Management responses to e-commerce and e-business

A primary aim of this book is to consider the management issues when businesses look to take advantage of the opportunities afforded by e-commerce and e-business. How should an e-business strategy be developed? To what extent can we use existing business and IS strat­egy models? What are the main changes that need to be

EBay – the world’s largest e-business

This case summarizes the strategic approach used by eBay to take advantage of increased consumer adoption of the Internet. It summarizes its objectives, strategy and proposition and some of the risks that need management. 1. Context It’s hard to believe that one of the most celebrated dot­coms has now celebrated its tenth birthday. Pierre

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The e-commerce environment

All organizations operate within an environment that influences the way in which they con­duct business. Strategy development should be strongly influenced by considering the environment the business operates in, as illustrated in Figure 2.1. To inform e-commerce strategy, the most significant influences are those of the immediate marketplace of the micro-environment that is shaped

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Location of trading in online the marketplace

While traditional marketplaces have a physical location, an Internet-based market has no physical presence – it is a virtual marketplace. Rayport and Sviokla (1996) used this distinc­tion to coin a new term: electronic marketplace. This has implications for the way in which the relationships between the different actors in the marketplace occur. The new

Business models for e-commerce

A review of the different online business models made available through e-commerce is of relevance to existing companies, but in particular, start-up companies and online intermedi­aries. Venkatram (2000) points out that existing businesses need to use the Internet to build on current business models, while at the same time experimenting with new business models.

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Focus on auction business models

With the success of eBay (www.ebay.com), auctions have been highlighted as one of the new business models for the Internet. But how do auctions work, what infrastructure is required and what is the potential for B2B auctions? In this section we will address some of these issues. Auctions involve determination of the basis for

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Focus on Internet start-up companies

To conclude the chapter, we review how to evaluate the potential of new Internet start-ups. Many ‘dot-coms’ were launched in response to the opportunities of new business and rev­enue models opened up by the Internet in the mid-to-late 1990s. We also consider what lessons can be learnt from the dot-com failures. But Table 1.1

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Lastminute.com – an international dot-com survivor

This case illustrates the fortunes of lastminute.com, a start-up which used the Internet to introduce an innovative service. The case describes the service and its growth. Success factors in achieving growth and threats to growth throughout the history of the company are described. lastminute.com was a European innovation, since at launch, no equivalent site

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Zopa launches a new lending model

This case shows how it is still possible to develop radical new online business models. It shows how an online business can be launched without large-scale expendi­ture on advertising and how it needs to be well targeted at its intended audience. 1. Context It might be thought that innovation in business models was left

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Introduction to E-business infrastructure

Defining an adequate technology infrastructure is vital to all companies adopting e-business. The infrastructure directly affects the quality of service experienced by users of the systems in terms of speed and responsiveness. The e-business services provided through a standardized infrastructure also determine the capability of an organization to compete through differenti­ating itself in the

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Internet technology

As you will know, the Internet enables communication between millions of connected com­puters worldwide, but how does the seamless transfer of data happen? Requests for information are transmitted from client computers and mobile devices whose users request services to server computers that hold information and host business applications that deliver the services in response

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Web technology

The World Wide Web, or ‘web’ for short, has proved so successful since it provides a stan­dard method for exchanging and publishing information on the Internet. The main standard document format is HTML (Hypertext Markup Language, Chapter 12), which can be thought of as similar to a word-processing format such as that used for

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Internet-access software applications

Over its lifetime, many software tools have been developed to help find, send and receive information across the Internet. Web browsers used to access the World Wide Web are the latest of these applications. These tools are summarized in Table 3.3. In this section we will briefly discuss how to assess the relevance and

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How does it work? Internet standards

We have introduced the general terms and concepts that describe the operation of the Inter­net and the World Wide Web. In this section we look briefly at the standards that you may encounter which have been adopted to enable information transfer. Knowledge of these terms is useful for anyone involved in the management of

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FOCUS on Internet governance

In Chapter 4 we will look briefly at how governments promote and control, through laws, the use of the Internet in their jurisdiction. In this section, we look at the growth of the Internet as a global phenomenon and how the standards described in the previous section were devised. The Internet is quite different

Managing e-business infrastructure

As explained at the start of the chapter, e-business infrastructure comprises the hardware, software, content and data used to deliver e-business services to employees, customers and partners. In this part of the chapter we look at the management of e-business infrastructure by reviewing different perspectives on the infrastructure. These are: Hardware and systems software

FOCUS on web services, SaaS and service-oriented architecture (SOA)

‘Web services’ or ‘software as a service (SaaS)’ refers to a highly significant model for man­aging software and data within the e-business age. The web services model involves managing and performing all types of business processes and activities through accessing web-based services rather than running a traditional executable application on the processor of your

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FOCUS on mobile commerce

In Chapter 1 we explained that e-commerce refers to both informational and financial transac­tions through digital media. Similarly mobile commerce (m-commerce) refers to the use of wireless devices such as mobile phones for both informational and monetary transactions. While fixed access to the Internet has dominated to-date in many developed countries, in future this

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Introduction to E-environment

In Chapter 2 we introduced the importance of monitoring changes in the environment and how they impact on an organization. Table 4.1 presents the main marketplace or macro­environmental factors and the micro-environmental factors that directly affect an organization. In this chapter we concentrate on the role of the macro-environmental forces. Aspects of the micro-environment

Social and legal factors in E-environment

In this section we look at the social and cultural impacts of the Internet. These are impor­tant from an e-commerce perspective since they govern demand for Internet services and propensity to purchase online. For example, in Figures 1.10 and 1.14 respectively we saw how businesses and consumers have adopted different online services. Further aspects

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