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E – BUSINESS VS E – COMMERCE
In corporate and
business circles, the words e – business
and e – commerce are been used
interchangeably since a very long time.
Only very few people know and
acknowledge the subtle differences
between them. And, yes there are some
delicate differences between these 2
words which will be highlighted in this
article. Conventionally, e – commerce is
a term that is used to refer to only
those business processes which directly
affect the vendors, suppliers, customers
and any other business partners. These
business processes include customer
support, technical support, credit card
payment processes, and order receiving
processes and so on. It also includes
interactions with suppliers relating to
the purchase of raw goods and other
supplies for the office.
However, E – Business
contains e – commerce and many more
management processes such as financial
management, supply chain management,
product development and production,
inventory management and many other
processes. It also includes human
resource management. It effectively
increases the pace of the every day
activities of traditional businesses and
also, streamlines all the processes to
reduce costs, simplify and augment
access to vital information for
employees, customers and other partners
and improves the business efficiency.
With more and more
businesses coming online each day, it
has now become imperative for all
businesses to make a niche for their
companies in the cyberspace to beat the
competition. This is absolutely true in
all cases be it greater user
satisfaction, better aesthetics, better
organisational efficiency, lowering
input costs, search engine optimization,
increasing profit margins and increasing
the sales volumes.
“Empowering through
information” is at the centre of any
such new concept. The system will use
internet, extranet, intranet,
collaborative user applications and
internet to access information. An
employee who is given access to all the
business information will be able to
perform better as he will feel
important. Also, he will be made a part
of the team that takes the decisions and
therefore, he will put in that extra
effort to make a sale.
In the same way,
customers will feel empowered and happy
if they are able to access information
regarding the delivery status or
specifications of their order. E –
Business technologies and processes make
it possible to disseminate this kind of
information utilizing minimum man –
hours and at a very low cost. The
returns or benefits of a well networked
and planned e – business system is
extremely high. It has to be carried out
even if you have to perform a major
reshuffle in the organisation. There are
several differences between e – business
and e – commerce, but the actual
difference can be seen in the quality of
the performance of e – businesses and e
– commerce companies.
Also, it is a much more
expensive process to set up an e –
business, which requires a lot of
planning as several systems have to be
integrated seamlessly. But, an e –
Commerce Company can be set up by any
body with a very low or no investment.
The minimum requirement for an e –
Commerce Company is an e – commerce
website. |
