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E-Definitions
e-Business
| e-Commerce | e-Tailing
e-Relationships | e-Merchandising | e-Payments
e-Procurement | e-Services | e-Government
These e-definitions help eliminate
confusion about the buzzwords that surround the use of the letter e
to describe new Internet business techniques.
"I don't have a clue; it
doesn't mean anything. To me, it's e-gads. We refer to Internet
commerce, meaning using the Internet to do business."
Gary Eichorn, President and CEO
Open Market
In the interest of clarity and
developing a lingua franca for this important area of the
economy, High Latitude offers the following e-definitions. If you have a
comment on these definitions, please send email to info@HighLatitude.com.
High Latitude's
E-Definitions
e-Business
E-business is doing many
business activities electronically using Internet-centric
technologies. The focus of e-business is on the application of
Internet technologies in the management of day-to-day business
processes.
E-business processes include not
only online marketing and sales, but supply-chain and channel
management, manufacturing and inventory control, financial operations
and employee workflow procedures across the entire organization.
Essentially e-business technologies empower customers, employees,
suppliers, distributors, vendors and partners by giving them powerful
tools for information management and communications.
The intent of e-business is to
apply the benefits of Internet technologies to better manage a
company's total value-chain with a focus on workflow, distributed
workgroup computing and Internet-centric, knowledge-oriented
operations at all levels.
e-Commerce
E-commerce is the process of
managing online financial transactions by individuals and companies.
This includes consumer and business-to-business transactions.
The focus of e-commerce is on
the systems and procedures whereby financial documents and information
of all types are exchanged. This includes online credit card
transactions, e-cash, e-billing, e-cheques, electronic invoices,
purchase orders and financial statements. E-commerce is particularly
concerned with the technologies that enable EDI-type functionality on
the Internet.
e-Tailing
E-tailing is the process of
developing and managing online storefronts whereby individual
consumers can shop for goods and services.
The focus of e-tailing is on
consumer shopping, not business-to-business commerce. The intent of
e-tailing is to provide a customer value proposition that is
different from realspace stores. That value proposition often includes
cheaper prices, increased flexibility, convenience and consumer
empowerment of the shopping process.
e-Relationships
E-relationships are
relationships with Internet customers that are highly automated and
result in extensive customer profiles that can be leveraged into
one-to-one marketing programs.
E-relationships are
"managed" using a Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
software whereby the complete history of a company's dealings and
communications with a customer are maintained. Any employee within an
organization can access and add information to the customer's profile,
whether they are in marketing, sales, finance, customer service,
fulfillment, R&D or any other department that may interact with
customers.
Using e-relationship strategies,
customer profiles are used to develop customized content, products and
marketing strategies.
e-Merchandising
E-merchandising is the process
of using customer profiles and database "data-mining"
techniques to implement permission marketing and cross-selling.
E-merchandising is often used as
a sales promotion technique to obtain additional or incremental sales
while a customer is visiting a web site. This is done by customizing
the visitors web pages to promote products or offer additional options
that may interest them.
e-Payments
E-payments are online financial
transactions whereby monetary value is exchanged.
Today, most consumer online
e-payments are credit-card based and consist of using SSL (Secure
Socket Layer) encryption to send credit card information to a
merchant. The merchant in turn sends the credit card number and other
customer information to a credit-card clearing house for verification
and authorization.
Many new forms of e-payment are
currently in development including e-cash, e-cheques and e-coupons.
e-Procurement
E-procurement is the process of
applying Internet technologies to help manage a company's supply
chain. The essential Internet tool to accomplish this is an extranet,
which is usually a password protected secure network behind the
company's firewall. The extranet might allow access to certain areas
of the corporate intranet as well as special areas designed for a
companies suppliers and distributors.
E-procurement technologies, in
addition to standard web-based communications, often provide a web
interface to a company's Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) type
software. Market growth for e-procurement will likely expand rapidly
to small- and mid-size companies once EDI-type functionality
(Electronic Data Interchange) is standardized for the Internet.
e-Services
E-services are consulting or
partnership services that enable or facilitate Internet-based business
processes, often with an emphasis on managing transactions. E-services
are either front-office oriented with a focus on consumers and
clients, or back-office oriented with a focus on procurement and
logistics.
Providers of e-services can
include management consultants, systems integrators and software
developers, as well as e-business virtual networks and online
financial operators.
e-Government
E-government is
bringing government services to the people via the Internet. The
primary purpose of e-government is to provide citizen-oriented
Internet activities to expand the reach and richness of government
services. The penultimate e-government service is online balloting
during elections, though this service is some years a way.
E-government ought to
reduce the cost of government operations for the simple reason that
government services are often monopolistic. As a result government
agencies can (in theory) quickly achieve economies of scale with an
assured market demand.
In addition to being
distributors of services (and occasionally products) governments act
as producers. Acting as producers, government agencies need to procure
raw materials, components, sub-assemblies, services and MRO purchases.
Therefore, e-government is also oriented on improving supply-chain
management using Internet technologies.
More e-definitions to
come!
Want to Comment?
If you have a comment on these
definitions, please send email to info@highlatitude.com.
Contact Information
High Latitude is a consulting firm
located in Vancouver, British Columbia and operated by William Koty and Mary Chipman.
Email
info@highlatitude.com
Telecommunications
Tel: (604) 738-3850
Fax: (604) 738-3860
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