to-Administration (B2A): This part of e-commerce encompasses all transactions conducted online by companies and public administration or the government and it’s varies agencies.
Security and risks: – Successful e-business relies on swift, secure online transactions, even something as simple as a bad web hosting service creates a financial risk for these companies. Crashed servers and insufficient bandwidth lead to persistent website downtime and customer dissatisfaction, so companies must invest in well-known, reliable hosting providers that can, in turn, drive up the costs associated with running a successful e-business. There are marketing risks when it comes to e-business as well. E-business vs. e-commerce: E-commerce and e-business are similar, with e-commerce referring to buying and selling products online. However, e-business defines a wider range of business processes by including aspects such as supply chain management (SCM), electronic order processing and customer relationship management (CRM) designed to help the company operate more effectively and efficiently.
Build business website: Choose one or two plain fonts on a white background. Make your navigation clear and simple, and the same on every page. Only use graphics, audio or video if they enhance your message. Include an opt-in offer so you can collect e-mail addresses. Make it easy to buy – no more than two clicks between potential customer and checkout. Business website is business online storefront, so make it customer-friendly.
The goal of this writing to present the main market technologies, including: Intranet / Extranet; groupware; management of e-business processes. The internet changes so fast that one year online equals about some years in the real world. Therefore, to create privileged communication channels between the company and its environment and link those with its internal processes to better control internal and external matters.
