E-BUSINESS AND E-COMMERCE

Information Technology For Management 5th Edition

Turban, Leidner, McLean, Wetherbe
Lecture Slides by A. Lekacos,
Stony Brook University
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
1
 Learning Objectives

• Describe electronic commerce, its scope, benefits, limitations, and

types.
• Understand auctions and bartering.
• Describe the major applications of business-to-consumer commerce,
including service industries, and major issues faced by e-tailers.
• Discuss the importance and activities of online advertising.
• Describe business-to-business applications.
• Describe emerging EC applications such as intrabusiness and B2E
commerce.
• Describe e-government activities and consumer-to-consumer e-
commerce.
• Describe the e-commerce support services, specifically payments
and logistics.
• Discuss some ethical and legal EC issues.
• Describe EC failures and strategies for success.

2
 e-commerce
or
Electronic Business – e-business

E-commerce describes the process of buying, selling, transferring, or

exchanging products, services, and/or information via computer
networks, including the Internet. E-business refers to a broader
definition of e-commerce, not just the buying and selling of goods and
services, but also servicing customers, collaborating with business
partners, conducting e-learning, and processing electronic transactions.

• Electronic commerce can take several forms depending on the

degree of digitization (the transformation from physical to digital).
• The degree of digitization relates to:
• the product (service) sold
• the process
• the delivery agent (or intermediary).

3
E-Business – EC Organizations

E-commerce describes the process of buying, selling,

transferring, or exchanging products, services, and/or information
via computer networks, including the Internet. E-business refers
to a broader definition of e-commerce, not just the buying and
selling of goods and services, but also servicing customers,
collaborating with business partners, conducting e-learning, and
processing electronic transactions.

• Brick-and-mortar (or old-economy) refer to pure

physical organizations (corporations).
• Virtual (or pure-play) organizations are companies
that are engaged only in EC .
• Click-and-mortar (or click-and-brick) organizations
are those that conduct some e-commerce activities, yet
their primary business is done in the physical world.
4
E-Business – Transaction Medium

Most e-commerce is done over the Internet. But EC can also be

conducted on private networks, such as value-added networks
(VANs, networks that add communication services to existing
common carriers), on local area networks (LANs) or wide area
networks (WANs)

5
E-Business – Transaction Types
E-commerce transactions can be done between various parties.

• Business-to-business (B2B): Both the sellers and the

buyers are business organizations.

• Collaborative commerce (c-commerce): In c-

commerce, business partners collaborate electronically.

• Business-to-consumers (B2C): The sellers are

organizations, and the buyers are individuals.

• Consumers-to-businesses (C2B): Consumers make

known a particular need for a product or service, and
suppliers compete to provide it.

6
E-Business – Transaction Types (Continued)

E-commerce transactions can be done between various parties.

• Consumer-to-consumer (C2C): Individuals sell

products or services to other individuals.

• Intrabusiness (intraorganizational) commerce:

An organization uses EC internally to improve its
operations. A special case is known as B2E (business to
its employees)

• Government-to-citizens (G2C): A government

provides services to its citizens via EC technologies.

• Mobile commerce (m-commerce): When e-

commerce is done in a wireless environment.
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 Components of EC

The field of e-commerce is broad, and there are many of EC applications

8
 Components of EC (Continued)

To execute these applications, companies need the right information,

infrastructure, and support services. As shown:

• People: Sellers, buyers, intermediaries, information systems specialists

and other employees, and any other participants.
• Public policy: Legal and other policy and regulating issues, such
as privacy protection and taxation.
• Marketing and advertising: Like any other business, EC usually
requires the support of marketing and advertising.
• Support services: Many services are needed to support EC. They
range from payments to order delivery and content creation.
• Business partnerships: Joint ventures, e-marketplaces, and
partnerships are some of frequently occurring relationships in e-
business
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 Auctions and Bartering
The major mechanism for buying and selling on the Internet is the
electronic catalog. There are two common mechanisms used in its
implementation: electronic auctions and bartering online.

• Electronic Auctions (e-Auctions): A market mechanism by

which sellers place offers and buyers make sequential bids.
• Forward auctions are auctions that sellers use as a selling
channel to many potential buyers. Items are placed at sites
for auction and buyers bid continuously for the items.
• Reverse auctions, have one buyer, usually an organization,
that wants to buy a product or a service. Suppliers are invited
to submit bids.
Auctions are used in B2C, B2B, C2B, e-government, and C2C commerce

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 Auctions and Bartering (Continued)

Electronic bartering, the exchange of goods or services without a monetary

transaction.

• Individual-to-individual bartering
• Corporate e-bartering (e.g., barterbrokers.com)

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 Electronic Retailing: Storefronts and Malls

Business-To-Consumer – B2C

For generations home shopping from catalogs has flourished, and

television shopping channels have attracted millions of shoppers.
However, these methods have drawbacks: Both methods can be
expensive; paper catalogs are sometimes not up-to-date; and
television shopping is limited to what is shown on the screen at
any given time.
• Electronic retailing (e-tailing) is the direct sale of products
through electronic storefronts or electronic malls, usually designed
around an electronic catalog format and/or auctions.
• Electronic Storefronts. Hundreds of thousands of solo storefronts
can be found on the Internet, each with its own Internet name and EC
portal, such as Home Depot, The Sharper Image, or Wal-Mart.
• Electronic mall, also known as a cybermall or e-mall, is a collection of
individual shops under one Internet address. The basic idea of an
electronic mall is the same as that of a regular shopping mall—to
provide a one-stop shopping place that offers many products and
services.

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 Electronic Retailing: Storefronts and Malls

E-tailing Issues – B2C

The concept of retailing and e-tailing implies the sale of goods and/or
services to individual customers. The following are the major issues
faced by e-tailers that may be handled and supported by IT tools:

• Resolving channel conflict: A firm’s distribution channels compete with

each other and with the firm.
• Resolving conflicts within click-and-mortar organizations. When an
established company decides to sell direct online, it may create a conflict
within its existing operations in areas such as pricing, services, allocation of
resources and logistical support.
• Organizing order fulfillment and logistics. E-tailers face a difficult
problem of how to ship small quantities to a large number of buyers.
• Determining viability and risk of online e-tailers. How long does a
company operate while losing money and how will it finance the losses.
• Identifying appropriate revenue models. It is necessary to identify
appropriate revenue/business models.

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Service Industries – B2C
Delivery of services (buying an airline ticket or stocks) can be
done 100 percent electronically, with considerable cost reduction
potential. Therefore, online services is growing very rapidly.
• Electronic banking, also known as cyberbanking includes various banking
activities conducted from home or a business instead of at a physical bank
• International and Multiple-Currency Banking. International banking and
the ability to handle trading in multiple currencies, transfers of electronic
funds and electronic letters of credit are critical for international trade.
• Online Securities Trading can be placed from anywhere, any time.
Investors can find a considerable amount of information regarding a specific
company or in a mutual fund.
• Online Job Market. The Internet offers a perfect environment for job
seekers and for companies searching for employees.
• Travel Services. The Internet is an ideal place to plan, explore, and arrange
almost any trip.
• Real Estate. Real estate transactions are an ideal area for e-commerce. The
customer can view many properties, sort and organize properties according to
preferences and can preview the exterior and interior designs of the
properties, shortening the search process.
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 Customer Service – B2C

Phases In Customer Service Life Cycle.

• Phase 1: Requirements
• Phase 2: Acquisition
• Phase 3: Ownership
• Phase 4: Retirement

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 Issues in E-Tailing
Market Research – B2C

To successfully conduct electronic commerce, especially B2C, it is

important to find out who are the actual and potential customers
and what motivates them to buy. Finding out what specific groups
of consumers want is done via segmentation, dividing customers
into specific segments, like age or gender.

Market researchers have tried to understand consumer behavior,

and develop models to help vendors understand how a consumer
makes a purchasing decision. If the process is understood, a
vendor may be able to influence the buyer’s decision, through
advertising or special promotions.

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Consumer Behavior Model

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 Issues in E-tailing

Several models have been developed in an effort to describe the

details of the decision-making process that leads up to and
culminates in a purchase.

• Generic Purchasing-Decision Model

1. Need identification
2. information search
3. evaluation of alternatives
4. purchase and delivery
5. after-purchase evaluation.

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Market Research – The Process
There are basically two ways to find out what customers want. The
first is to ask them, and the second is to infer what they want by
observing what they do.
• Asking Customers What They Want: The Internet
provides easy, fast, and relatively inexpensive ways for vendors to
find out what customers want by interacting directly with them. The
simplest way is to ask potential customers to fill in electronic
questionnaires.
• Observing Customer Behavior on the Web: The
Web is a rich source of business intelligence captured from a
company’s Web sites. By analyzing the user behavior patterns
contained in the clickstream data inference about behavior can be
made.
• Brand- and Vendor-Finding Agents and Price Comparisons
• Search Agents
• Collaborative Filtering Agents
• Other Agents
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 Online Advertising

Advertisement is an attempt to disseminate information in order to

influence a buyer–seller transaction. Unlike traditional advertising on
TV or newspapers which is impersonal, one-way mass
communications, Internet advertising is media-rich, dynamic, and
interactive. The most common advertising methods online are
banners, pop-ups, and e-mails.

• Banners are electronic billboards and is the most commonly used

form of advertising on the Internet
• Keyword banners appear when a predetermined word is queried from a
search engine.
• Random banners appear randomly
• Pop-Up, Pop-Under, and Similar Ads.
• A pop-up ad appears in front of the current browser window.
• A pop-under ad appears underneath the active window.
• E-Mail Advertising.
• Electronic Catalogs and Brochures.
• Other Forms of Internet Advertising.
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 Advertising Issues and
Approaches

• Unsolicited Advertising
• Spamming
• Permission Marketing
• Viral Marketing
• Interactive Advertising and Marketing
• On-line Promotions
• On-line Coupons

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Business-To-Business – B2B
In B2B applications, the buyers, sellers, and transactions involve
only organizations. It covers a broad spectrum of applications that
enable an enterprise to form electronic relationships with its
distributors, resellers, suppliers, customers, and other partners.

• Sell-Side Marketplaces: organizations attempt to sell their products

or services to other organizations electronically, from their own private
e-marketplace. This model is similar to the B2C model in which the
buyer is expected to come to the seller’s site and place an order.
• Buy-Side Marketplaces: organizations attempt to buy needed
products or services from other organizations electronically, usually
from their own private e-marketplace. One buy-side model is a reverse
auction. Here, a company that wants to buy items places a request for
quotation (RFQ) on its Web site, or in a third-party bidding
marketplace.

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Business-To-Business – B2B (Continued)

• E-procurement. Purchasing by using electronic support is referred to

as e-procurement. In addition to reverse auctions e-procurement
uses other mechanism. Two popular ones are group purchasing and
desktop purchasing.
• Group purchasing the requirements of many buyers are aggregated so
that they total a large volume, and thus merit more seller attention.
Once buyers’ orders are aggregated, they can be placed on a reverse
auction, and a volume discount can be negotiated.
• Desktop purchasing. In this variation of e-procurement, suppliers’
catalogs are aggregated into an internal master catalog on the buyer’s
server, so that the company’s purchasing agents can shop more
conveniently. Desktop purchasing is most suitable for maintenance,
replacement, and operations (MRO) indirect items, such as office
supplies.

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 Business-To-Business – B2B (Continued)

• Electronic Exchanges are E-marketplaces in which there are

many sellers and many buyers.
• Vertical distributors for direct materials: These are B2B marketplaces where
direct materials (materials that are inputs to manufacturing) are traded in an
environment of long-term relationship, known as systematic sourcing.
• Vertical exchanges for indirect materials: Here indirect materials in one
industry are purchased on an “as-needed” basis (called spot sourcing). Buyers and
sellers may not know each other. In such vertical exchanges, prices are continually
changing, based on the matching of supply and demand.
• Horizontal distributors: These are “many-to-many” e-marketplaces for indirect
(MRO) materials, such as office supplies, used by any industry. Prices are fixed or
negotiated in this systematic sourcing-type exchange.
• Functional exchanges: Here, needed services such as temporary help or extra
space are traded on an “as-needed” basis (spot sourcing). Prices are dynamic, and
they vary depending on supply and demand.

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Business-To-Employees – B2E

Companies are finding many ways to do business electronically

with their own employees. They disseminate information to
employees over the intranet, they allow employees to manage
their fringe benefits and take training classes electronically. Also,
many companies have electronic corporate stores that sell a
company’s products to its employees, usually at a discount.

Some other uses:

• Sales force automation is a technique of using software to
automate the business tasks of sales, including order processing,
contact management, information sharing, inventory control, order
tracking, customer management and sales forecast analysis.
• E-Commerce Between strategic business units
(SBUs)
• E-Commerce Between and Among Employees
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 E-Government

E-government is the use of Internet technology in general and e-

commerce in particular to deliver information and public services to
citizens, business partners and suppliers, and those working in the
public sector.

It can be divided into three major categories:

• government-to-citizens (G2C)
• government-to-business (G2B)
• government-to-government (G2G)

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Consumer-To-Consumer – C2C

Customer-to-customer (C2C) e-commerce refers to e-

commerce in which both the buyer and the seller are individuals
(not businesses). C2C is conducted in several ways on the
Internet, where the best-known C2C activities are auctions.

• C2C Auctions.
• Classified Ads.
• Personal Services.
• Support Services to C2C.

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 E-Commerce Support Services

B2B and B2C applications require payments and order fulfillment. Portals
require content, etc.

These services include:

• e-infrastructure (mostly technology consultants, system
developers and integrators, hosting, security, and networks)
• e-process (mainly payments and logistics)
• e-markets (mostly marketing and advertising)
• e-communities (different audiences and business partners)
• e-services (CRM, PRM, and directory services)
• e-content (supplied by content providers)

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E-Commerce Support Services
Electronic Payments are an integral part of doing business,
whether in the traditional way or online. Unfortunately, in most
cases traditional payment systems are not effective for EC,
especially for B2B.
• Electronic checks (e-checks) are similar to regular checks. They are
used mostly in B2B
• Electronic credit cards make it possible to charge online payments to
one's credit card account.
• Purchasing cards, the B2B equivalent of electronic credit cards.
• Electronic cash (e-cash) appears in three major forms: stored-value
cards, smart cards, and person-to-person payments.
• Electronic Bill Presentment and Payments allow customers to pay
their recurring monthly bills, such as telephone, utilities, credit cards, etc.
online.
• E-wallets are mechanisms that provide security measures to EC
purchasing. The wallet stores the financial information of the buyer,
including credit card number, shipping information, and more.
• Virtual credit cards are a service that allow you to shop with an ID
number and a password instead of with a credit card number.
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E-Commerce Support Services

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Ethical and Legal Issues in E-Business

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 MANAGERIAL ISSUES
• Managing resistance to change. Electronic commerce can result in a fundamental
change in how business is done, and resistance to change from employees, vendors, and
customers may develop. Education, training, and publicity over an extended time period
offer possible solutions to the problem.
• Integration of e-commerce into the business environment. E-commerce needs to
be integrated with the rest of the business. Integration issues involve planning,
competition for corporate resources with other projects, and interfacing EC with databases,
existing IT applications, and infrastructure.
• Lack of qualified personnel and outsourcing. Very few people have expertise in e-
commerce. There are many implementation issues that require expertise, such as when to
offer special promotions on the Internet, how to integrate an e-market with the
information systems of buyers and sellers, and what kind of customer incentives are
appropriate under what circumstances. For this reason, it may be worthwhile to outsource
some e-commerce activities.
• Alliances. It is not a bad idea to join an alliance or consortium of companies to explore e-
commerce. Alliances can be created at any time. Some EC companies (e.g., Amazon.com)
have thousands of alliances. The problem is which alliance to join, or what kind of alliance
to form and with whom.

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MANAGERIAL ISSUES Continued

• Implementation plan. Because of the complexity and multifaceted nature of EC, it

makes sense to prepare an implementation plan. Such a plan should include goals,
budgets, timetables, and contingency plans. It should address the many legal, financial,
technological, organizational, and ethical issues that can surface during implementation.
• Choosing the company’s strategy toward e-commerce. Generally speaking there
are three major options: (1) Lead: Conduct large-scale innovative e-commerce activities.
(2) Watch and wait: Do nothing, but carefully watch what is going on in the field in order
to determine when EC is mature enough to enter it. (3) Experiment: Start some e-
commerce experimental projects (learn by doing).
• Privacy. In electronic payment systems, it may be necessary to protect the identity of
buyers. Other privacy issues may involve tracking of Internet user activities by intelligent
agents and cookies, and in-house monitoring of employees’ Web activities.
• Justifying e-commerce by conducting a cost-benefit analysis is very difficult.
Many intangible benefits and lack of experience may produce grossly inaccurate estimates
of costs and benefits. Nevertheless, a feasibility study must be done, and estimates of
costs and benefits must be made.
• Order fulfillment. Taking orders in EC may be easier than fulfilling them.
• Managing the impacts. The impacts of e-commerce on organizational structure, people,
marketing procedures, and profitability may be dramatic. Therefore, establishing a
committee or organizational unit to develop strategy and to manage e-commerce is
necessary. 33
 Network Computing: Discovery,
Communication, and Collaboration

Information Technology For Management 5th Edition

Turban, Leidner, McLean, Wetherbe
Lecture Slides by A. Lekacos,
Stony Brook University
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
34
Learning Objectives
• Understand the concepts of the Internet and the Web, their
importance, and their capabilities.
• Understand the role of intranets, extranets, and corporate
portals for organizations.
• Identify the various ways in which communication is
executed over the Internet.
• Demonstrate how people collaborate over the Internet,
intranets, and extranets using various supporting tools,
including voice technology and teleconferencing.
• Describe groupware capabilities.
• Describe and analyze the role of e-learning and distance
learning.
• Analyze telecommuting (teleworking) as a techno-social
phenomenon.
• Consider ethical and integration issues related to the use of
network computing.

35
 Network Computing
The vast web of electronic networks, referred to as the
information superhighway or Internet links the computing
resources of businesses, government, and educational
institutions using a common computer communication protocol,
TCP/IP. The World Wide Web---the Domain
Web--is the most widely
used application on the Internet.Name Ser ver
URL = protocol://hostComputeror IP/path
Cl ient Web Ser ver

Discovery The HTTP protocol (HyperText

Transfer Protocol) specifies the rules

Collaboration Request is made for a

for communication between a Web
browser (client) and a Web server.
Intranets
page through a Web
Browser (IE. NS)

Communication Extranets
Ser ver Appl icat ion
Technol ogy Coldfusion Technology Ser ver
- CFM Apache Server
Java Server Pages -
JSP
Active Server Pages - Personal Server
ASP
Internet Information
Server- IIS

DB
iPlanet
36
Evolution - Network Computing

Internet

37
Internet Application Categories

• Discovery: Discovery involves browsing and information retrieval.

• Communication: The Internet provides fast and inexpensive
communication channels that range from messages posted on online
bulletin boards to complex information exchanges among many
organizations.
• Collaboration: Due to improved communication, electronic
collaboration between individuals and/or groups ranging from screen
sharing and teleconferencing to group support systems.
• The Net is also used for:
• Education
• Entertainment: People can access the content of newspapers,
magazines, and books. Correspond with friends and family, play
games, listen to music, view movies and other cultural events.
• Work: They can download documents, do research.

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The Network Computing Infrastructure

In addition to the Internet and the Web there are two

other major infrastructures of network computing: the
intranet and the extranet
• Intranet: a network designed to serve the internal
informational needs of a company, using Internet concepts and
tools.
• Browsing and Search capabilities.
• Support communication and collaboration.
• Extranet: An extranet is an infrastructure that allows secure
communications (connects the intranets of different
organizations) among business partners over the Internet.
• Enables business-to-business (B2B) transactions
• Provides an interface to exchange of business forms

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The Network Computing Infrastructure

A network is designed to serve

the informational needs of a
company, using Internet
concepts and tools.

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Discovery - Internet Application Categories

Through the discovery capability users can access information

located in databases all over the world. It facilitates education,
government services, entertainment, and commerce. Discovery
is done by browsing and searching static or dynamic data
sources on the Web.

• Internet Software Agents

• Internet-Based Web Mining
• Other Discovery Aids
• Toolbars
• Material in Foreign Languages
• Information and Corporate Portals
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Discovery - Internet Software Agents

Software agents are computer programs that carry out a set of

routine computer tasks on behalf of the user and in so doing
employ some sort of knowledge of the user’s goals

• Search engines, directories, software

and intelligent agents
• Web-Browsing-Assisting Agents
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Agents
• Search Engines and Intelligent
Indexing Agents
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Discovery - Internet-Based Web Mining

Data mining refers to sophisticated analysis techniques for

sifting through large amounts of information to discover new
patterns and relationships.

• Predictive Tools
• Classification (Predefined Groups)
• Regression
• Time series
• Descriptive Tools
• Clustering (No Predefined Groups)
• Summarization
• Association
• Sequencing

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Discovery - Other Discovery Aids

Hundreds of other search engines and discovery aids are

available

• Webopedia.com
• What Is? (whatis.com)
• eBizSearch (gunther.smeal.psu.edu)
• HighBeam (highbeam.com)
• Howstuffworks.com.
• Findarticles.com

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 Discovery - Toolbars

To get the most out of search engines, you may use add-on
toolbars and special software.

• Google Toolbar (toolbar.google.com)

• Copernic Agent Basic (copernic.com)
• KartOO (kartoo.com)
• Yahoo Companion (companion.yahoo.com)
• Grokker (groxis.com)

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Discovery - Information in Foreign Languages

There is a huge amount of information on the Internet in

languages that you may not know. Automatic translation of Web
pages is an application offered by many vendors. However, not
all automatic translations are equally good, so evaluation of
these products is needed.

• WorldPoint Passport (worldpoint.com)

• Babel Fish Translation (world.altavista.com)
• AutoTranslate (offered in Netscape browser)
• trados.com
• translationzone.com

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Discovery - Information & Corporate Portals

A portal is a Web-based personalized gateway to information

and knowledge in network computing. It attempts to address
information overload by providing one screen from which we do
all our work on the Web. Thus eliminating retrieval time spent
on integrating disparate IT systems.

• Commercial (public) portals offer content for

diverse communities and are the most popular
portals on the Internet. Examples are:
• yahoo.com
• lycos.com
• msn.com
• Publishing portals are intended for communities
with specific interests. Examples are:
• techweb.com
• zdnet.com
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Discovery - Information & Corporate Portals (continued)

• Personal portals target specific filtered information

for individuals.
• Affinity portals support communities such as hobby
groups or a political party
• Mobile portals are portals accessible from mobile
devices.
• Voice portals are Web portals with audio interfaces,
which enables them to be accessed by a standard or
cell phone.
• AOLbyPhone
• tellme.com
• bevocal.com

48
 Discovery - Information & Corporate Portals (continued)

Corporate portals provide single-point access to specific enterprise

information and applications available on the Internet, intranets, and
extranets to employees, business partners, and customers. They are also
known as enterprise portals or enterprise information portals.
• Suppliers portals: Using corporate portals, suppliers can mange
their own inventories online.
• Customers portals: Customers can use a customer-facing portal
for viewing products and services and placing orders, which they
can later self-track.
• Employees portals: Such portals are used for training,
dissemination of news and information, and workplace discussion
groups.
• Supervisors’ portals: These portals, sometimes called workforce
portals, enable managers and supervisors to control the entire
workforce management process– from budgeting to scheduling
workforce. 49
Discovery - Information & Corporate Portals (continued)

Corporate portals
50
Communication - Internet Application Categories

People exchange and share information by sending and receiving

messages, documents, forms and files. This information-processing
supports the organization and the transaction of business.
Communications can involve one or several IT-supported media, such as
text, voice, graphics, radio, pictures, and animation. Using different
media increases the effectiveness of a message, expedites learning, and
enhances problem solving.

• Electronic Mail
• Web-Based Call Centers
• Electronic Chat Rooms
• Voice Communication
• Weblogging (Blogging)
51
 Communication Modes

• People-to-people
• People-to-machine
• People and machine-to-machine

52
Communication- Time/Place Framework

• Same-time/same-place
• Same-time/different-place
• Different-time/same-place
• Different-time/different-place

53
Collaboration - Internet Application Categories

Collaboration refers to the mutual efforts of two or more individuals

or groups to perform activities in order to accomplish certain tasks.
These tasks range from designing products and documents, to
teaching, to executing complementary subtasks, to working with
customers, suppliers, and other business partners. In an effort to
improve productivity and competitiveness collaboration can be
supported electronically.
• Virtual collaboration (e-collaboration): the use of digital
technologies that enable organizations or individuals to
collaborative
• Collaborative commerce (c-commerce): collaboration
among business partners
• Supply chains
• Dealer/Partner Networks
• Product Networks

54
Collaboration – Tools (Workflows)

• Workflow Technologies: the movement of information

through the sequence of steps that make up an
organization’s work procedures or business processes.
• Workflow management is the automation of workflows from start
to finish, including all exception conditions.
• Workflow systems are business process automation tools
(software programs) that automate almost any information-
processing task.
• Workflow applications:
• Collaborative workflow: addresses project-oriented and
collaborative types of processes.
• Production workflow: addresses mission-critical, transaction-
oriented, high volume processes.
• Administrative workflow: is cross between collaborative and
production workflows.
55
Collaboration – Tools (Groupware)

Software products that support groups of people who share a

common task or goal and who collaborate on its accomplishment.
Groupware implies the use of networks to connect people, even if
the people are in the same room.
• Electronic Meeting Systems attempt to improve face-to-face
meetings with their electronic counter-part.
• Electronic Teleconferencing (Teleconferencing) is the use of
electronic communication that allows two or more people at different
locations to have a simultaneous conference.
• Video Teleconferencing (videoconference), participants in one
location can see participants at other locations. Data (data
conferencing) can also be sent along with voice and video making it
possible to work on documents together.
• Web Conferencing is Videoconferencing solely conducted on the
Internet

56
Collaboration – Tools (Groupware) (continued)

Real-time collaboration (RTC) Tools: help companies bridge time

and space to make decisions and to collaborate on projects. RTC tools
support synchronous communication of graphical and text-based
information.

• Interactive Whiteboards work like the “physical world”

whiteboards with markers and erasers, except instead of one person
standing in front of a meeting room drawing on the whiteboard, all
participants can join in.
• Screen Sharing software, allows group members to work on the
same document, which is shown on the PC screen of each participant.
• Instant video, is a kind of real time chat room that allows you to see
the person you are communicating with.

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Collaboration – Tools (continued)

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Collaboration – (continued)

Collaborative Networks
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E-Learning – Web-based Application

Distance learning (DL) refers to situations where teachers and

students do not meet face-to-face. It can be done in different
ways. E-learning is only one form of distance learning. It provides
a new set of tools that add value to traditional learning modes. It
does not replace the classroom setting, but enhances it, taking
advantage of new content and delivery technologies.

• Blackboard Inc. (blackboard.com) offers a complete

suite of enterprise software products and services that
power a total “e-education infrastructure” for schools,
colleges, universities, and other education providers.
• WebCT (webct.com) provides a similar set of tools, but
with a different vision and strategy. It uses advanced
pedagogical tools to help institutions of higher
education make distance-learning courses possible.
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Telecommuting – Web-based Application

Telecommuting, or teleworking, refers to an arrangement

whereby employees can work at home, at the customer’s
premises, in special work places, or while traveling, usually using
a computer linked to their place of employment.

• There are numerous non-compensatory benefits and advantages

for employees, employers, and society. The most important being
improved productivity.
• Some disadvantages for the employees are increased feelings of
isolation, loss of fringe benefits, no workplace visibility, and lack of
socialization.
• Disadvantages to employers are difficulties in supervising work,
potential data security problems, training costs, and the high cost
of equipping and maintaining telecommuters’ homes.

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 MANAGERIAL ISSUES
• Security of communication. Communication via networks raises the issue of the
integrity, confidentiality, and security of the data being transferred. The protection of data
in networks across the globe is not simple.
• Installing digital dashboards. Many companies are installing “digital dashboards,”
which are a sort of one-way portal that are continuously updated with online displays. The
dashboard is available to employees in visible places around the company and is also
accessible from PCs, PDAs, etc. Large companies, such General Electric, believe that the
cost of the dashboards can be justified by better discovery and communication they
promote within the company.
• Control of employee time and activities. To control the time that employees might
waste “surfing the Net” during working hours, some companies limit the information that
employees have access to or use special monitoring software. Providing guidelines for
employee use of the Internet is a simple but fairly effective approach.
• How many portals? A major issue for some companies is how many portals to have.
Should there be separate portals for customers, suppliers, employees, for example?
Regardless of the answer, it is a good idea to integrate the separate portals. If you build a
separate portal, make sure it can be easily connected to the others.

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 MANAGERIAL ISSUES Continued

• Organizational impacts. Technology-supported communication may have major

organizational impacts. For example, intranets and groupware force people to cooperate
and share information. Therefore, their use can lead to significant changes in both
organizational culture and the execution of business process reengineering. Further
impacts may be felt in corporate structure and the redistribution of organizational power.
• Telecommuting. Telecommuting is a compelling venture, but management needs to be
careful. Not all jobs are suitable for telecommuting, and allowing only some employees to
telecommute may create jealousy. Likewise, not all employees are suitable telecommuters;
some need the energy and social contact found in an office setting.
• Cost-benefit justification. The technologies described in this chapter do not come free,
and many of the benefits are intangible. However, the price of many networking
technologies is decreasing.
• Controlling access to and managing the content of the material on an intranet.
This is becoming a major problem due to the ease of placing material on an intranet and
the huge volume of information. Flohr (1997) suggests tools and procedures to manage
the situation.

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