Contents
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E-business
Rationale
Electronic Business, or "e-business", may be defined broadly as any business process that relies on an automated information system. Today, this is mostly done with Web-based technologies. The term "e-business" was coined by Lou Gerstner, CEO of IBM.
Electronic business methods enable companies to link their internal and external data processing systems more efficiently and flexibly, to work more closely with suppliers and partners, and to better satisfy the needs and expectations of their customers. In practice, e-business usually includes e-commerce. E-commerce seeks to add revenue streams using the Worldwide Web or the Internet to build and enhance relationships with clients and partners and to improve efficiency using the Empty Vessel strategy. Often, e-commerce involves the application of knowledge management systems. E-business is more than just e-commerce. It involves business processes spanning the entire value chain: electronic purchasing and supply chain management, processing orders electronically, handling customer service, and cooperating with business partners. Special technical standards for e-business facilitate the exchange of data between companies. E-business software solutions allow the integration of intra and inter firm business processes. E-business can be conducted using the Web, the Internet, intranets, extranets, or some combination of these. |
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Applications can be divided into three categories:
Internal business systems
Enterprise communication and collaboration
Electronic commerce - Business-to-business electronic commerce or business-to-consumer electronic commerce
External links
Learning Objectives and Outcomes
This is a non-taught unit designed for self-directed study by those intending to enhance their professional or managerial competence, knowledge, understanding, and skills in e-business.
Knowledge
After completing the course, student will understand
1. difference between e-business and e-commerce and their principles
2. e-business infrastructure
3. e-business environment
4. e-procurement and e-business supply chain
5. concepts and principles of e-business strategy
6. concepts and principles of online marketing
7. importance of ethics and legal issues on the internet
Skills
After completing the course, student will be able to
1. develop and write a feasible e-business plan, including internet, business and marketing strategies
2. apply the principles of customer service to e-business
3. create an appropriate e-business model
4. evaluate and select and software for shopping carts and e-business contents management systems where appropriate
5. participate in the creation of an e-business website.
6. set-up and improve an online business
7. apply the change management concepts and principles to any e-enterprise development projects
Today's Videos
- Connect with us on http://www.youtube.com/finntrack
- Google's Playlists
Teaching and Learning Resources
Introduction to E-business and E-commerce
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Electronic Commerce (also referred to as EC, e-commerce or ecommerce) consists primarily of the distributing, buying, selling, marketing, and servicing of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. The information technology industry might see it as an electronic business application aimed at commercial transactions. It can involve electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, e-marketing, online marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), automated inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. It typically uses electronic communications technology such as the Internet, extranets, e-mail, e-books, databases, catalogues and mobile phones.
According to Forer Research (as cited in Kessler, 2003), electronic commerce generated sales worth US $12.2 billion in 2003.
E-commerce Fundamentals
Tutorials
Readings
The term Business Model is relatively recent. Though it appeared for the first time in the 1950s it rose to prominence and reached the mainstream only in the 1990s. Thus far, the definitions have mostly come from the popular literature. These authors define business model in terms of what they think it should cover. For example, a definition from Osterwalder, Pigneur and Tucci (2005) is that a business model is:
a conceptual tool that contains a big set of elements and their relationships and allows expressing the business logic of a specific firm. It is a description of the value a company offers to one or several segments of customers and of the architecture of the firm and its network of partners for creating, marketing, and delivering this value and relationship capital, to generate profitable and sustainable revenue streams.
Retail consists of the sale of physical goods or merchandise from a fixed location, such as a department store, boutique or kiosk, or by mall, in small or individual lots for direct consumption by the purchaser.[1] Retailing may include subordinated services, such as delivery. Purchasers may be individuals or businesses. In commerce, a "retailer" buys goods or products in large quantities from manufacturers or directly or through a wholesaler, and then sells smaller quantities to the end-user. Retail establishments are often called shops or stores. Retailers are at the end of the supply chain. Manufacturing marketers see the process of retailing as a necessary part of their overall distribution strategy. The term "retailer" is also applied where a service provider services the needs of a large number of individuals, such as a public utility, like electric power.
Shops may be on residential streets, shopping streets with few or no houses or in a shopping mall. Shopping streets may be for pedestrians only. Sometimes a shopping street has a partial or full roof to protect customers from precipitation. Online retailing, a type of electronic commerce used for business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions and mail order, are forms of non-shop retailing.
Shopping generally refers to the act of buying products. Sometimes this is done to obtain necessities such as food and clothing; sometimes it is done as a recreational activity. Recreational shopping often involves window shopping (just looking, not buying) and browsing and does not always result in a purchase.
- Etymology
- Types of retail outlets
- Retail pricing
- Transfer mechanism
- Second-hand retail
- Challenges
- Sales techniques
- Customer service
- Statistics for national retail sales
- Consolidation
- ECRoPEDIA - Free Global Collection of Retail/FMCG Best practices by ECR Community
- Investopedia.The Industry Handbook: The Retailing Industry
- National Retail Federation (U.S.-based trade association)
Business Models on the Web by Michael Rappa
E-business Infrastructure
Tutorials
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Readings
The Internet is the worldwide, publicly accessible network of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using the standard Internet Protocol (IP). It is a "network of networks" that consists of millions of smaller domestic, academic, business, and government networks, which together carry various information and services, such as electronic mail, online chat, file transfer, and the interlinked Web pages and other documents of the World Wide Web.
- Terminology: Internet vs. Web
- Creation of the Internet
- Today's Internet
- Common uses of the Internet
- Censorship
- Internet access
- Leisure
- Complex architecture
- Marketing
- The name Internet
- Significant Internet events
- References
Electronic Mail (abbreviated "e-mail" or, more commonly, "email") is a store and forward method of composing, sending, storing, and receiving messages over electronic communication systems. The term "e-mail" (as a noun or verb) applies both to the Internet e-mail system based on the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) and to intranet systems allowing users within one organization to e-mail each other. Often these workgroup collaboration organizations may use the Internet protocols for internal e-mail service.
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- The First Network Email
- M. A. Padlipsky, And They Argued All Night... is an alternative personal recollection of the origins of network e-mail
- E-mail training significantly reduces e-mail defects — from International Journal of Information Management
- The History of Electronic Mail is a personal memoir by the implementer of one of the first e-mail systems
- IANA's list of standard header fields.
Web design is a process of conceptualization, planning, modelling, and execution of electronic media content delivery via Internet in the form of Markup language suitable for interpretation by a Web browser and displayed as a Graphical user interface (GUI).
The intent of web design is to create a web site -- a collection of electronic files that reside on a web server /servers and present content and interactive features/interfaces to the end user in form of web pages once requested. Such elements as text, bit-mapped images ( GIFs , JPEGs , PNGs ), forms can be placed on the page using HTML / XHTML / XML tags. Displaying more complex media ( vector graphics , animations, videos, sounds) requires plug-ins such as Flash , QuickTime , Java run-time environment , etc. Plug-ins are also embedded into web page by using HTML/XHTML tags.
Improvements in browsers' compliance with W3C standards prompted a widespread acceptance and usage of XHTML/XML in conjunction with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to position and manipulate web page elements and objects. Latest standards and proposals aim at leading to browsers' ability to deliver a wide variety of media and accessibility options to the client possibly without employing plug-ins.
Typically web pages are classified as static or dynamic .
Static pages don't change content and layout with every request unless a human ( web master / programmer ) manually updates the page.
Dynamic pages adapt their content and/or appearance depending on end-user's input/interaction or changes in the computing environment (user, time, database modifications, etc.) Content can be changed on the client side (end-user's computer) by using client-side scripting languages ( JavaScript , JScript , Actionscript , etc.) to alter DOM elements ( DHTML ). Dynamic content is often compiled on the server utilizing server-side scripting languages ( Coldfusion , ASP , JSP , Perl , PHP , Python , etc.). Both approaches are usually used in complex applications.
With growing specialization within communication design and information technology fields, there is a strong tendency to draw a clear line between web design specifically for web pages and web development for the overall logistics of all web-based services.
Voicemail (or voice mail, vmail or VMS, sometimes called messagebank) is a centralized system of managing telephone messages for a large group of people. In its simplest form it mimics the functions of an answering machine, uses a standard telephone handset for the user interface, and uses a centralized, computerized system rather than equipment at the individual telephone. Voicemail systems are much more sophisticated than answering machines in that they can:
- answer many phones at the same time
- store incoming voice messages in personalized mailboxes associated with the user's phone number
- enable users to forward received messages to another voice mailbox
- send messages to one or more other user voice mailboxes
- add a voice introduction to a forwarded message
- store voice messages for future delivery
- make calls to a telephone or paging service to notify the user a message has arrived in his/her mailbox
- transfer callers to another phone number for personal assistance
- play different message greetings to different callers.
Voicemail messages are stored on hard disk drives, media generally used by computers to store other forms of data. Messages are recorded in digitized natural human voice similar to how music is stored on a CD. To retrieve messages, a user calls the system from any phone, logs on using Touch-tones (clearing security), and his/her messages can be retrieved immediately. Many users can retrieve or store messages at the same time on the same voicemail system.
Many voicemail systems also offer an automated attendant facility. Automated attendants enable callers to a "main" business number to access directory service or self-route the call to various places such as a specific department, an extension number, or to an informational recording in a voice mailbox, etc.
- History of voicemail
- How voicemail solved the business communication problem
- History of corporate voicemail
- History of voicemail services for small businesses, residences, and cellular services
- Voicemail today and tomorrow
- How voicemail systems work
- References
Enterprise Resource Planning systems (ERPs) integrate (or attempt to integrate) all data and processes of an organization into a unified system. A typical ERP system will use multiple components of computer software and hardware to achieve the integration. A key ingredient of most ERP systems is the use of a unified database to store data for the various system modules. The term ERP originally implied systems designed to plan the utilization of enterprise-wide resources. Although the acronym ERP originated in the manufacturing environment, today's use of the term ERP systems has much broader scope. ERP systems typically attempt to cover all basic functions of an organization, regardless of the organization's business or charter. Business, non-profit organizations, non governmental organizations, governments, and other large entities utilize ERP systems.
Additionally, it may be noted that to be considered an ERP system, a software package generally would only need to provide functionality in a single package that would normally be covered by two or more systems. Technically, a software package that provides both Payroll and Accounting functions (such as QuickBooks) would be considered an ERP software package.
However, the term is typically reserved for larger, more broadly based applications. The introduction of an ERP system to replace two or more independent applications eliminates the need for external interfaces previously required between systems, and provides additional benefits that range from standardization and lower maintenance (one system instead of two or more) to easier and/or greater reporting capabilities (as all data is typically kept in one database).
Examples of modules in an ERP which formerly would have been stand-alone applications include: Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Financials, CRM, Human Resources, and Warehouse Management.
- List of ERP vendors
- List of ERP software packages
- Accounting software
- Advanced Planning & Scheduling
- APICS
- E-procurement
- ERP modelling
- Information technology management
- Management information system
- Supply chain management
- Material requirements planning (material resource planning)
- Software as a Service
- Vendor-independent solutions provider
- ABC's of ERP from CIO
- ERP Vendor Survey from CAmagazine
- ERP Customer Survey from 180 Systems
- RiverGuide ERP Software Comparisons and Reviews
- Doctoral Thesis about ERP from Seville University
A Document Management System (DMS) is a computer system (or set of computer programs) used to track and store electronic documents and/or images of paper documents. Document management systems commonly provide storage, versioning, metadata, security, as well as indexing and retrieval capabilities. The term has some overlap with the concepts of Content Management Systems and is often viewed as a component of Enterprise Content Management Systems and related to Digital Asset Management.
- EDRMS (Electronic Document and Records Management System)
- Content management
- Records Management
- Web content management
- Enterprise content management System
- Document imaging
- Workflow
- Knowledge management
- Computer-assisted reviewing
E-environment
Tutorials
Readings
E-business Environment in the Global Information Society
In today´s digital 21st century, almost all businesses face intense competition from competitors all around the globe. There are no borders and business area for the all companies is almost unlimited. As the main supports of mentioned fact are globalization and ICT´s development. Influences such as globalization, increased popularity of outsourcing and offshoring have recently combined to produce an environment where ICT graduates need to have up-to-date and industry-relevant knowledge and skills, so that they can be successful in this highly competitive environment. Development of e-business and e-commerce make possible the companies to enter to the global markets. Fundamental prerequisite of the successful company in the global market is well-made corporate strategy and correct source information. Of high account condition of an entry to global markets is an adjustment of the information system to global information and business system management standards. The statistics gained from the Czech market shows, that in spite of enormous Internet proliferation the ratio of e-sales is lower than the ratio of e-purchases. Some possible reasons for these phenomena are discussed at the end of this paper.
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E-business Strategy
Tutorial topics
1. E-business strategy defined, An update on the definition of E-business strategy highlighting the essence of an E-business or Internet strategy for an organisation planning its digital strategy.
2. E-business research practices, Written by Dave Chaffey on 17-09-2007, This is an online paper titled - E-Business Research Practice: Towards an Agenda Stephen Drew, University of East Anglia and Henley Management College, UK. It contains links to many of the research centres created for e-business and a summary of some of the key literature, but only up to 2001.
3. Top sell-side E-business strategy issues, Written by Dave Chaffey on 08-11-2006, E-business strategies - a review of the main Internet marketing strategy issues facing companies with particular emphasis on e-retail.
4. The Long Tail, Written by Dave Chaffey on 14-07-2006, This phrase was popularised by Wired magazine's editor-in-chief Chris Anderson in article in October 2004. A more recent Guardian article has picked up on this. The long tail refers to a power law curve you see when a frequency distribution curve is plotted for the sales of CDs, computer games and other products or the popularity of websites.
5. Cross link Strategy, Written by Dave Chaffey on 19-12-2005, See also strategy for the Chapter in Internet Marketing.
6. Tourism marketer, Written by Dave Chaffey on 21-10-2004, An independently produced digest / blog of European and Worldwide news in the travel and tourism market place. Good for students researching industry data if studying this marketplace.
7. Internet Retailer Magazine, Written by Dave Chaffey on 14-09-2004, US focused magazine with lots of good, practical features and reporting of industry trends. The departments on company profiles and strategies and industry trends give good examples of strategies for acquisition and merger.
8. Mohan Sawhney Technology and Innovation articles, Written by Dave Chaffey on 25-08-2004, For frequently updated articles on technology and innovation, see the 'My Writings' page of Mohanbir S. Sawhney, Tribune Professor of Technology and Director, Centre for Research in Technology and Innovation, Kellogg School of Management.
Readings
e-business strategy - virtual value chain
Historical context
Over the years, some businesses have controlled almost all factors of production and distribution (Ford in its early days) whereas others have outsourced almost everything (Dell). In the early days of industry, large enterprises controlled and owned most factors of production and businesses like Ford Motor Company in the USA had their own foundries, railroad, forestry and electricity generating plants, In the UK, Cadbury’s and Lever Brothers went so far as to build villages and amenities for their workers. The motivation for this vertical integration was varied but included cost and quality control, worker loyalty and protection of proprietary processes. As well as control of production, resources and employees, businesses like Ford also controlled the retail sales and service network.
Ford Motor Company developed its structure over many decades of steady growth but, even prior to the advent of eBusiness, this kind of structure was being broken down, as a monolithic type of organisation like this is less able to respond to changing market requirements. Furthermore, external specialized organisations may be able to offer ancillary services such as transport and power more cheaply than a business like Ford Motor Company could do it for itself. Ford was an extreme case of internal control of all factors of production and distribution, whereas most other businesses had long maintained a mixture of some in-house capabilities together with services sourced from other businesses.
Porter’s Value Chain
One model to help understand this network of processes and services is what Michael Porter (1985) calls the ‘Value Chain’. Porter’s work on competitive strategy suggests that organisations should re-evaluate their value chain and concentrate on the operations that they can do best. Other processes should ‘out-sourced’ to specialists. EBusiness has facilitated this by providing a set of standards for participants to work with.
Evans & Wurster (2000) outline the progress of Dell from a business that in 1984 offered a simplified product offering with orders taken by fax/telephone – a simplified service with wide reach. In moving to Internet delivery, Dell then offered individualized configurations, price combinations and technical support. These enhancements could only previously have been obtained from specialized dealers or direct agents at a premium price and Dell now offers these to a wide audience at a very competitive price. The customer wins as their needs are at the centre of the process.
Porter distinguishes between primary activities and support activities. Primary activities are directly concerned with the creation or delivery of a product or service. They can be grouped into five main areas: inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, marketing and sales, and service. Each of these primary activities is linked to support activities, which help to improve their effectiveness or efficiency.
There are four main areas of support activities: procurement, technology development (including R&D), human resource management, and infrastructure (systems for planning, finance, quality, information management etc.). The chain consists of a series of activities that create and build value. They culminate in the total value delivered by an organisation. The ‘margin’ depicted in the diagram is the same as added value which expresses the way a business differentiates itself through configuration of its value chain.
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- Internet Marketing Book Blog
- Online marketplace analysis methodology
- Online marketplace analysis and mapping
- Best Internet Marketing Book of the Year / Decade?!
- E-business strategy defined
- eBay ecommerce case study update
- Online revenue models & business models
- Internet Marketing / E-commerce / Case Studies.
- E-marketing Insights Articles
- Ch11-B2B
- Internet marketing strategy articles
- C4-Strategy
- E-business, Internet marketing, Email, Search & Web marketing articles & research
- Top 10 Web marketing topics
- Site Keywords - Internet Marketing
- Internet Marketing Book Recommendations
- Internet marketing planning & strategy books
- Boo.com case study
- Online value proposition (Customer value proposition)
- Online branding success.
- Internet marketing strategy options / E-marketing strategies
Writing eBusiness Plans
- Building A Business Plan For An E-Commerce Project (by Brian Walsh for Techweb)
- Business Plan how to create for free
- "Short and Sweet: Crafting an e-business Plan" - by Mark Hendricks, published in Business Startup magazine (May 2000)
- Bplans.com - the small business planning destination
- Business Plan Advice - Directory of sample business plans for retail, non-profit, food, hotel, and real estate.
- LivePlan.com - sample business plans and free download of their business plan software
- A Simple, Effective Business Plan Writing Guide by NU's Dr. Marc Meyer
- downloadable financial spreadsheets for business plan (by Marc Meyer
Supply Chain Management
Tutorials
Readings
Supply chain management (SCM) is the management of a network of interconnected businesses involved in the ultimate provision of product and service packages required by end customers (Harland, 1996).[2] Supply chain management spans all movement and storage of raw materials, work-in-process inventory, and finished goods from point of origin to point of consumption (supply chain).
Another definition is provided by the APICS Dictionary when it defines SCM as the "design, planning, execution, control, and monitoring of supply chain activities with the objective of creating net value, building a competitive infrastructure, leveraging worldwide logistics, synchronizing supply with demand and measuring performance globally."
- Definitions
- Problems addressed by supply chain management
- Activities/functions
- Importance of supply chain management
- Historical developments in supply chain management
- Supply chain business process integration
- Theories of supply chain management
- Supply chain centroids
- Tax efficient supply chain management
- Supply chain sustainability
- Components of supply chain management integration
- Supply chain systems and value
- Global supply chain management
Supply chain management (SCM) is the process of planning, implementing, and controlling the operations of the supply chain with the purpose to satisfy customer requirements as efficiently as possible. Supply chain management spans all movement and storage of raw materials, work-in-process inventory, and finished goods from point-of-origin to point-of-consumption. The term supply chain management was coined by consultant Keith Oliver, of strategy consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton in 1982.
According to the CSCMP, a professional association that developed a definition in 2004, Supply Chain Management encompasses the planning and management of all activities involved in sourcing and procurement, conversion, and all logistics management activities. Importantly, it also includes coordination and collaboration with channel partners, which can be suppliers, intermediaries, third-party service providers, and customers. In essence, Supply Chain Management integrates supply and demand management within and across companies."[1]
Supply chain event management (abbreviated as SCEM) is a consideration of all possible occurring events and factors that can cause a disruption in a supply chain. With SCEM possible scenarios can be created and solutions can be planned.
Some experts distinguish supply chain management and logistics management, while others consider the terms to be interchangeable. From the point of view of an enterprise, the scope of supply chain management is usually bounded on the supply side by your supplier's suppliers and on the customer side by your customer's customers.
Supply chain management is also a category of software products.
- ELA (European Logistics Association), present throughout Europe
- CSCMP (Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals), present in North and South America and in Asia
- APICS (American Production and Inventory Control Society), present in the United States
- SCC (Supply Chain Council), present in North America, Asia and Europe
- ASLOG (Association Française pour la Logistique), in France
- LQ Magazine (Logistics Quaterly) Industry and Academic Editorial Content
- Supply Chain Forum: An International Journal
- SupplyChainer: News, articles and trends in the area of supply chain management
- Supply Chain Management Knowledge Group
- eLogistics TrendwatcH: a free Internet Weblog Service which leads you to interesting news in Logistics and Supply Chain Management
E-procurement
Tutorials
Readings
E-procurement (electronic procurement, sometimes also known as supplier exchange) is the business-to-business or business-to-consumer or Business-to-government purchase and sale of supplies, Work and services through the Internet as well as other information and networking systems, such as Electronic Data Interchange and Enterprise Resource Planning.[1]
E-procurement is done with a software application that includes features for supplier management and complex auctions. The new generation of E-Procurement is now on-demand or a software-as-a-service.
There are seven main types of e-procurement:
Web-based ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning): Creating and approving purchasing requisitions, placing purchase orders and receiving goods and services by using a software system based on Internet technology.
e-MRO (Maintenance, Repair and Operations): The same as web-based ERP except that the goods and services ordered are non-product related MRO supplies.
e-sourcing: Identifying new suppliers for a specific category of purchasing requirements using Internet technology.
e-tendering: Sending requests for information and prices to suppliers and receiving the responses of suppliers using Internet technology.
May or may not involve e-auctions or eRFx functionality.[2]
e-reverse auctioning: Using Internet technology to buy goods and services from a number of known or unknown suppliers.
e-informing: Gathering and distributing purchasing information both from and to internal and external parties using Internet technology.
e-marketsites: Expands on Web-based ERP to open up value chains. Buying communities can access preferred suppliers' products and services, add to shopping carts, create requisition, seek approval, receipt purchase orders and process electronic invoices with integration to suppliers' supply chains and buyers' financial systems.
The e-procurement value chain consists of Indent Management, eTendering, eAuctioning, Vendor Management, Catalogue Management, and Contract Management. Indent Management is the workflow involved in the preparation of tenders. This part of the value chain is optional, with individual procuring departments defining their indenting process. In works procurement, administrative approval and technical sanction are obtained in electronic format. In goods procurement, indent generation activity is done online. The end result of the stage is taken as inputs for issuing the NIT.
Elements of e-procurement include Request For Information, Request For Proposal, Request for Quotation, RFx (the previous three together), and eRFx (software for managing RFx projects).
- E-procurement in the Public Sector
- Vendors
- E-procurement Systems
- E-procurement and New Business Models
- Complex sales
- Construction bidding
- Contract A
- Proposal
- Reverse auction
- Tender Notification
- Tendering
- Strategic sourcing
- Outsourcing
- Public eProcurement
- Purchase-to-pay
E-marketing
Tutorials
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Readings
A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark[1] is a distinctive sign or indicator, used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity, to identify that the products or services with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or services from those of other entities. A trademark may be designated by the following symbols: ™ (for an unregistered trade mark, that is, a mark used to promote or brand goods) ℠ (for an unregistered service mark, that is, a mark used to promote or brand services) ® (for a registered trademark or service mark) A trademark is typically a name, word, phrase, logo, symbol, design, image, or a combination of these elements.[2] There is also a range of non-conventional trademarks comprising marks which do not fall into these standard categories, such as those based on color, smell, or sound. The owner of a registered trademark may commence legal proceedings for trademark infringement to prevent unauthorized use of that trademark. However, in some countries unregistered rights in a sign may also be enforced. These are often known as 'common law' rights. An unregistered sign is usually only protected within the geographical area within which it has been used or in geographical areas into which it may be reasonably expected to expand. The term trademark is also used informally to refer to any distinguishing attribute by which an individual is readily identified, such as the well-known characteristics of celebrities. When a trademark is used in relation to services rather than products, it maysometimes be called a service mark, particularly in the United States.[2] |
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Internet marketing, also known as web marketing, online marketing, webvertising, or e-marketing, is referred to as the marketing (generally promotion) of products or services over the Internet. iMarketing is used as an abbreviated form for Internet Marketing.
Internet marketing is considered to be broad in scope because it not only refers to marketing on the Internet, but also includes marketing done via e-mail and wireless media. Digital customer data and electronic customer relationship management (ECRM) systems are also often grouped together under internet marketing.[1]
Internet marketing ties together the creative and technical aspects of the Internet, including design, development, advertising and sales.[2] Internet marketing also refers to the placement of media along many different stages of the customer engagement cycle through search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO), banner ads on specific websites, email marketing, mobile advertising, and Web 2.0 strategies.
In 2008, The New York Times, working with comScore, published an initial estimate to quantify the user data collected by large Internet-based companies. Counting four types of interactions with company websites in addition to the hits from advertisements served from advertising networks, the authors found that the potential for collecting data was up to 2,500 times per user per month.[3]
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Revenue model describes the way a business, typically an online business, monetizes its services.[1] As Mark von Rosing defined it[2], revenue model is one of the three different types of business model innovations and transformations that exist:
Revenue model innovation - Innovate how the company makes money by changing the value proposition (product/service/value mix) and the pricing model.
Industry model innovation - Redefine an existing industry, move into a new industry or create an entirely new one.
Enterprise Business model innovation - Innovate the way the organization operates, rethinking the organisational boundaries of what is done in-house and what is done through collaboration and partnering.
During periods of relative stability in the industry landscape, companies can make incremental adjustments to their business model over extended periods of time. They can continue to realize the economic benefits of their existing business model. During periods of extensive industry change, however, companies must choose to either shake up their industries – harness disruptive technologies, go after new customer segments, dislodge competitors – or face their own demise.
Strategic competitiveness and differentiation has been defined in the literature[3] as an organization’s ability to identify major changes in the external environment, to quickly commit resources and capabilities to new courses of action, and to act promptly when it is time to halt or reverse such capability and resource commitments. In the attached figure " von Rosing's Competitive Forces Model " the different competitive forces impacting the internal and external environment of an organization are illustrated.
Organizations in nearly every industry face the above competitive forces exerted by suppliers, customers, rivals, potential new entrants, complementors, and substitute products. The stronger these competitive forces, the less profitable the industry’s organizations are likely to be.[4] Where the competitive forces on industry organizations are low, allowing these organizations to be, on average, more profitable than organizations in other industries.
In general, successful companies take advantage from emerging opportunities in the new economic environment by innovating their business model in three ways:
1. Many organizations revisit their enterprise business model during a downturn to reduce cost through new collaboration and partnership models and by reconfiguring the asset mix.
2, Industry leaders with strong financial resources take advantage of the unprecedented industry transformation by introducing alternative industry models and disrupting their competitors.
3. Many also rethink their revenue model and value propositions to respond to a different set of customer behaviours and market requirements.
While any type of business model innovation can lead to success, financial outperformers are more likely to be industry and enterprise business model innovators than revenue model innovators. Business model innovation and transformation is the most prominent, especially during challenging economic times.
Revenue Model Innovation is an important tool to both capture, design, innovate and transform the business.[3] However in order to transform ones organization and align them to ones revenue model, the needed business model innovation can and should not be seen separately, but as Mark von Rosing has specified, in connection with [2]:
1. The main business goals of the organization, e.g. strategic business objectives, critical success factors and key performance indicators, which a holistic business model approach should include.
2. The main business Issues/pain points and thereby organisational weakness, which a holistic business model approach should include for they represent the threat to the company’s business model.
3. A clear cause and effect linkages between the competencies, desired outcomes and performance measurements e.g scorecards.
4. An emphasis on business model management and thereby a continuous improvement and governance approach to the business model.
5. The business maturity level, in order to develop the organization representation of core differentiated and core competitive competencies [linked to strategy], which is a basis for building a business model as they the represent some of the most important sources of uniqueness. These are the things that a company can do uniquely well, and that no-one else can copy quickly enough to affect competition.
6. Linkages among competencies and competency development.
7. The possible value creation and realization of the organization.
8. The information flow, and thereby information need for effective and efficient decision making.
Examples
External links
Direct Sales: Your revenue comes from selling products or services. Profit comes when you can sell your products at your target price. The cost to design and operate your site is figured into your overall expense figure.
Indirect Sales: Your revenue comes indirectly from your site content through sales of advertising space. This approach works well when your web site offers appealing content that attracts visitors. By attracting a large number of visitors and a desirable visitor type, you make your site appealing to advertisers. Your advertising rates will depend on the number of visits your site gets and the type of visitor.
Another variation of the indirect model is to provide space on your site for associate buttons. Associate programs pay you a referral fee when someone leaves your site, goes directly to their site and then buys something.
Licensing/Selling Content: Your revenue comes from licensing or selling your content to other sites. "Content" can be feature articles, weekly columns, polls, etc. -- anything that keeps people connected to a site. Good content makes a site "sticky" - meaning that people stay on it and don't click off to another site.
Example: Travel sites sell air, hotel and rental car tickets - they want visitors to stay connected (which ups the likelihood that make a purchase), so they provide content that is related to their products. These sites lease weather reports, and they create affiliates with hotels, airlines and rental car agencies. These added benefits create repeat visitors because they can find everything they need at one site.
Search engine marketing (SEM) is a form of Internet marketing that involves the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) through the use of paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion.[1] Depending on the context, SEM can be an umbrella term for various means of marketing a website including search engine optimization (SEO), which "optimizes" website content to achieve a higher ranking in search engine results pages, or it may contrast with SEO, focusing on only paid components.[2]
- Market
- History
- SEM methods and metrics
- Paid inclusion
- Comparison with SEO
- Ethical questions
- Examples
- Digital marketing
- Internet marketing
- Email marketing
- Enterprise search marketing
- List of search engines
- Search advertising
- Search engine image protection
- Search engine reputation management
- Search engine optimization
- Tag cloud
- Web marketing
Search engines with SEM programs
- Yahoo!
- Bing
- Ask.com
- Baidu - China
- Seznam.cz - Czech Republic
- Yandex - Russia
- Rambler - Russia
- Timway - Hong Kong
- Onkosh - Arabic search - Middle East
- Aýna - Arabic search - Middle East and North Africa
- Leit.is - Iceland
A website, also written as Web site,[1] web site, or simply site,[2] is a set of related web pages containing content (media), including text, video, music, audio, images, etc. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet address known as a Uniform Resource Locator. All publicly accessible websites collectively constitute the World Wide Web.
A webpage is a document, typically written in plain text interspersed with formatting instructions of Hypertext Markup Language (HTML,
XHTML). A webpage may incorporate elements from other websites with suitable markup anchors.
Webpages are accessed and transported with the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which may optionally employ encryption (HTTP Secure, HTTPS) to provide security and privacy for the user of the webpage content. The user's application, often a web browser, renders the page content according to its HTML markup instructions onto a display terminal.
The pages of a website can usually be accessed from a simple Uniform Resource Locator (URL) called the web address. The URLs of the pages organize them into a hierarchy, although hyperlinking between them conveys the reader's perceived site structure and guides the reader's navigation of the site which generally includes a home page with most of the links to the site's web content, and a supplementary about, contact and link page.
Some websites require a subscription to access some or all of their content. Examples of subscription websites include many business sites, parts of news websites, academic journal websites, gaming websites, file-sharing websites, message boards, web-based email, social networking websites, websites providing real-time stock market data, and websites providing various other services (e.g., websites offering storing and/or sharing of images, files and so forth).
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Customer Relationship Management
Tutorials
Readings
Customer relationship management (CRM) covers methods and technologies used by companies to manage their relationships with clients. Information stored on existing customers (and potential customers) is analysed and used to this end. Automated CRM processes are often used to generate automatic personalized marketing based on the customer information stored in the system.
- Customer Relationship Management at the Open Directory Project
- How to really understand your customers
- Paul Hagen, "Creating the Relationship-Centric Organization: Nonprofit CRM," Idealware.org, 2006.
- Dirk Van den Poel: Academic papers about analytical CRM from Ghent University
Change Management
Tutorials
Readings
Change management is a structured approach to the change in individuals, teams, organizations and societies that enables the transition from a current state to a desired future state.
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Implementation and Maintenance
Tutorials
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Readings
Shopping cart software is software used in e-commerce to assist people making purchases online, analogous to the American English term 'shopping cart'. In British English it is generally known as a shopping basket, almost exclusively shortened on websites to 'basket'.
The software allows online shopping customers to accumulate a list of items for purchase, described metaphorically as "placing items in the shopping cart". Upon checkout, the software typically calculates a total for the order, including shipping and handling (i.e. postage and packing) charges and the associated taxes, as applicable.
Marketing ethics is the area of applied ethics which deals with the moral principles behind the operation and regulation of marketing. Some areas of marketing ethics (ethics of advertising and promotion) overlap with media ethics.
- Fundamental issues in the ethics of marketing
- Specific issues in marketing ethics
- Regulation and enforcement
- Importance of Ethics on The Internet
- American Marketing Association Statement of Ethics (2004)
- "Ethics in Marketing." Encyclopedia of Business and Finance. Mohandeep Singh. Thomson Gale, 2001. eNotes. 2006. 16 Oct, 2006
- Marketing Ethics Resources from the Centre for the Study of Ethics in the Professions, Illinois Institute of Technology.
- Direct Marketing Association, Guidelines for Ethical Business Practice (September 2006)
- The Catholic Church's Handbook on Ethics in Advertising
- Federal Trade Commission, FTC Guidelines on Advertising
- eBusiness Implementation: Promises versus Reality
- E-business Legal Guide
- Internet Marketing Ethics Web Issues
A - Z of Legal Issues
Privacy and Ethical issues Unique to E-business
The realm of e-business is difficult to understand. While some may view its environment as effortless, it can be complex and problematic for others. Seeing as most of our business today is conducted over wires, computers, and the Internet, ethical, privacy, contract, buying and purchasing issues in a traditional storefront business have been modified to support the privacy and the exchange of consumer/business related information in e-commerce.
Unique to e-business, the privacy of individuals and businesses are enforced and protected more considerably. There is more cost to maintain privacy with e-commerce security measures than traditional storefront security. For example, since it is noticeably easier to store masses of private information on a business computer vice a physical safe, we will expend and invest more cost to protect this computerized information than the cost to protect information in a safe. Personally, I have spent more money protecting the privacy of consumer information on computers with electronic security programs. Pros and Cons of e-business? Gathering information on anything e-business related is possible. This information is at your fingertips, so to speak. However, the same pros can be cons; since illegally acquiring private business information is too, possible.
Ethics cover a wide range of topics in e-business. With close ties to privacy, especially for the consumer, e-business organizations have made it ethically clear to protect consumer information and that information will be held in strict confidence. Unique to e-business, consumer information is exchanged and protected electronically in secure websites and databases. Additionally, it is our duty and theirs to be truthful with the information given and provided.
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Recommended Texts
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E-commerce: Business, Technology, Society, 3/e Kenneth Laudon, New York University Check the availability and buy your books from our Bookshop. |
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E-business and E-commerce Management Check the availability and buy your books from our Bookshop.
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Check the availability and buy your books from our Bookshop. |
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Internet Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice, 3rd Ed
Check the availability and buy your books from our Bookshop. |
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Internet Business Models and Strategies: Text and Cases, 2/e Allan Afuah, University of Michigan Check the availability and buy your books from our Bookshop. |
Resources
The Internet portal is about all aspects of the Internet. It encompasses e-mail, the World Wide Web, Usenet, VoIP, and the many other parts and protocols of the Internet.