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Introduction to e-Business

Introduction to e-Business

It is now a recognised fact that the access that companies have to new technologies, and to the Internet in particular, tends to modify communication between the different players in the business world, notably:

• relationships between the company and its clients
• the company's internal operation, i.e. the company-employee relationship
• the relationship between the company and its different partners and suppliers

Thus, e-Business is the integration of tools based on information and communication technologies (very generally called software packages) at the heart of a company in order to improve the company's operation.

E-Business does not only apply to virtual companies (also called click and mortar), which do most of their business on the Internet, but also to more traditional companies (or brick and mortar).

The term e-Commerce (also called electronic commerce), which is often confused with the term e-Business, actually only refers to the part of e-Business that concerns the use of an electronic medium for product sales.

The goal of this report is to present the different underlying "technologies" (in reality it is a question of modes of organisation that rely on information and communication technologies) and their associated abbreviations.

e-Business Categories

Generally a distinction is made between e-Business and e-Commerce (also called electronic commerce). Companies are generally categorised by the type of business relationships they have. Thus, specific terms exist to qualify these types of relationship:

• B To B (Business To Business, sometimes written as B2B) refers to a commercial relationship between a company and another company
• B To C (Business To Consumer, sometimes written as B2C) refers to a commercial relationship between a company and an individual
• B To A (Business To Administration, sometimes written as B2A) refers to a commercial relationship between a company and the public sector

Front Office / Back Office

The terms Front Office and Back Office are generally used to describe the parts of a company (or of its information system) dedicated to the direct relationship with the client and the management of the company itself.

The Front Office (also sometimes called Front Line) refers to the front part of the business, which the client can see.

Conversely, the Back Office refers to all the parts of the information system to which the final user does not have access. This includes all of the company's internal processes (production, logistics, stocks, sales, accounting, HR management, etc.).

Time To Market

Time To Market represents the time that is necessary to put a product on the market starting from the time when the idea was put forward. On the whole, new technologies provide an incredible source of inspiration for new ideas but also make the Time-To-Market even more critical because of the increasingly fast circulation of ideas and fierce competition.

Presentation of Different Concepts

A company becomes part of a e-Business project from the moment it sets up a new organisation that draws on new technologies. The goal of this report is to present the main solutions, which include:

• Intranet / Extranet
• Groupware
• WorkFlow
• Electronic commerce
• EAI (Enterprise Application Integration)
• CRM (Customer Relationship Management)
• KM (Knowledge Management)
• SCM (Supply Chain Management)
• ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning)
• Business Intelligence