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Electronic business (e-business) takes place over the Internet.
It is about using the power of digital information to understand
the needs and preferences of each customer and business partner,
to customize products and services for them, and then to deliver
those products and services as quickly as possible.
Personalized, automated services offer businesses the potential
to increase revenues, lower costs, and establish and strengthen
customer and partner relationships. To achieve these benefits,
many companies today engage in e-commerce for direct marketing,
sales, and customer service; online billing; secure distribution
of information; and corporate
purchasing.
Doing Business on the Internet
Businesses communicate with customers and partners through
channels. The Internet is one of the newest channels available
to businesses and for many purposes it is emerging as one of the
broadest reaching and best business communications channels
available. It is fast, reliable, inexpensive, and universally
accessible. It reaches more than 100 million consumers and
virtually every business.
There are
three primary areas where organizations conduct business online
today:
- Business-to-consumer. This is the most common and
easily understood form of e-commerce. Direct selling, the
earliest type of e-business has proven to be a
stepping-stone to more complex operations for many companies
that have moved into direct marketing, sales, and service,
proving the reach and customer acceptance of the Internet.
Business-to-consumer e-commerce increases revenue by
reaching the right customers. Sites that consistently
provide the best and most appropriate products and services
are rewarded with stronger customer relationships, resulting
in improved loyalty and increased value.
- Business-to-business. No other business model
highlights the need for tight integration across suppliers,
manufacturers, and distributors quite like the supply chain
model. Flaws in inventory tracking and management can ripple
from the cash register all the way back to raw material
production, creating gluts or shortages at any stage of the
supply chain. Suppliers, manufacturers, and distributors can
realize tremendous efficiencies by sharing order and
shipment information dynamically via the Internet.
- Business-to-employee. The Internet offers
tremendous time and cost savings by streamlining basic
administrative functions. It simplifies corporate purchases
of low-cost, high-volume goods for Maintenance, Repair, and
Operations (MRO) activities, transforming corporate
purchasing from a labor- and paperwork-intensive process
into a self-service application. Employees can order
equipment from Web sites. Company officials can
automatically enforce purchase approval and policies through
automated business rules, reduce inventory and
administrative costs by improving the accuracy of
order-tracking, and giving companies more power when
negotiating exclusive or volume-discount contracts.
The benefits of e-business systems are enticing, but
developing, deploying, and managing these systems is not always
easy. Enter Contoso. Our goal is straightforward: to make the
Internet a part of everyday operations by bringing together
hardware, software, and services to enable companies of all
sizes to move processes online, better understand and respond to
their customers, empower their employees with access to critical
business information, and connect to suppliers and partners.
Contoso is an enterprise e-business
leader. Contoso and Microsoft give you the tools you need to
connect your business with your partners and customers, enabling
your success in the new economy at Internet speed.
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