E-commerce

lesson 2
 FORCES FUELING E-COMMERCE
There are at least 3 major forces fuelling e-
commerce:
• economic forces,
• marketing and customer interaction forces,
• and technology, particularly multimedia
convergence
 Economic Forces
• One of the most evident benefits of e-
commerce is economic efficiency resulting
from the reduction in communications costs,
low-cost of technological infrastructure,
speedier and more economic electronic
transactions with suppliers, lower global
information sharing and advertising costs, and
cheaper customer service alternatives.
Economic integration is either external or internal.
External integration refers to the electronic
networking of companies, suppliers,
customers/clients, and independent contractors
into one community communicating in a virtual
environment (with the Internet as medium).
Internal integration, on the other hand, is the
networking of the various departments within a
company, and of business operations and
processes.
 Market Forces
• companies are encouraged to use e-commerce in
marketing and promotion to capture international
markets, both big and small. The Internet is likewise
used as a medium for enhanced customer service
and support. It is a lot easier for companies to
provide their target consumers with more detailed
product and service information using the Internet.
 Technology Forces
• The development of ICT is a key factor in the growth
of e-commerce. eg, technological advances in
digitizing content, compression and the promotion
of open systems technology have paved a way for
the convergence of communication services into
one single platform. This in turn has made
communication more efficient, faster, easier, and
more economical as the need to set up separate
networks for telephone services, television
broadcast, cable television, and Internet access is
eliminated. From the point of firms/ businesses and
consumers, having only one information provider
means lower communications costs.
 Is e-Commerce the Same as e-Business?
• While some use e-commerce and e-business interchangeably,
they are different. In e-commerce, ICT is used in inter-
business or inter-organizational transactions (transactions
between and among organizations) and in business-to-
consumer transactions (transactions between firms and
individuals).
• In e-business, ICT is used to enhance one’s business. It
includes any process that a business organization (either a
for-profit/non-profit, or governmental entity) conducts over a
computer-mediated network.
• A more comprehensive definition of e-business is: “The
transformation of an organization’s processes to deliver
additional customer value through the application of
technologies, philosophies and computing paradigm of the
new economy.”
• Three primary processes are enhanced in e-
business:
• Production processes, which include procurement,
ordering and replenishment of stocks; processing of
payments; electronic links with suppliers, etc
• Customer-focused processes, include promotional
and marketing efforts, selling over the Internet,
processing of customers’ purchase orders and
payments, and customer support, etc
• Internal management processes, include employee
services, training, internal information-sharing,
video-conferencing, and recruiting.
 Assignment 2
• Find out and write or describe at least
3 features in 3 different e-commerce
platforms, and compare which of
them is better.
 What is EC
• Over two decades now, organizations have
conducted business electronically by employing a
variety of electronic commerce solutions. In the
traditional scenario, an organization enters the
electronic market by establishing trading partner
agreements with retailers or wholesalers of their
choosing. These agreements may include any
items that cannot be reconciled electronically,
such as terms of transfer, payment mechanisms,
or implementation conventions.
• After establishing proper business relationships,
an organization must choose the components of
their electronic commerce system.
• Although these systems differ in terms of features and
complexity, the core components typically include:
• Workflow Application: A form interface that aids a user
in creating outgoing requests or viewing incoming
requests. Information that appears in these forms may
also be stored in a local database.
• Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) Translator: A
mapping between the local format and a globally
understood format.
• Communications: A mechanism for transmitting the
data; typically asynchronous or bisynchronous
• Value-Added Network (VAN): a store and forward
mechanism for exchanging business messages
• In using an e-commerce system , a retailer may
maintain an electronic products inventory and
update it’s database when items are received from
suppliers or sold to customers.
• When the inventory of a particular item is low, the
retailer may create a purchase order to replenish his
inventory. As the purchase order passes through the
system, it will be translated into its EDI equivalent,
transmitted to a VAN, and forwarded to the
supplier’s mailbox. The supplier will check the EDI
purchase order, translate it into his own local form,
process the request, and ship the item.
• These technologies have primarily been used to
support business transactions between
organizations that have established relationships
(i.e. retailer and the wholesaler).
• Recently, the popularity of the Internet, vendors
are bringing the product directly to the consumer
via electronic shopping malls. These electronic
malls provide the consumer with powerful
browsing and searching capabilities, close to the
traditional shopping experience.
• In this emerging business-to- consumer model,
where consumers and businesses are meeting
electronically, business relationships will have to
be automatically negotiated.
 challenges
• As information technology industry moves towards the
creation of an open, competitive Electronic
Marketplace, it must provide an infrastructure that
supports the seamless location, transfer, and
integration of business information in a secure and
reliable manner. This Marketplace will be used by all
application domains to procure commodities and order
supplies. As such, electronic commerce applications will
require easy-to-use, robust, security services, a full
suite of middleware services, and data and protocol
conversion services. Using this Electronic Marketplace,
a purchasing agent will competitively procure supplies,
a manufacturer will obtain product or parts
information, and a consumer will procure goods and
services.
 Building Blocks
• In the heterogeneous, distributed environment that
makes up this Electronic Marketplace, information
and services will be accessible via methods that are
as wide and as varied as the vendors and
consumers that populate and use them. No longer
will interoperability be achieved by using a single
set of standards. Competing technologies will
always be available, and quite often there will be no
clear winner.
• Instead, emerging middleware technologies will
complement the suite of standards and standards
to provide seamless location, transfer, and
integration of business information.
 E-Commerce Communities
• What will drive e-commerce in the future? —it is
community. We certainly have the technology to
build great business-to-consumer and business-to-
business e-commerce applications into our business
models. And, yes, attributes such as viable
application design, integration with business
processes, and overall performance matter.
• But I predict that those who invest in community
will see a large increase in repeat business,
improved support functions, and the opportunity to
go after new forms of e-commerce revenue.
• So what is community and how do you form one? A
successful community strategy must embrace the idea
of moving the one-on-one communication that occurs
offline into the virtual world of e-commerce. Such a
strategy currently requires multiple technical
approaches. However, I believe community solutions
will soon become more integrated and far-reaching.
• The tools that form online communities include
discussion or forum software, chat functions, instant
messaging, two-way mailing lists, online collaboration
tools, audio, video, and more. You may choose to invest
slowly at first and increase your community
commitment over time.
 Solutions
• To directly address the issues of building an
information infrastructure that will support an
Electronic Marketplace, the National Institute of
Standards and Technology has established two
cooperative, complementary programs.
• under the guidance of industry participants, identifies,
develops, and demonstrates critical new technologies
and applications.
• provides a laboratory environment that supports
technology transfer through rapid prototypes, pilots,
the integration of key infrastructure components and
services, and the demonstration of existing and
emerging Electronic Commerce technologies. Through
on-going projects in the areas of database access,
facilitators and mediators, resource discovery, secure
messaging, etc focus on the following
• Where enabling services and technology are
not yet commercially available, NIST fosters
joint research projects aimed at bringing
together the research community and the
vendor community. This joint fellowship
provides vendors with the tools they need to
quickly implement emerging technologies
while researchers remain focused in their
development of new technologies.
• Where components are commercially
available, NIST creates test beds and pilots
aimed at achieving interoperable solutions.
 MODEL FOR E-COMMERCE & INFO SUPERHIGHWAY
• There are basically seven(7) types of models for E-
business. The E- Business model would be closely tied
to the mission of the organization. Once the
organization has decided what it aims to do one of the
models that have been explained below may be
adopted.
• Category Killer: this would use the Internet to define a
new market by identifying a value proposition for the
customer or create a new value proposition. The
organization which does so, would have the first mover
advantage in the market and would stay ahead of the
competition by continuously innovating. Example:
Amazon.com.
• Channel Reconfiguration: This model would use the
Internet as means of reaching the customers and
suppliers and to conduct, transactions on them. The
advantage of such a model is decreased time to
market. Such a model would invest in end-to end
process integration. This requires a major
application overhaul to develop an integrated
infrastructure that allows the processes to flow
seamlessly, leading to reduced costs of products by
eliminating, redundancies of operations and
enhancing the scope of each operation. Examples:
Cisco.
• Transaction Aggregation: This type of organization
would create an electronic commerce and payment
infrastructure that integrates their existing transaction
processing capabilities with e -business capabilities.
This would facilitate a client in carrying out all the steps
of purchases - searching, comparing, and selecting and
paying online. These intermediaries may fulfill the
following roles -
• Support buyers in identifying their needs and finding an
appropriate seller.
• Provide an efficient means of exchanging information
between both parties.
• Execute the business transaction.
For example: Microsoft Expedia and eBay.
• Infomediary: This provides specialized information on
behalf of producers of goods and services and their
potential customers. That is, it serves to bring together
the customer and the supplier of goods. An example of
an Infomediary is priceline.com.

• Event Aggregation: This model would serve to simplify

a major purchasing event such as buying a house, by
offering the customer a unified front-end for
purchasing related goods and services from multiple
providers. It provides convenience to the customer and
hence enhances the relationship between the customer
and the company. E.g. RealtoLcom.
• Market Segment Aggregation
• The organization defines a customer base and builds a
comprehensive suite of services tailored to that
customer type. Say for example to set up a business
you would have to go through a lot of procedures
before you get the final clearances. A Market segment
aggregator, who could get all the clearances that are
required, could possibly handle this work.
• Value Chain Integration
• Value Chain Integration (VO) connects the
organization’s systems with its supplier’s systems using
the Internet, and this integration would lead to a joint
manufacturing execution plan, keeping the customers
needs in the center.
Strategic Model for e-Business Software Development
1. Stage of Orientation
Define your short, medium and long term targets to
discuss your individual requirements
2. Stage of Analysis
Analysis of special requirements for your application
3. Stage of Design and Layout
Visual displays based on your ideas
4. Stage of Transformation
Realizing requirements and ideas in the software
solutions
5. Stage of Implementation
Full implementation of your e Business solutions