E-Business Case

E-Business

The past few years have brought marvelous change to the business atmosphere. "New ways of conducting business are continuously emerging. One common underlying force driving these changes is web-based technology" (Greenstein & Ray, 2002). E-Business, as it refers to electronic business as well is the term used to describe the business run on the internet using internet technologies. E-business is a vibrant set of technologies, applications, and business processes that connects many different companies, customers and communities through a common ground and that is exchanging goods and services electronically (Abu-Musa, 2004). The business and transaction system has changed from past from traditional form to the modern internet based technology form and based on this context, e-Business technology is also quickly shifting the approach from past that companies buy, sell, and deal with customers and partners (Abu-Musa, 2004). Internet based business is fetching an imperative business instrument since several companies are using Internet to conduct their business and "the dramatic evolution of information technology and the continuous decline in prices encourage many companies to automate their accounting information systems and to adopt E-Business in order to gain competitive advantages in the market" (Abu-Musa, 2004).

Looking at the foundational concepts of e-business systems we can see that the information system is closely related and integrated with it since it supports the enterprise wide business processes and functions of the business for marketing, human resources, finance, accounting and manufacturing. In general functional business information systems supports the functions of the business in the above stated terms through a wide variety of e- business equipped and management information systems. As mentioned, marketing information system supports the conventional as well as e-commerce processes and management of the marketing purpose. Some major kinds of marketing information systems include; sales force automation, product management, sales management, advertising and promotion, customer relationship management and most importantly e-commerce websites. Second one is manufacturing where computer-based manufacturing information systems assist a company achieve computer- integrated manufacturing, and as a consequence automate, integrate and simplify many of the activities needed to speedily produce high-quality products to meet varying customer demands. Some examples of computer-based manufacturing information systems include computer-aided design using collaborative manufacturing networks helps engineers collaborate on designing the new products and processes. Third one is Human Resources Management, also known as human resource information systems which support human resource management in the organizations. Human resource information systems include information systems for recruitment in the organization, development and training. And final one is accounting and finance, also known as accounting information systems that report, analyze and record business events and transactions for the supervision of the business enterprise. Some known examples of accounting information systems include inventory control, payroll, accounts receivable and accounts payable and order processing.

All e-business are potentially universal in scope since there are no any specific restrictions. The jurisdictional disclosure to uncertainty and possibly conflicting laws are great and the ease of right of entry to e-business through the internet attached with the 24x7 presence availability is a strong probability that customers from around the world will visit the websites. One important thing to notice with the global exposure and absence of territorial boundaries is the related legal risks. Most of the e-business websites are private property so in this sense it was also be said as a piece of virtual real estate in the cyberspace with an invitation to visit them. And visitation is further encouraged by advertising and to make visitors and customers familiar with the rules and policies applicable with the website, Terms of Use is implemented. Terms of Use in the website can also be said as a principal legal strategy for organizing the legal risks connected with e-business or virtual business websites (Westermeier & Plave, 2004).

After the dot-com marketplace meltdown of 2001, it is easy to fail to notice the perseverance and speedy expansion of e-business throughout the U.S. economy as well as internationally. At the peak of the e-business publicity in 2000, most pundits overlooked the emerging effort of large legacy firms, or those that existed before the advent of e-business and had yet to embrace the Net (Pinker, Seidmann & Foster, 2002) where a frequent misperception about e-business was and still is that one either has it or did not get it. As from the article Strategies for Transitioning 'Old Economy' Firms to E-Business (2002) there are myths about entering into internet economy where the myths being:

* Myth 1: The first-mover has the advantage, and everyone else is online anyway, so give up.

* Myth 2: It's all about finding the next killer application.

* Myth 3: The only way to get started in e-business is to spin-off or acquire a dot-com.

* Myth 4: A single department or functional area should lead e-business initiatives.

Not every business can implement the form of e-business. Where IT professionals and consulting firms maintain to endorse e-business and numerous firms continue to empower in its appliance. Still many firms remain confused about the implications because of e-business technology that have curtailed their implementation plans and most of the time, explanations for these being the reasons (Coltman, Devinney, Latukefu & Midgley, 2002):

* Experienced managers are suspicious of large IT investments and already being through process of re-engineering, enterprise resource planning and now e-business with disappointing results, managers are cautious.

* In spite of enormous investments in consulting advice, managers have struggled continuously with the same set of IT implementation problems for a decade.

* The aggressive necessity driving e-business accomplishment varies significantly in terms of industry.

* Firms are open to the elements to wide-ranging levels of opposition and any challenge to institute networked alliances tends to be trickier today than it was for premature pioneers such as Cisco in networking and Dell in personal computers.

* Heresy although may appear to many, the promise of e-business