E-Business
E-Business can be described as buying and selling things on the web through electronic means. But in practice, E-business is more than just that.
The major part of this business refers to the strategic focus on functions that are done using technology, it is just a subset of the broad vision of E Business strategy and it’s called E-Commerce. E-Business involves the entire chain of activities of Business and Management. It involves things like electronic purchasing and supply chain management, processing orders electronically, handling customer service, and cooperating with business partners. E-business uses a host of software solutions for that allow integration of inter and intra organization business activities.
E-Business greatly simplifies the act of doing business and also reduces the operating cost greatly. It expands the reach of the business to customers around the globe and with increase in reach of the Internet; the number of customers is growing steadily.
Companies doing E-Business follow a different set of strategies then those working in the “traditional marketplace”. The customer interacts with the business using an electronic interface and all he does on the shop is completely under his control. Therefore, the customer service of the business plays an important role in the reputation of the company. Dell and Wal-mart are some examples of online stores that are doing great in their businesses on the basis of good product line coupled with a great customer support.
On the basis of their functioning, E-Businesses are classified into E-shops, E-procurement, E-malls, E-auctions, Virtual Communities, Collaboration Platforms, Third-party Marketplaces, Value-chain Integrators, Value-chain Service Providers and Information Brokers. But on the basis of business strategies or in simpler words, who is consumer and who’s is provider, E-Businesses are divided into 9 categories:
Business to Business (B2B): This kind of business transacts with other businesses only and does not deal with other entities such as employees, government or customers. They usually work in between the supply chain where goods are transferred between different locations.
Business to Consumer (B2C): This is the most common business scenario where the business deals with customers and there is a direct relationship similar to the traditional brick and mortar stores.
Business to Employee (B2E): This type of business is different and usually present in the form of an intra-business network which provides products and services to its employees. An example is the 401K management systems in US based companies.
Business to Government (B2G): This business does what is called “public sector marketing” and provide products and services to the Government.
Government to Business (G2B): This is a business that consists of non-commercial interaction between government and companies.
Government to Government (G2G): The online transactions between different departments of government fall into this category.
Government to Citizen (G2C): Transactions are between local and central governments and private individuals instead of businesses.
Consumer to Consumer (C2C): Consumer to Consumer marketing is also called Direct Selling and the consumer is usually called Presume here.
Consumer to Business (C2B): Consumer to Business model is opposite of traditional market and here consumers provide benefits to the businesses.
Doing business online is different than doing it in the traditional market or the brick and mortar stores, but it’s surely an alternate and an easy way to shop and sell, requiring a different mindset plus different set of technologies.
