E-BUSINESS

E-Business

Table of Content

Introduction3

E-Business Strategy4

Planning the Overall Value Chain Strategy5

Customer Relationship Management6

E-marketing and Advertising8

Permission Marketing9

Affiliate Programs and Viral Marketing10

E-Commerce10

E-Supply chain and Procurement11

E-Solution Maintaining and implementing12

Innovation in E-Technologies14

Conclusion15

References17

E-Business

Introduction

The traditional management functions of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling are as old as the management science discipline itself. These functions are based on a preconception that executives can measure what they are attempting to manage and take corrective action when necessary. The traditional management saying, “You cannot manage what you do not measure,” has motivated the development of metrics in the fields of accounting, finance, human resources, manufacturing, marketing, and management information systems.

Managers rely on established metric tools to validate assumptions about their business environment and judge the results of managerial practice. Researchers rely on accepted metrics to build analytical models of the impact of managerial strategy on firm performance and to validate empirical field research on specific managerial tactics. The importance of metrics in any field of study can hardly be argued. Until now, researchers and practitioners have approached the emerging and fastpaced field of e-business with ad hoc metrics of firm success. Today, corporations operate in a complicated electronic environment, competing simultaneously against dot-com e-commerce start-ups and established companies seeking to transform their organizations into lean e-businesses. As the early days of frantic Internet technology investments give way to a more disciplined approach to e-business strategic planning, today's managers are seeking metrics that will help them analyze the success of their e-business initiatives.

” In developing a set of e-business metrics, it is important to make a distinction between “electronic commerce” and “electronic business” (Trunk, 2000, 53). Watson (1991, 13) defines electronic commerce as “the buying and selling of goods and services on the Internet, especially, the World Wide Web.” In contrast, they define e-business using a much broader construct that incorporates “the conduct of business on the Internet, not only for buying and selling, but also servicing customers, and collaborating with business partners.” Any set of “e-metrics” should extend beyond e-commerce to incorporate the various aspects of e-business including internal Intranet applications, business-to-business (B2B) extranets, and business-to-consumer (B2C) Internet applications.

E-Business Strategy

In developing the E-Business Value Grid, we adopt the same three columns used in the EC Value Grid to identify the justification or the type of value created by the application. However, where the EC Value Grid incorporates activities down the value chain, we now introduce five additional dimensions associated with activities further up the value chain. The upstream activities normally associated with the value chain are inbound logistics, internal production systems, and outbound logistics (Webster, 1998, 257).

However, even before considering these activities, two preliminary support activities include planning the overall value chain strategy and technology development through R&D. Planning the value chain involves analyzing market conditions to determine market potential, putting the right team of knowledge workers together to plan and execute strategy, and converting intellectual capital into concrete product plans. Technology development involves basic research, product design, prototype development, and product ...