Information Technology & Systems

SUMMARY: The first phase of e-business evolution focused on transaction-oriented e-commerce while with the evolution of the second phase, companies shifted their focus toward customer-centric e-business. Information is the key for conducting e-business and in the e-business environment the intermediaries are bypassed and replaced by websites called infomediaries. In e-business, organizations need to continuously make efforts to enhance and leverage their business processes and technology to achieve the highest degree of customer satisfaction and organizational culture plays an important role in maintaining this focus. E-Business models include business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C), consumer-to-consumer (C2C), business-to-employee (B2E), government-to-citizen (G2C), citizen-to-government (C2G), government-to-government (G2G), and government-to-business (G2B).

These will lead to the attainment of higher business value. But the costs associated with the implementation of EAI must also be taken into consideration as they can be substantial, both from a financial point of view and in terms of the organizational disruptions that are often involved.

The EAI approach provides enhanced access to timely and more accurate data across a distributed environment while minimizing redundancy. Business process management promotes the management of integration at the business process level and allows for real-time and historical analysis of business conditions and performance.

EAI should be considered as a strategic investment that can reduce costs over the long run.