E-Business

E-Business

E-Business

Introduction to e-Business

While some SMEs have successfully engaged in e-business, there is much evidence that others have been slow to adopt internet-based technologies. It can be concluded that a wide range of factors influenced e-business development in the SME environment. Such studies provide strong evidence that a broad range of IT resources within a firm influence e-business developments in SMEs. However, as yet we have no clear understanding of how these internal IT resources influence how successful a firm is in engaging in e-business. Hence, the study on which this article is based aimed to extend the research on e-adoption and success in SMEs by gaining a better understanding of the role played by internal IT resources in e-business developments (Bassellier, Benbasat and Reich, 2003, 317-336). In particular, the study examined how IT competences inhibited and/or enabled e-business developments in SMEs. A case study approach was adopted and much of this article reports on an analysis of e-business developments in a firm with 26 employees. The analysis includes an outline of their e-business developments, their IT competences, and how developments have been influenced by competences (Ames, 2000, 93-102). Relations between the company and its customers, the inner workings of the company, including company-employee relationship, the company's relationship with its partners and suppliers (Barnes, Hinton and Mieczkowska, 2004, 607-617). For the purposes of this study, e-business was taken in its broadest sense to mean 'any business transaction or service conducted over the Internet'. As well as buying and selling, this definition includes the use of internet technologies such as e-mail and intranets to exchange information either within the firm itself or with external stakeholders (Alavi, 2004, 159-74). So-called "e-Business integration within the enterprise tools based on information technologies and communications (usually referred to as software) to improve the operation to create value for itself, its customers and partners. E-Business no longer applies only to virtual enterprises (called click and mortar) based most of their business on the Net but also to traditional companies (known as brick and mortar, made of brick and cement). The term e-Commerce (also known as Electronic Commerce), often confused with the term e-business, does not refer in reality only one aspect of e-business covering the use of electronic media for a commercial relationship business with individuals (Bengtsson, Boter and Vanyusyn, 2007, 27-48). The objective of this issue is to present the different "technology" underlying (there are in fact modes of organization based on information technology and communication) and associated acronyms.

Literature review

There is a growing literature on the role of organizational skills needed for successful e-business. There are many approaches to strategic management theory, but the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm and the notion of 'core competences' has been used by a number of researchers to examine the skills and resources required by firms to successfully build and leverage IT (Ames, 2000, 93-102). The resource-based view of the firm considers the organization as a 'bundle' of resources and that by coordinating and integrating these resources a firm ...