1Q.5) Explain in detail about e-business, e-commerce and e-collaboration.

Give suitable examples.

2Ans:
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E-Business:
4The scope of E-business is limited to executing core business process of the
organization. These processes would have external interface like suppliers, customers,
contractors, consultants and so on. The core business processes of the organization are
procurement, manufacturing, selling, distribution, delivery and accounting.
5E-business
6systems use internet / intranet / extranet capabilities to process an event in seamless
7manner covering all technical, commercial, business aspects and implications of an
event. They perform internal business operations and interface with external agencies.
8E-business system scope manages cross-functional application systems as a single
business process. It integrates cross functions seamlessly, automates the tasks, and
updates the information in real time. The ERP/ SCM and now Customer Relations
Management system (CRM) is a family of software solution packages dedicated to core
management of functions of business. They are supported by front-end and backend
9systems and applications designed for transaction processing, workflow management,
work group processing and automated process control. E-business systems use
10client/ server architecture and run on Internet platform. E-business systems lay
foundation for other Enterprise applications, namely E-commerce, E-communications,
11and E-collaboration.
12Example: In Marketing System, IT helps to reach customer directly and is in the
position to understand customer behavior, customer's demographic/ psychographic
profile; it then helps to segment market by customer for advertising, promotion and
contact.
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14In Manufacturing System, IT helps to automate number of management processes
relating to resource, capacity, engineering & design, maintenance, and support. The
application of IT is so strong that it is termed as Computer Integrated Manufacturing
(CIM) or Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM).

15CIM adds value in the manufacturing by way of simplification of processes in

production and design. Automation of simplified processes using process control
devices, numerically controlled machines and robots and lastly integration of all core and
support processes contributes to manufacturing excellence.

In Accounting and Finance system, IT application is very strong. E-business

applications in this area are capable of accounting every business entity such
as material, men, machines, cash, customer, vendor and so on. All processes,
which deal with transaction, computing, accounting and analysis, are
automated using system intelligence and knowledge driver intelligent
systems. The architecture of these processes enables to receive inputs from
other functional systems like marketing, manufacturing, and HR, and process
the same to account and analyze the impact on the
business performance, be it cost, profit or productivity. An integrated E-
business system is capable of forecasting resources requirement, managing
resources, budgeting capital, sales, and manpower, and measuring financial
performance.
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19E-commerce:
E-commerce is a second big application next to ERP. It essentially deals with
buying and selling of goods. With the advent of internet and web technology,
Ecommerce today covers an entire commercial scope online including design
and developing, marketing, selling, delivering, servicing, and paying for
goods. Some E-commerce applications add order tracking as a feature for
customer to know the delivery status of the order.

Ecommerce process model can be viewed in four ways and categories:

• B2C: Business Organization to Customer
In B2C model, business organization uses websites or portals to offer
information about product, through multimedia clippings, catalogues, product
configuration guidelines, customer histories and so on. A new customer
interacts with the site and uses interactive order processing system for order
placement. On placement of order, secured payment systems comes into
operation to authorize and authenticate payment to seller. The delivery
system then takes over to execute the delivery to customer.

• B2B: Business Organization to Business

In B2B model, buyer and seller are business organizations. They exchange
technical & commercial information through websites and portals. Then
model works on similar line like B2C. More advanced B2B model uses
Extranet and conducts business transactions based on the information status
displayed on the buyer’s application server. Auto component industry uses
this model for supplying parts and components to auto manufacturer based
on the inventory levels and production programmer.

• C2B: Customer to Business Organization

In C2B model, customer initiates actions after logging on to seller's website or
to server. On the server of the selling organization, E-commerce applications
are present for the use of the customer. The entire Internet banking process
works on C2B model where account holders of the bank transact a number of
requirements such as seeking account balance, payment, money transfer and
so on.

• C2C: Customer to Customer

In C2C model, customer participates in the process of selling and buying
through the auction website. In this model, website is used for personal
advertising of products or services. E-newspaper website is an example of
advertising and selling of goods to the consumer.

20E-collaboration:
Every business has a number of work scenarios where group of people work
together to complete the tasks and to achieve a common objective. The
groups could be teams or virtual teams with different member strength. They
come together to perform a task to achieve some results. The process is
called collaboration. The collaboration now is possible with e-technologies,
which put these teams in network with Internet support for communication,
access to different databases and servers. These capabilities help to create
collaborative work systems and allow members to work together
cooperatively on projects and assignments.
The biggest advantage of E-collaboration is that it taps the collective wisdom,
knowledge and experience of the members. The collaboration team or group
could be within the organization and between the organizations as well.
Since, E-collaboration works on an Internet platform and uses web
technology, work group / team need not be at one physical location. They can
be at different locations and form a virtual team to work on project or
assignment. E-collaboration uses e-communication capabilities to perform
collaborative tasks, or project assignment. Its effectiveness is increased by
software 'GroupWare' that enables the members of the group to share
information, invoke an application and work together to create documents
and share them and so on. GroupWare is collaboration software.
E-collaboration helps work effectively on applications like calendaring and
scheduling tasks, event, project management, workflow applications, work
group applications, document creation and sharing, and knowledge
management.
E-collaboration system components are Internet, Intranet, Extranet and LAN,
WAN networks for communication through GroupWare tools, browsers.
Application packages are software suit, which help process customer
requirements. It is supported by databases present on various servers like
mail server, material database, knowledge server, document server and so
on.
Example:
Consider an event in the business such as receipt of material for a job to be
processed on the shop floor. In this event there is a transaction receipt of
material, which needs to be processed, and then a workgroup will use this
information of material receipt. Each member of this workgroup has a
different goal.

In workflow application, different members with a single goal of processing

receipt of material for inventory, process transaction in its logical serial order.
While in work group application, the members have different assignments, in
a sense independent of each other but they share information of receipt of
material to complete their assignment.

All four applications: E-business, E-commerce, E-communication and E-

collaboration
run Internet, Intranet, Extranet and other networks and use web technology
extensively. In the execution of these applications, E-organization uses
GroupWare software and tools. GroupWare is capable of handling core
processes like communication, integration, collaboration and delivery, and
expedites processing of transaction, application and system. The GroupWare
thus becomes an integral part of the enterprise E-solution,
designed to manage the enterprise business
For all four applications, packaged software solutions are available broadly
called as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relation
Management (CRM), and Supply Chain Management (SCM). All three
packages are then integrated in one customize suit known as Enterprise
Application Integration (EAI). EAI supports E-organization functioning through
MIS.
MIS in E-organization deviates from traditional report formats to automated
intelligent knowledge driven system. It enforces manager to act quickly to
response displayed on the screen. Most of the decisions of middle and
operational management are delegated to IT enabled information and
knowledge driven systems. They are supported by the rule based transaction
processing system, decision support systems, expert systems, artificial
intelligence (AI) systems, and data warehouse and mining systems. MIS in E-
organization deviates from the conventional model of 'Capture – Compute-
Process- Analyze-Report-Think-and Act' to 'Point -Click- Respond -Act'.
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