The Recent Development Of Ebusiness Application

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Electronic business (e-business) is any process that a business organization conducts over a computer-mediated network. Business organizations include any for-profit, governmental, or non-profit entity. Their processes include production-, customer-, and internal or management-focused business processes. Examples of electronic business processes are:

Production- focused processes include procurement, ordering, automated stock replenishment, payment processing and other electronic links with suppliers, as well as production control and processes more directly related to the production process.

Customer-focused processes include marketing, electronic selling, processing of customers orders and payments, and customer management and support

Internal or management-focused processes include automated employee services, training, information sharing, video conferencing, and recruiting.

Ebusiness is a term used to describe businesses run on the Internet, or utilizing Internet technologies to improve the productivity or profitability of a business. In a more general sense, the term may be used to describe any form of electronic business that is to say, any business which utilizes a computer. This usage is somewhat archaic, however, and in most contexts ebusiness refers exclusively to Internet businesses.

The most common implementation of ebusiness is as an additional, or in some cases primary, storefront. By selling products and services online, an ebusiness is able to reach a much wider consumer base than any traditional brick-and-mortar store could ever hope for. This function of ebusiness is referred to as ecommerce, and the terms are occasionally used interchangeably.

An ebusiness may also use the Internet to acquire wholesale products or supplies for in-house production. This facet of ebusiness is sometimes referred to as eprocurement, and may offer businesses the opportunity to cut their costs dramatically. Even many ebusinesses which operate without an electronic storefront now use eprocurement as a way to better track and manage their purchasing.

E- BUSINESS AND HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY :

The e-business renaissance has revolutionized the use of technology by consumers and business entities. During the past several years, e-business has changed the business paradigm and has created a new business model across all industries. This new business model is based on creating new channels that facilitate open communication among "service users" and "service providers," enabling information access, information exchange, and procurement of goods and services faster and cheaper. Using this business model, a new breed of young companies have entered the market attracting massive investments and creating extremely high market values. These new companies have been able to effectively compete with more established and mature companies, taking away their market share, and even acquiring them. Examples of these are AOL acquiring Time Warner, and Travelocity providing air-line and hotel bookings at lower rates than classic travel intermediaries. However, since the new companies have focused on growth and not paid much attention to profitability, their long-term success is questionable, unless they can use the mature company approach of combining growth with profitability.

The emergence of these new e-business organizations has awakened the mature organizations to the need to focus on the e-business paradigm and position their own organizations to benefit from this new business model. These organizations have realized that if they can be successful in taking advantage of the e-business paradigm, they can regain market share from the new companies because they have the skills and discipline  to focus on generating both profit and growth and positioning themselves ahead of their new competition.

The hospitality industry is a prime candidate for benefiting immensely from e-business. In the more distant past, the hospitality industry had been a technology leader with its comprehensive reservation systems and property management systems. Unfortunately during the past decade, this industry has not placed as much emphasis on technology as a critical factor for its future, as it did in the past. However, this industry can no longer lag behind with its technology usage. Now is the time for the hospitality industry to bridge the gap in its technology usage and embrace the Internet and e-business. The hospitality industry has the benefit of learning from other industries’ successes, as well as mistakes, and approach e-commerce with a solid e-strategy to avoid potential pitfalls that its predecessors faced.

Currently, most hospitality executives are aware of the impact of this new business model and are actively searching to find ways of incorporating e-business into their companies’ operations. However, often these efforts are done reactively and without a clear strategy and plan. While this reactive approach can produce short-term benefits, it will be less effective and more expensive in the long run. 

Therefore, to truly benefit from the impact of e-business, it is imperative to develop a clear strategy and roadmap that addresses all aspects of e-commerce. The market leaders are those companies that have a clear vision of how their organization will benefit from e-business, supported with a comprehensive strategy and plan. A key critical success factor for e-business is having a viable e-business strategy and plan.

There are several steps for hotel companies to consider in developing an effective e-strategy, depending on what their focus is and whether it is mainly directed to identifying and defining new markets and business opportunities or looking to e-commerce to improve the operating fundamentals of the organization.

There are a number of steps typically involved in developing an e-business strategy. Which steps to begin with depend on the focus of the initiatives. A suggested stepped approach to developing an e-business vision, strategy, and plan follows.

DEVELOPMENTS OF E-BUSINESS:

In developing the e-business strategy involves determining the e-business readiness of the company and preparing a high-level vision and strategy

Conduct a Net Readiness Assessment — This entails a functional and technical assessment of the company’s abilities to develop and deploy Internet applications in support of stated business objectives.

Prepare a High-Level Business Strategy — A plan should be developed for using the Internet for competitive advantage and growth based on the business’s goals, objectives, competitive environment, and culture. Key components typically include:

Strategic goals and objectives and corresponding metrics

Business vision

Identified e-business opportunities and threats

High-level initiatives definition

Top-level roadmap and timeline

Organizational roles and responsibilities

Develop a High-Level System and Component Architecture — The end-state technical vision should be developed, including cornerstone application system descriptions, proposed technical components including Web and hardware server specifications, high-level network architecture, and integration approaches.

Refine the Brand Strategy and Positioning — A strategy for managing the company’s brands via Internet-based solutions should be developed.

Develop a Comprehensive Business Case — At this point it is important to develop a business case for all opportunities identified in the business strategy. The business case may document estimates of market valuation or response to e-business initiatives, in addition to classic return-on-investment model parameters and metrics.

Prepare Prototype Designs — It is useful to develop a prototype to demonstrate functionality and reactive direction based on identified strategic objectives to illustrate the opportunity and create momentum around the chosen initiatives.

Develop a Go-To-Market Strategy — A need exists to prepare a high-level, go-to-market strategy for the e-business solutions in response to the results of customer needs and customer value assessments.

Prepare a Detailed Requirements Analysis — This involves defining the functional and technical requirements of the pro-posed business solutions.

Develop Appropriate Solution Design Specifications — Design specifications should be prepared to reflect the creative and interactive designs developed to meet the business requirements and support the brand positioning.

Refine Applications, Technical, and Content Architectures — The e-business strategy should contain a description of the underlying application integration framework and development approach, such as EJB or CORBA, as well as the major functional systems within the e-business application solution, hardware specifications, network architecture, and content specifications.

Develop e-Business Process Specifications and Organizational Design — Business processes for the new e-business model and the changes required to current processes to migrate to the new model should be identified, as well as the new e-business organizational structure for the company or venture.

Determine the Hardware/ Network Infrastructure — The physical infrastructure that comprises the production and development environments and their opera-tins should be developed.

All of these steps are the basis for an appropriated, staged, designed, and implemented e-business strategy.

Hospitality eBusiness Strategies, Inc. (HeBS)

HeBS is a full-service hotel internet marketing firm, providing direct online channel strategic advice and award-winning website design. We help hoteliers take full advantage of the direct online channel and turn their websites into the hotel’s main and most-effective distribution channel. Our hotel Internet marketing company provides hoteliers and travel executives with expert advice, concrete recommendations, and sensible solutions to critical Internet-related issues that are crucial for the very existence of your hotel or travel company.

Recognized Hotel Internet Marketing Experts-Providing hotel web marketing services and strategic advice since 1995, our experienced hospitality Internet marketing experts and consultants have the expertise, unique methodology, and the creative tools needed to help your hotel company boost its Internet presence and online business while capturing new lucrative online markets.

This is distinctively achieved by utilizing next-generation Internet-based business models and technologies. Our principals and marketers are recognized "thought leaders" who publish extensively and are frequent guest speakers and presenters at hospitality industry and association events, Internet marketing conferences, government and state-sponsored tourism events. Since 2001 HeBS Chief eBusiness Strategist has been teaching, as an adjunct professor, graduate courses on eCRM and Internet Marketing and Distribution at New York University’s prestigious Tisch Center for Hospitality and Tourism Management.

HeBS has pioneered many of the "best practices" in hotel web marketing and direct online channel distribution. Our hotel Internet marketing firm’s services are delivered in a highly interactive and competitive format using state-of-the-art techniques and proven approaches based on our own unique methodology.

Application of Internet in business is a recent major trend adopted by many industries, according to Wagner (2001) there are over 400 million computers that are in more than 400 thousand networks communicating all over the world, as a result the internet has become a very powerful and convenient for business communication, marketing and new opportunities. Small firms in the hotel industry are now able to compete with other larger firms by simply having better presentation on the internet through their websites. The internet allows the firm to offer competitive prices, advertise its products and also services all over the world.

This communication provided by the internet between the service and product provider and customer enhances businesses opportunities by making transaction much easier and cheaper where consumers can buy the products and services over the internet. According to Schulze (1999) the internet also offers an opportunity where consumers can make the right decision with the information provided and also offers an opportunity where consumers can shop online.

According to Deegan (2003) online booking has increased rapidly in the recent past where in 1999 total online booking amounted to 1.1 billion dollars and in 2002 this increased to 6.3 dollars, the availability and ease of online booking has increased the frequency of travel internationally and locally and as a result the increased demand for hotel products and services.

Through the internet the hotels offer competitive prices to consumers and also offer promotions to consumers, through the aid of the internet the consumer is able to compare prices and also the product and services offered and as a result the hotels gain competitive advantage.

The hotel industry has also initiated flexibility whereby they are currently able to offer more brands and also negotiable price cuts schedules, hotels now offer more rooms at different prices that are very competitive. The ability of a hotel to be in a position to offer online purchase and delivery of products and services has also provided them with competitive advantage. Further many hotels also offer services such as advance car hiring, air ticket and travel packages which are very attractive and convenient to consumers.

The main challenge to the e business practised by the hotels is that some customers are afraid of giving away their personal information such as credit card information which is a security concern, the other disadvantage of the internet booking process is the speed of delivery of goods and services and also the reliability of these services, booking and other processes require some time to process and also may be unreliable to consumers and therefore this might turn to be inconvenient to the customer and the business.

The latest development is online booking in the Hospitality Industry. And this is a trend that will grow upwards in the years to come. As per the most up-to-date statistics more than 114 million people will research travel online this year, while 94 million people will actually book reservations. While more than 50% of travel bookings are made on the Internet.

But not to overlook that technology has moved a step forward. It is the Mobile generation. And to take a step ahead, there will be more research and mobile bookings. As per Google, mobile will surpass PCs as the most common Web-access gadget by 2013. With travelers adopting Tablets and Smartphone at such a rapid speed, it's crucial for hoteliers to optimize their website for mobile usage to confine prospective mobile transactions.