Ebusiness : Electronic Trade

Hasan 1

eBusiness : Electronic Trade

eBusiness is a technical issue and a complex area, and no one can know everything about it. The needs of enterprise and the desires of customers have not changed. But because of technology, major new opportunities for revenue growth and avoidance of expense have become feasible. eBusiness has happened entirely because of a conjunction of improvements in technologies and has yet to reach full speed and realise its potential. These technologies are more powerful computers and faster communication links.

The new kind of business is to replacing the physical store by creating new eShops. These will decrease the cost of the real stores and increase the saving of money. On the other hand, new costs will also be incurred like online costumer service operations which are available on 24 h / 7 day with slicker, electronically assisted supply and fulfillment operations. Instead, a number of companies will be able to work together in a virtual enterprise, provide information can be interchanged effectively and securely.

eBusiness is a term that embraces all aspects of buying and selling products and services over a network and all the dealings between consumers and suppliers are online transactions.

Hasan 2

What is eBusiness ?

There is more than one definition of eBusiness in the business world. According to wiseGEEk website "Ebusiness is a term used to describe businesses run on the Internet, or utilizing Internet technologies to improve the productivity or profitability of a business. In a more general sense, the term may be used to describe any form of electronic business --- that is to say, any business which utilizes a computer". Electronic business or eBusiness is also any business process that is empowered by an information system. Today, this is mostly done with web based technologies.

W.S. Whyte writes that "where the range of activities is extended to cover such areas as logistics, marketing intelligence-gathering, collaborative working and so on, we prefer to use the term eBusiness ".(Whyte 2).

The meaning of eBusiness has changed over the time, in the late 1970s it meant the facilitation of commercial transactions electronically, usually using technology to send commercial documents. Later it came to include activities like web commerce which mean the purchase of goods and services over the World Wide Web by using secure servers (all-free-info.com).

Hasan3

Consequently, as it is written about the definition of eBusiness it can be noted that there are different names for ebusiness. According to Norris and West "there are several commonly used names for eBusiness, the most popular being eCommerce and eTrade".(2)

The principle of eBusiness

In fact, there are two levels of technologies involved in eBusiness: computing and communications. The both help the organization to reduce the cost. For computing "it is now well-known that performance per dollar in computing systems doubles every 18 months or so ... (Whyte 2). A similar thing is happened in telecommunications, "today, operational systems using individual tiny, flexible optical fibre carry orders of magnitude more, over intercontinental distances (Whyte 2). In fact, electronic business methods enables companies to link their internal and external processes more efficiently and flexibly, work more closely with suppliers to better satisfy the expectations of their costumers.

Creating eBusiness

Creating ebusiness is based on two main parts. First, eBusiness systems architecture "is a plan for a system at a stage before the realization of the system, which considers the functionality, behavior,

Hasan 4

characteristics and interaction of its components within the business environment in which system is to operate" (netNumina). Additionally, eBusiness systems architecture shows the technology enablers and their inter relationships, and the systems architecture represents the definitions and inter-relationships between applications and the product architecture.

Second, management ebusiness knowledge. According to W.S. Whyte "knowledge management is the conversion of raw data meaningful information sets within the context of a business model and thus potentially capable of supporting planning and decision-making (118).

Trust, Security and Electronic Money

Trust and security are two of the most important issues in any online transaction. The both trust and security are cited as the most important barriers of ebusiness. Nobody denies that any two parties who never meet and who have no idea where each other are located are trying to make an online dealing.

Trust can be defined as "something which is generally uncomputable [...] so in the hope that they will not and you thereby benefit" (Whtye 212).

Also security is very important, mainly to avoid hackers from hacking the online websites. People or

Hasan 5

hackers attack online sites simply to steal money and goods.

Electronic money or digital money refers to cash and associated transactions using electronic means. Certainly, this involves the use of computer network such as the internet and digital stored systems. In an online purchasing transaction there are many parties involved such as the buyer, the seller, the bank, the network provider and the service provider (Whyte 283).

Payments, Credits and Invoicing

Nowadays people because of lack of trust of the payment method, users do not buy goods or services online. Therefore, service