E-BUSINESS COMMUNITIES

04/20/23

Chapter 3

Learning outcomes

Outline e-Business communities and its components.

Demonstrate how to build and maintain healthy relationships within e-Business communities.

Illustrate the development of cultural, informational, and technological systems in high-profile e-Business sites.

A few scenario…

Who /What is E-Business Communities (EBC)?

e-Business communities (EBC) represent: business ecosystem, business clusters, business networks, link of businesses, customers and Suppliers

The aims: To create end-to-end value

streams to best meet customers’ needs.

Who /What is E-Business Communities (EBC)?

For example: Amazon.com E*TRADE Google Dell Many more .com companies

Organize and strengthen cross enterprise relationships to create end-to-end value for customers

supplier

intermediaries

informediary

customers

distributor

EBC components

The EBC components are depending on the e-Business models used by the enterprises.

It may vary from one industry to another and from one enterprise to others within the same industry.

For example: if your company XYZ is selling clothes online, your

EBC components may not be the same as your competitor, Company ABC.

EBC components

Based on a few common e-Business models

Brokerage model Companies act as market maker Bring buyers and sellers together Charge a fee for the transactions B2B, B2C, and C2C, Types:

Buy/sell fulfillment Market exchange Buyer aggregator Distributor Virtual mall Auction broker Search agents, etc.

Examples: travel agents, online brokerage firms, online auction house

EBC components

Advertising model Provide content and services Charge advertisers fees for banners, permanent button, and

other ways to deliver clients’ messages to visitors. Types:

Generalized portal Personalized portal Specialized portal

Find a good example that can represent these three types of portal

EBC components

Informediary model Collect valuable information on

customers and their buying habits Sells it to other companies for

important patterns to serve their customers better.

Types: Recommender system Registration model

Offers the customers free content, cash, etc for the information.

Collect information about companies and sell it to customers.

Informediary company

Company A

Company B…

Company n

Customer 1

Customer 2…

Customer n

information

information

EBC components

Direct to customer/ e-tailing model Find out who are involved in this model. How? Any different types? Example: Amazon.com

Based on e-Business models discussed in Chapter 2, identify the EBC components that involved.

EBC components

Rationale: Although each of the models are different, they have

one thing in common,

To make money for the business owners for a long term

Building & Maintaining Relationship

Require end-to-end process integration (back-end and front-end applications).

Allow the processes to flow seamlessly.

Barriers must be eliminated such as: Process inefficiency Lack of application integration Fragmented and distributed

information Lack of accurate information

Building & Maintaining Relationship

Increase speed of service A key reason why the customers choose to do business

with certain companies. Contribute to the e-Business trend

Reduce the processing time between search, selection, order entry, and order fulfillment.

Any delay is unacceptable.

Building & Maintaining Relationship

Empower the customer: Self-service Inconvenience and poor services create

impatient customers Today, customers have more money than

time Avoid difficulty Avoid slow business deals Looking for doing things themselves-: self-service

The impact: self-service change the business structure-

eliminate the intermediary or middleman. the buyer and seller can meet directly online

such as real estate, insurance, travel, online trading etc.

require a new infrastructure, policy and the integration of processes to serve the customers well.

Pay bills,Shopping,Meeting,

Negotiation, others…

Building & Maintaining Relationship

Provide integrated solutionProvide customization and integration in sales and

services ex: options providedProvide consistent and reliable customer service

ex: helpdesk serviceProvide flexible fulfillment and convenient delivery

of products and servicesContract manufacturing- become brand intensive

Focus on what they do best

Building & Maintaining Relationship

Business process outsource (BPO) Delegate one or more business processes to external

provider Objective: to improve overall business performance Part of e-Business concept. Due to

Operation complexity Technology The need for constant growth Core competency in many functional areas

Building & Maintaining Relationship

Increase process visibility Customers require

Access to order status Product information Pricing and Availability and etc.

Help create additional demand/ expectation Example: UPS-tracking system. Customers can check

online of the delivery status. Now customers are looking for delivery services within

hours, no longer in days -> increase delivery expectation and system efficiency.

For e-Business – companies have to build internal applications and

processes, and make it internal operations more transparent

Close customer contact and high quality services will develop high competitive edge and long-term relationship with customers.

Building & Maintaining Relationship

Learn the trends in employee retention become a learning

organization to prosper fast paced and demanding environment

Example: provide incentive to motivate employees such as cash reward, competitive benefits, etc.

In e-Business, supporting and sustaining a culture is a must to succeed.

Building & Maintaining Relationship

Integrated enterprise applications Back-end applications ex. Inventory, procurement,

strategic planning, decision support system, etc. Front-end application ex. E-commerce site.

Building & Maintaining Relationship

Infrastructure readiness Quality of services such as, server capability,

bandwidth, ISP, etc. Wireless application Middleware

Multi-channel integration Click and mortar : A type of business model that includes both online and

offline operations, which typically include a website and a physical store. A click-and-mortar company can offer customers the benefits of fast online transactions or traditional face-to-face service.

Moving towards e-Business

The creation of e-Business strategy sometimes based on: Assumptions Premises Belief about customers needs, technology,

competition, etc.

Approach in e-Business strategy planning Top-down -> analytic planning Bottom-up -> ‘just do it’ tactical planning

Moving towards e-Business

Knowledge building and

capability evaluation

E-Business design

E-Business blue print

Application development &

deployment

Key insights Key objectives Priorities

More questions Feedback Feedback

Figure 3.1: Continuous planning with feedback

Moving towards e-Business

Knowledge building and capability evaluation Develop a clear vision of customers needs Develop a clear understanding of company’s

capabilities to address customers needs Vision must be communicated clearly to employees

E-Business design Lay the foundation to address new customers needs Help the company gets where it needs to go Ex: if customer wants self-service application, your e-

Business design must facilitate that need.

Moving towards e-Business

E-Business blue-print Create a link between e-Business design – goals –

technology foundation Determine application framework required Clearly define project and milestones to achieve

Application development and deployment Translate the milestone and project into integrated

applications Employees must know what to do.

Moving towards e-Business

Roadmap Phase 1: knowledge building

Who are my customers? How are my customers’ priorities shifting? Who is my target customers? How can I add value for my target customers? How do I become my customers’ first choice? How does my product reach the customers? Do we understand the environment and industry trends? Do we understand the technology trends? What are the priorities in the supply chain? Who are my competitors?

Moving towards e-Business

Phase 2: Capability evaluation What internal capabilities do we have today? What capabilities and resources do we need to execute

quickly? Phase 3:E-business

Select an e-business design E-business design refinement Clarify the differentiation levels

Example of web-based applications

Web-based applications that can be used as part of your e-Business design. For example in marketing purposes. Google Advert MSN Yahoo Facebook LinkedIn Twitter Many more.

Summary

EBC must be clearly define to develop a successful e-business design.

A few factors involved in building and maintaining relationships with EBC components.

Moving towards e-Business involve the development of culture, information and technology – assisted by model and roadmap.

Tutorial

Define EBC.Describe 5 factors that contribute in building

and maintaining relationships among the EBC components

Use the identified factors above for your business of interest.

Assume you have a catering business, illustrate how the roadmap can assist in transforming your company into e-Business.

References

Google Image, http://www.google.com accessed on 13 April 2011.

Chaffey, D., (2007, 2009), E-Business and e-Commerce Management, 3rd and 4th Edition, Prentice Hall.

Kalakota, R. and Robinson, M. (1999), e-Business: Roadmap for Success, Addison Wesley.