About E-business

Electronic Business, commonly referred to as " eBusiness " or " e-Business" ,may be defined as the utilization of information and communication technologies (ICT) in support of all the activities of business.

Electronic business methods enable companies to link their internal and external data processing systems more efficiently and flexibly, to work more closely with suppliers and partners, and to better satisfy the needs and expectations of their customers.

E-business involves business processes spanning the entire value chain : electronic purchasing and supply chain management, processing orders electronically,handling customer service, and cooperating with business partners.Special technical standards for e-business facilitate the exchange of data btween companies. E-business software solutions allow the integration of intra and inter firm business processes.E-business can be conducted using the web,the internet,intranets,extranets,or some combination of these.E-business has contributed a lot to the global market successfully.

Most big ERP rollouts fall foul of E-business failures

ERP project delays due to problems with e-business system rollouts are costing somemanufacturers more than 1 million dollars per month.

However,problems also arises for manufacturers not in the super big bracket,with nearly 85% of the companies surveyed claiming to have experienced delays in ERP rollouts due to the same problems.

Key findings include that 65% of respondents are performing inadequate testing of B2B prior to new ERP launches,47% expand the scope of their B2B efforts during ERP projects 79% have a greater than 1% error rate for B2B and 57% have experienced a production outage due to lack of B2B connectivity.

Importantly, the AMR Research survey also found more than a third (34%) of data in ERP systems originates from outside the enterprise demonstrating the transactions and data with ERP systems.

Says Steve Keifer, vice president of product and industry marketing at GXS:"The symbiotic nature of B2B and ERP is often overlooked,as many manufacturing companies tend to focus design,development and testing efforts on business processes within the four walls of their enterprise."

And he adds, " Project leaders often forget the critical supply chain links and external data flows needed to power ERP applications.Too many companies get half way through a new ERP rollout to discover that they are not staffed to support the massive mapping,testing and trading partner management activities necessary for ERP upgrades."