Overview

It doesn't matter how many pails of milk you spill. Just don't lose the cow.

John M. Capozzi

It is kind of funny in a sad way, but since the demise of the dot-coms, many IT professionals tend to get somewhat defensive and resort to a sotto voce tone when asked about their e-business plans. There really is no need for this. The failure of dot-coms cannot in any rational way be attributed to weaknesses in the e-business process or, for that matter any deficiencies in the portal paradigm. Dot-coms failed because they were built on hope that was tempered with hype. Their business models were unrealistic from the get-go. Given this fundamental flaw, neither e-business nor portals were in a position to save them. This has nothing to do with the power and promise of e-business. E-business is not alchemy. It cannot turn lead into gold (though some would argue that it sure did turn stock options into gold). What it can do, very effectively, is make a viable business more efficacious, competitive, responsive, visible, and dynamic.

E-business is all about doing business or, to be more precise, transacting selected business processes, over the Web. E-commerce is a subset. Consequently, e-business applies to all aspects of a business, from human resources management to salesforce automation. However, two vital business endeavors are at present indelibly associated with e-business, given the amount of media attention they have received as the processes that epitomize the potential of e-business. These two endeavors,...