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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Environmental and green issues related to Internet usage in E-environment

The future state of our planet is a widely held social concern that is closely related to economic issues. Although technology is generally seen as detrimental to the environment, think about long- and short-haul flights, and TVs and electronic gadgets burning fuel when left on standby; there are some arguments that e-commerce and digital

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Taxation in E-environment

How to change tax laws to reflect globalization through the Internet is a problem that many governments have grappled with. The fear is that the Internet may cause significant reduc­tions in tax revenues to national or local governments if existing laws do not cover changes in purchasing patterns. Basu (2007) notes that around a

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Economic and competitive factors in E-environment

The economic health and competitive environment in different countries will determine the e-commerce potential of each. Managers developing e-commerce strategies in multinational companies will initially target the countries that are most developed in the use of the tech­nology. A comprehensive framework for assessing an ‘e-economy’ has been developed by Booz Allen Hamilton (2002). The

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FOCUS on e-commerce and globalization

Globalization refers to the move towards international trading in a single global market­place and also to blurring of social and cultural differences between countries. Some perceive it as ‘Westernization’ or even ‘Americanization’. We saw in Chapter 1 that for both SMEs such as North West Supplies and larger organizations such as easyJet and Cisco,

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Political factors in E-environment

The political environment is shaped by the interplay of government agencies, public opinion, consumer pressure groups such as CAUCE (the Coalition against Unsolicited E-mail), www.cauce.org, and industry-backed organizations such as TRUSTe (www.truste.org) that pro­mote best practice amongst companies. The political environment is one of the drivers for establishing the laws to ensure privacy and

E-government

E-government is distinct from Internet governance. We introduced e-government in Chapter 1, where we noted that it is a major strategic priority for many countries in Europe and the remainder of the world. To achieve the potential cost savings, some governments have set tar­gets for both buy- and sell-side e-government. In the UK, the

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Technological innovation and technology assessment

One of the great challenges of managing e-commerce is the need to be able to assess which new technological innovations can be applied to give competitive advantage. I’m often asked what is ‘the next big thing’ or to predict changes in e-commerce over the next 5 years. The truth is no one can predict

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Approaches to identifying emerging technology

PMP (2008) describes four contrasting approaches to identifying new technologies which may give a company a competitive edge if they are involved in manufacturing or are looking to improve their supply chain effectiveness. These are the four alternative approaches which apply to e-business technologies (the author describe them for manufacturing and supply chain approaches)

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What is e-business strategy?

Strategy defines the future direction and actions of an organization or part of an organization. Johnson and Scholes (2006) define corporate strategy as: the direction and scope of an organization over the long-term: which achieves advantage for the organization through its configuration of resources within a changing environment to meet the needs of markets

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