RE: UKNM: What is e-business?

[Marshall, Jeff]

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 Ray Taylor said:

> e-business is fundamental, and I would like to ask for

> others' views.


Here's my 2 centsworth:


Any business (b2b or b2c) needs to meet 3 fundamental objectives (apologies

to Don Pepper et al):


-	acquire new customers

-	retain existing customers

-	increase the profitability of every customer.


The web/net/newmedia can support any of these fundamental business

objectives, and any business that uses web/net/newmedia to help meet any or

all of these, is in my view, an e-business to a larger or smaller extent.


Examples of how net/web/new media support each are below - but you can make

up your own, and the examples for each grow every day as the incredibly

inventive and fertile minds of the new media community invent new

approaches.


Acquisition - everything from a simple brochure site to raise awareness to

fully integrated on and off-line campaigns, channel management through the

web, etc., etc.


Retention - best achieved through being able to offer increased / new levels

of service.  If I can go on-line at my barbers and book my appointment from

my desktop (seeing what's available, rather than asking question after

question over the phone), or if I can use the bulletin board at my local

pub's web site to arrange in impromptu piss-up to celebrate the quiz teams

win in a competition (extending the community, the essence of the pub

experience, to outside opening hours), then I am more likely to remain

hooked into my supplier/customer relationship, less likely to churn.


Profitability - do it better, cheaper.  Reduce the cost of

printing/delivering documents by giving me on-line access to the

information, millions of examples here.


Notice, I have not mentioned e-commerce.  In my world (not universal, I

know) e-business does not equate to e-commerce.  e-commerce is another way

of doing one or all of these 3 basics.


I fully expect some of you to disagree with my definition, and to take issue

with it, but I'm happy where I am.  An e-business (to me)is one that uses

web/net/newmedia/wap/whatever to acquire and/or retain and/or increase the

profitability of customers.


Fire away!


Jeff Marshall

WorldWide Web Services Limited

(a member of VIA Net Works Inc.)



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