Importance Of E-Business

Introduction

During the last decade, the I.T. Security industry has struggled to keep up with the new trends and developments caused by the growing importance of Information Technology and e-Business. BIS (2004) describes e-Business as a specific way of doing business utilising electronic media such as the Internet. Jelassi and Enders (2005: p.4) on the other hand, define e-Business as “the use of networked information technologies to conduct an organisation's business internally and/or externally. Internal business activities include the linking of an organisation's business units and employees with each other through an intranet to improve information sharing, facilitate knowledge dissemination, and support management reporting. With an external

“What do we mean by value creation? For the customer, it entails making products and providing services that customers find consistently useful. In today's economy, such value creation is based typically on product and process innovation and on understanding unique customer needs with ever increasing speed and precision. But companies can innovate and deliver outstanding service only if they tap the commitment, energy, and imagination of their employees. Value must therefore be created for those employees in order to motivate and enable them. Value for employees includes being treated respectfully and being involved in decision‐making. Employees also value meaningful work; excellent compensation opportunities; and continued training and development. Creating value for investors means delivering consistently high returns on their capital. This generally requires both strong revenue growth and attractive profit margins. These, in turn, can be achieved only if a company delivers sustained value for customers." (O'Malley

The World Wide Web makes the efficiency increase possible in numerous different ways. One of the most important of them is the ability to minimize the impact of the information imbalance existing between buyers and sellers. For instance, if a client is interested in a new car, in the ‘real’ world he/she would have had to visit many dealerships in order to receive all the necessary information about automobile availability and pricing. Website addresses such as www.autobytel.com or www.edmunds.com, however, completely change this situation. They not only provide the potential buyer with comparative and detailed information about the different models, but also facilitate a reverse market, where buyers can put their desired purchase up for a bid among different vendors. This simplifies and accelerates the buying process, and the bargaining costs are reduced. A business model is able to unlock hidden value by enhancing the transactional efficiencies by enabling reduced transaction speed, search costs, reduced distribution costs and reduced inventory