E-BUSINESS

E-Business

E-Business

THE EVOLUTION OF E-BUSINESS

"The Evolution Of E-Business" by Cynthia Mackey discusses the evolution of e-business, where it came from, what it is, and where it is going. The author begins by stating, "It's hard to believe that e-business has been around for less than 10 years" (Mackey). The author explains the "so called" predecessors of e-business such as EDI, MRP, and ERP, but states that they cannot rival the exponential growth of business over the Web. "Whether large or small, via e-mail marketing or supply chain fulfillment, companies now know they must participate in e-business or be left alongside the Super Highway like roadkill. (Mackey)The Author claims that E-business began in two phases and was preceded by the growth of the Internet. The Communication phase and the Information phase are the two phases that the author credits as revolutionizing how people and business communicate. "As online communication grew, so did the desire to provide information, and so was born the Information Phase. "Brochureware" -- websites that provided primarily organization and contact information -- was the hallmark of the Information phase" (Mackey). "To help us navigate through the rapid growth of websites came the search engines. From Yahoo! to Infoseek and Lycos to Hotbot, search engines helped Web surfers find the information they were seeking quickly" (Mackey). The author goes on to state that the dotcom era came with many lessons, but emphasis the huge appetite of customers who transact business over the Web. The appetites of those customers get the credit of the growth of the information systems, new technology and skilled personal.

The Author ends the article explaining the hard lessons learned throughout the evolution of E-business as it pertains to B2C and B2B. The author also explains how the first two phases got us to the third, which is ...