British Library Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. The purpose of this book is to put the topic of e-commerce into a framework that can be used by business managers and students alike. A framework for classifying e-commerce is introduced and forms the basis of this book.
It explains the concept of business model and explores the different types of business models and frameworks that have emerged as a result. This section presents two different views on the impact of these 'laws' on the laws of economics and management theory. Porter's Five Forces Theory is rigorously examined while discussing the impact of e-commerce from various perspectives.
Alternatively, the different parts of the book can be used to support core modules in marketing, economics, general business management, strategy, operations management and any other subject requiring an understanding of e-commerce or e-business. The information in this book (particularly Chapter 7) is intended to provide guidance on the legal and ethical areas relevant to e-commerce and the application of technology.
Introduction
Introduction to e-commerce
According to Zwass, e-commerce has been redefined by the dynamics of the Internet, and traditional e-commerce is rapidly shifting to the Internet. 1 Technological factors – The degree of advancement of the telecommunications infrastructure that provides access to new technology for business and consumers. Commercial benefits – in terms of cost savings and efficiency improvements that affect the firm's financial performance.
There was a lot of hype around the Internet and e-commerce in the last years of the twentieth century. Basic technical knowledge of both computer equipment and navigation of the Internet and the World Wide Web is required. An informal version of this framework is loosely applied when using the terms business-to-business (B-to-B), business-to-consumer (B-to-C), and consumer-to-consumer (C-to -C).
The findings summarized in Figure 1.6 show that barriers to e-commerce can be seen as relevant both to the macro-environment and to the micro-environmental level of the firm itself. Internet infrastructure deals with issues such as the availability and quality of the Internet in terms of speed and reliability.
The technology
One of the disadvantages is that all communication between points in the network must pass through the central hub or host computer. The client/server model (illustrated in Figure 2.7) has become one of the central ideas in network computing. The Internet has been one of the most influential technological inventions of the late twentieth century, and its impact continues into the twenty-first century.
This underlines the reliability of the network as a commercial and social medium for communication and transactions. This section will describe the architecture of the Internet in the context of its infrastructure as it stands today. Regional ISPs provide regional connections to the Internet backbone and are usually customers of the national ISPs.
An intranet uses TCP/IP, HTTP, and other Internet protocols and generally looks like a private version of the Internet. An extranet requires security and privacy of both users and data that travel along the public network.
Elements of e-commerce: applications
These web-based e-business applications are bound by the capabilities of technology, and the data is controlled and manipulated by the organizations' back-end systems. Hosting companies have been established to offer a wide range of hosting services depending on the size of the website and the organization's needs and budget. Technically, a web browser is a client program that uses the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) to make requests to web servers anywhere on the Internet on behalf of the browser user.
The cookie file size is limited to 1 KB and the format is plain text (displayed using MS Windows 98). Average Cart Transaction Order - Takes the value of shopping carts and divides it by the total number of transactions. Issues such as raising awareness of the company, its products or services and advertising events are important.
In the United Kingdom, the results of the 1901 census were published and promoted on the BBC and in the British media. One of the main uses of a website is to generate revenue by selling products and services directly. One of the main advantages of a website is that a full range of products and services can be displayed online and cross-selling strategies can be easily implemented to ensure maximum value from the customer.
Since the creation of the Internet, email has been and continues to be the most widely used application. Although not yet illegal in Europe, it is considered unethical and against the etiquette of the Net. The meta tag description is also displayed as the description of the page in search engine listings.
Some major search engine companies license and sell their search engines for use on specialized individual websites. For example, if the website is dedicated to e-commerce, the word "e-commerce" may be suitable as one of the strategic keywords. One way this can be improved is through the organization's enabling of online interactive communication technology.
BASF (Germany) is a world leader in the chemical industry, operates production facilities in 38 countries and employs around 93,000 people worldwide. One of the most important uses of interactive communication is the ability to conduct virtual meetings with partners and colleagues.
Security and e-commerce
It explores what business models are and what different types of business models have emerged in the e-commerce environment. However, this is not the case: the concept of a business model is as old as business itself. One of the more prominent effects of e-commerce and the Internet that impacts business models is transaction costs.
This creates an efficient cycle (shown in Figure 5.2) where value is created for market participants. Each of the three categories of pricing mechanisms enabled by the Internet and the Web is explained below. Disintermediation is the removal of one or more layers in a value chain to increase efficiency, improve responsiveness and reduce costs.
Traditionally, a value chain includes several different stakeholders involved in the process of producing a good or service. In the manufacturing sector, Dell was one of the first companies to sell directly to customers, removing channel layers (representatives, wholesalers and/or retailers). Case 4 (in Figure 5.9) provides another example of disintermediation in the value chain introduced by Amazon.
Again, especially when we talk about web-enabled business, one of the most influential actors in the business-to-business value chain is the e-marketplace. Example 1 shows redistribution in the value chain between suppliers and producers via e-marketplaces, e-hubs or stock exchanges. In the increasingly knowledge-intensive economy that has emerged from the creation of the World Wide Web, there is now an abundance of information.
Some have argued that disintermediation can and has led to job losses and business closures due to the removal of finished elements in the value chain. This section will introduce some of the business models that have been highlighted by some academics in the e-commerce field. Michael Rappa, one of the pioneers of online open courseware and a leading author on web-based business, identifies a number of generic business models compiled from his observations.
Business inputs – where items purchased are not part of the finished product or service, but are more related to maintenance, repair and operating goods. The MRO hubs increase efficiency in the purchasing process and lower transaction costs by consolidating a large number of suppliers in one location. There is high price and demand volatility in this quartile due to the flexibility and dynamic supply and demand that occurs at short notice.
It is common for the participants in the transaction to remain anonymous until it is completed. Catalog – the non-commodity production input that is industry specific and with a specific buyer or seller focus. Automated purchasing means that transaction costs are reduced, but due to the specialized nature of the product or service, special logistics requirements are required and participants must work closely with distributors.
However, the government found that the spread of e-commerce was developing at such a rate in the UK that in March 2000 the Prime Minister tightened the target for electronic delivery of services to ensure that all key services will be available electronically by 2005. By an e -governance conference in November 2001,33 the main themes of the EU's eEurope Action Plan 2002 were the implementation of e-governance quickly and efficiently to promote growth, employment and quality of life for citizens in Europe. This group of services was relatively underdeveloped with only 44% of respondents offering the range of services, but company registration was the most accessible online registration service offered by over half of the Member States.
Like all business models, the eGovernment model is still in the early stages of its development and refinement. P2P is a class of applications that uses resources (storage, cycles, content, human presence) available at the edges of the Internet. Looking back, Edge Resources include content, storage, cycles, bandwidth, and even human attention, accessible at the edges of the network, that is, resources accessible on individual PCs.
File Sharing Napster's legacy (see “The Napster Story” below, pp. 191–94) has laid the foundation for the future of consumer file sharing services. However, in the short term, the only realistic business model is intra-organizational or business-to-business. Distributed Computing This is where multiple computers located far apart play a role in a computing problem or information processing to maximize the efficiency of the network and other resources.
