4 degrees of commitment level in e-business

According to Strauss and Frost (2003), there are four degrees of commitment level in e-
business.the lowest level is the activity level, followed by the business process level, the enterprise level
and finally the pure play level. This paper will list and explain the various types of activities incorporated
within each e-business level of commitment.

Firstly, companies use activity level to make cost reduction through e-business efficiencies in
general. In this classification, they would be expected to se e-business for some or all of the following:
online purchasing, order processing, email, online advertising, business intelligence, content publishing,
online sales promotions and pricing strategies.

Next level is the business process level in which companies are expected to use technology to
keep customers (CRM), manage their resources ( ERP), manage their knowledge base (KM) using
database marketing , and building communities around their products and services which build websites
to draw groups of special interest users with community building, put a link to someone else’s retail
website by affiliate programs, (Strauss, 2003). Beside, those kinds of companies would coordinate the
distribution channel to deliver products more effectively and efficiently to customers (SCM), customize
marketing mixes electronically and automatically to the individual level is known as mass customization.

At the enterprise level of the pyramid, companies are able to do all or some of following
activities such as e-commerce refers to online transactions: selling goods and services on the internet,
either in one transaction or over time with an ongoing subscription (Strauss, 2003). Customers think of
companies at this level that now provide the ability to purchase online and have the items shipped
directly to themselves known as direct selling. Many retail business have this sort of setup, including:
Dell, wall-mart, Sears, JC’ Penny’s, and others. Another model is content sponsorship, a portal such as
Yahoo! And AOL websites; online brokers are intermediaries that assist in the purchase negotiations
without actually representing either buyers or sellers; online agents represents either the buyer or the
seller and earn a commission for their work; selling agents help a seller move product; manufacturer’s
agents represent manufacturing firms that sell complementary products to avoid conflicts of interest;
the catalog aggregator and a special type of agent is the metamediary ; purchasing agents represent
buyers; shopping agents help individual consumers find specific products and the best price online (e.g
www.mysimon.com); the reverse auction; a buyer cooperative; a virtual mall.

The highest level of the pyramid is comprised of internet pure play, happen when a company is
created based on its internet, even if they subsequently added a brick-and-mortar presence (Straus,
2003). For example, E*TRADE is a pure play, beginning with only online trading.

As can be seen, there are four levels of commitment to e-business that are defined by the
pyramid. Each level has its own unique features that a company can offer at that level. It is important to
note that a company can cross more than one level of the pyramid base on their internet offering.