Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
of service delivery,” or as Fellenstein and Wood (2000) define, “the use of online facilities
for doing business…Internet, intranets, extranets, private networks, and other networking
facility that enables buyers to communicate with sellers (or supplier)…set of buying and
selling activities of goods and services that make up a business transaction.”
While many writers use the term e-commerce and e-business interchangeably (Schneider
& Perry, 2000), many of the courses offered by universities use the terms e-commerce and
e-business without making any real distinction, leaving one to wonder why the two terms
exist. Fellenstein and Perry et al. use the term e-business in the broader sense, by associating
a “Design Quality model [that] helps enterprises establish business environments that
provide new e-business values, environments that are secure, well protected, well designed,
available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (on 24x7) the entire year.” This model introduces a
new element into the field of electronic commerce by introducing the concept of a metrics as
a way of measuring the business environment for its success in terms of “usability, scalability,
interoperability, and maintainability” by going one stage further than simply designing,
developing, and implementing an e-commerce solution with the latest development tools and
programming language scripts. Adding to the problem and confusion for the consultant is
the fact that there are many SMEs who do not even have a basic business and marketing plan.
Sussis (2000), an e-commerce consultant, stated that, “as businesses move into significant
e-businesses, good planning strategies, design and implementation becomes more and more
essential.”
This means that consultants, normally working by themselves with an SME, need skills
that go further than simply acquiring broad concepts of e-commerce technologies by
integrating them into the total business environment. The integration of e-commerce
technologies with an e-business strategy delivers to the SME the predicted outcomes they
have identified and written into the e-business strategic plan. In most cases, consultants have
to first work with the SME to develop their business plan before attempting to develop an
integrated e-business solution that builds on existing strategies. This requires a strong
business focus that includes marketing, budgeting, and planning. Care should be taken to
ensure the emphasis is not simply placed on developing a Web presence that is visually
appealing, using all the latest techniques at the expense of developing the e-business
strategy that complements the business and marketing plan. “The adoption of online
technologies does not replace business processes (such as ordering, supply and delivery),
but has the potential to change the way these processes are performed and improve a firm's
profit margin” (DISC, 1998).
The level of success can be determined by how well the e-business analyst can
“leverage the organization's existing core operational business systems, as well as meet the
new business-critical operational requirements for reliability, scalability, flexibility and
24x7x365 availability in a highly volatile, electronic marketplace” (Agarwal, 2001). This means
that there are many more elements that come into effect other than the selection and use of
technology and the design of a well-structured Web site, but include business courses in
strategic issues in the digital economy, leadership, local and international marketing, user
interface design, database modeling, e-commerce technologies, local and global regulatory
systems, supply chain management, security issues when doing business online, business
law and ethics, finance and economics, as well as the traditional courses in e-commerce
technologies, front-end and back-end application integration, security, and Web design.
