Concepts: e-business Development

Topics

• Entering the world of e-business

• Characteristics of e-business Development
• e-business Technologies

Entering the World of e-business

Our definition of the term e-business is that it is about building systems, sometimes
called business tools, that automate business processes. In a sense, the business tools are
the business and are a way of differentiating yourself from your competitors. For
example, an e-commerce business tool automates the sales process.

Organizations developing e-business solutions consider business modeling as a central

part of their projects. They use model-based technologies to develop both rapidly and in a
controlled manner. The business and the business tools that support it are regarded as an
integrated whole, and delivering the right solution requires a much tighter integration of
business process definition and system development than has been needed in the past.
Many more stakeholders are involved in the development of the business tools. Since the
business tools run the business, almost everyone is touched by it in some way; changes to
business processes require changes to the business tools. As an example, a CEO or
marketing director could now be involved in defining the e-business and its business
tools, whereas previously you would typically involve some level of "business domain
expert" who may know how business is run but who is not empowered to make any
decisions about how to change it.

An e-business development effort is more than just automating existing processes; it

forces some reflection on the nature of the business and the way it is run. Business
modeling and system definition are not only of interest for people in the Information
Technology department, it is of concern for everyone involved in business development.
A project to develop a new business tool involves people from all parts of the
organization, from executives with the power to make decisions, to grass roots and end
users who feel the consequences of those decisions.

The business tools built under the umbrella of e-business development can be categorized
as follows:

• Customer to business (C2B)—applications that allow you to order goods over the
Internet, such as electronic books stores.
• Business to business (B2B)—application that automate a supply chain across two
companies.
• Business to customer (B2C)—application that provide information to otherwise
passive customers, such as distributing news letters.
 • Customer to customer (C2C)—applications that allow customers to share and
exchange information with little information from the service provider, such a
auctions.

Characteristics of e-business Development

An e-business development project has many characteristics in common with the

development of any complex information system. These characteristics typically include:

• Externally imposed rules and regulations, often of high complexity, such as

business rules.
• High complexity in data structures.
• Customer focus.
• Pressed time schedules.
• Performance and reliability of the final system is a primary concern.

Typical differences in an e-business development project are:

• More emphasis on business modeling.

• More emphasis on user-interface design.
• Use of e-business enabling technologies to define the architecture.
• A greater focus on performance testing.

See Roadmap: Developing e-business Solutions.

e-business Technologies

Revolutions in technology lead to new business opportunities and drive changes to

business processes. The e-business concept is one of the more illuminating examples of
this happening. The primary driving technology in this case is the Internet, but there are
also many other technologies needed that are not necessarily specific to e-business but
are important components. Such enabling technologies include [CONA99]:

• Client/server
• Database management
• Programming languages, such as HTML, XML, Java
• Scripted server pages and servlets, such as Microsoft's Active Server Pages, Java
Server Pages
• Object communication protocols, such as OMG's Common Object Request
Broker Architecture (CORBA), the Java standard Remote Method Invocation
(RMI), or Microsoft's Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM)
• Components, such as Microsoft's ActiveX/COM
• Web applications frameworks, such as IBM's WebSphere or Microsoft's Windows
DNA
Defining how to use these technologies is an architectural concern. See Concepts:
Software Architecture.

E commerce vrs e buisness

In just a short few years, the internet has revolutionized the fundamental way
businesses operate in today’s economy. From conducting business internally to
conducting business with external partners; both domestic and international, the
internet is allowing businesses to introduce new approaches and new models to
their operations on every level. Nearly every business today is realizing the
potential and importance of business to business and business to consumer
exposure via the internet.

Indirectly, one would think that Ecommerce and Ebusiness are similar in
definition. Both incorporate the internet in business operations using technology
to speed up business processes and both increase efficiency and profitability
within the business. However, fundamentally, one is very different from the other.
Electronic commerce or “eCommerce” covers the range of on-line business
activities for products and services, both business to business and business to
consumer, through the internet. Basically eCommerce breaks into two
components; online shopping, showing the scope of information and activities
that provides the customer with the information they need to conduct business
with you and make an

electronic business
Interaction between two or more parties for the purpose of conducting business where the
interaction is via an electronic channel mediated by a computer. Channels through which
electronic business is conducted include video phones, interactive television, and the
Internet. Electronic business is usually taken to have wider definition than electronic
commerce, and embrace other aspects of business, such as marketing, PR, accounting,
other than merely the sale and purchase of goods and services.
IBM was one of the first companies to make wide use of the term e-business.
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.