E-Business

The chapter explained how Internet applications such as e-mails, newsgroups, FTP, IRC and WWW have brought about a major change in communication. It then discussed the evolution of e-business.

The major differences between traditional business, e-commerce, and e-business were discussed in detail. The role of infomediaries is also examined in this chapter. In e-business, intermediaries are replaced by infomediaries which are essentially websites that offer products and service information online. The key principles of e-business are discussed in detail: know your customer, develop a customer profile, segment customers, avoid the 'silo' effect, use multiple channels to interact with customers, identify customer channel preferences, understand the cost structure of each channel, optimize the channel strategy, personalize the customer, etc.

The infrastructure and organization culture required to facilitate e-business are also explained. Finally, various e-business models like B2B, B2C, and C2C are examined.