Introduction: E-Business
E-business refers to all uses of advances in information
technology (IT), particularly networking and communications technology, to
improve the ways in which an organisation performs all of its business
processes.
E-business encompasses an organization’s external
interactions with its:
- Suppliers
- Customers
- Investors
- Creditors
- The government
- Media
E-Business Models
- Business to Consumers (B2C): Interactions between
individuals and organizations.
- Business to Business (B2B): Interorganizational e-business.
Categories of E-Business
E-Business Effects on Business Processes
- Electronic Data Interchange (EDI): Standard protocol,
available since the 1970s, for electronically transferring information between
organizations and across business processes.
- EDI:
- Improves accuracy
- Cuts costs
Integrated Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)
□ Reaping the full benefits of EDI requires that it be fully
integrated with the company’s AIS.
E-Business Effects on Value Chain Activities
Information Flows in Electronic Commerce
Financial Electronic Data Interchange (FEDI)
E-Business Success Factors
□ The degree to which e-business activities fit and support
the organization’s overall business strategy.
□ The ability to guarantee that e-business processes satisfy
the three key characteristics of any business transaction
- Validity
- Integrity
- Privacy
Encryption
There are two principal types of encryption systems:
□ Single-key systems: Same key is used to encrypt and
decrypt the message
- Simple, fast, and efficient
- Example: the Data Encryption Standard (DES) algorithm
□ Public Key Infrastructure (PKI): Uses two keys:
- Public key is publicly available and usually used to
encode message
- Private key is kept secret and known only by the owner of
that pair of keys. Usually used to decode message
Digital Signatures and Digests
□ Digital signature: An electronic message that uniquely
identifies the sender of that message.
□ Digest: The message that is used to create a digital
signature or digital summary.
- If any individual character in the original document
changes, the value of the digest also changes. This ensures that the contents
of a business document have not been altered or garbled during transmission
Digital Certificates & Certificate Authorities
□ Digital Certificate: Used to verify the identity of the
public key’s owner.
- A digital certificate identifies the owner of a particular
private key and the corresponding public key, and the time period during which
the certificate is valid.
□ Digital certificates are issued by a reliable third party,
called a Certificate Authority, such as:
- Verisign
- Entrust
- Digital Signature Trust
□ The certificate authority’s digital signature is also
included on the digital certificate so that the validity of the certificate can
also be verified.
Types of Networks
□ The global networks used by many companies to conduct
electronic commerce and to manage internal operations consist of two
components:
1. Private portion owned or leased by the company
2. The Internet
□ The private portion can be further divided into two
subsets:
1. Local area network (LAN) — a system of computers and
other devices, such as printers, that are located in close proximity to each
other.
2. Wide area network (WAN) — covers a wide geographic area.
□ Companies typically own all the equipment that makes up
their local area network (LAN).
□ They usually do not own the long-distance data
communications connections of their wide area network (WAN).
□ They either contract to use a value-added network (VAN) or
use the Internet.
□ What is an Intranet?
□ The term Intranet refers to internal networks that connect
to the main Internet.
□ They can be navigated with the same browser software, but
are closed off from the general public.
□ What are Extranets?
□ Extranets link the intranets of two or more companies.
□ Either the Internet or a VAN can be used to connect the
companies forming the extranet.
□ Value-added networks (VAN) are more reliable and secure
than the Internet, but they are also expensive.
Network Configuration Options
Local area networks (LANs) can be configured in one of three basic ways:
1 Star configuration
2 Ring configuration
3 Bus configuration
A star configuration is a LAN configured as a star; each device is directly connected to the central server.
All communications between devices are controlled by and routed through the central server.
Typically, the server polls each device to see if it wants to send a message.
