What's in a name?

When is this industry going to grow-up and stop fighting over what to call the online business area and how to define it?

In the last week I heard a number of arguments about the difference between e-commerce, e-business, e-trade, i-commerce and any number of more ways of saying the same thing. I have even seen it taken as far as a major point on a local company's Web site, saying: "The transformational benefits of doing business electronically will attract increasing interest as companies realise the importance of not merely 'doing business better' (e-commerce), but 'doing business differently' (e-business)."

E-commerce, or what ever you want to call it, is so much more than just online selling; it is also the whole way that businesses will interact in the future.

Some people also argue that e-commerce is a subset of e-business, or the other way around. I know about this issue as I have ended up one of these people arguing my view - what a waste of time when I look back on it.

How are we expecting customers to react when they see these confusing statements: "sorry you only have e-commerce solutions when I need an e-business one" or vice versa. Basically all the vendors are saying the same thing - that conducting business over the Internet is not just an extension to your business, but is integral to the way you do business.

E-commerce will work on its own, just plug it into your organisation, and start seeing the benefits. However, as with all new technologies, the real business benefits will come from implementing e-commerce along with re-engineering some of the business, and yes of course it will be different and better. Why we need separate terms to define this is beyond me. I know we won't get one term, not with the money behind the e-business campaigns from IBM and such, but let us at least not contradict each other to score a few brownie points with a customer.

It is not that easy to fully define what e-commerce, (I will call it e-commerce because that is what I know it as), is or does. I have heard people talk about it as "when a payment is made across the Internet", but then what about online banking? I like to define it as, "anytime when in doing business with another company or consumer, a transaction happens using Web technologies". I like to think this covers all aspects of e-commerce but my definition is as good as anyone else's.

This really brings me to the second point of the article, and that is what does e-commerce cover? Most of the time when you speak to the general public, e-commerce is purely online shopping, the business to consumer area. This myth is borne out by the coverage in newspapers and TV about the future of retail and how online shops are the next big wave.

Direct marketing, sales and service, of which online sales are a part, is definitely the glamorous and funky side of e-commerce, but it is not the area most business will focus on first, nor will it usually make the best return on investment. The two areas that will do this are employee self-service and value chain trading, or sometimes collectively called business to business.

Areas like internal systems, policies and corporate purchasing all make up the area of employee self-service, of which corporate purchasing is the most significant. Putting in a good online purchasing system integrated with your suppliers can result in huge saving in people, paper and time, all of which cost money. The cost of buying MRO items for the business all cost money, sometimes more than the cost of the actual item. Implementing an online purchasing system can not only drop the cost per transaction but it also leads to employee empowerment, another hot topic.

When a company turns to using Internet technologies in its trading relationships, then the value chain becomes important. When you buy an item, say a CD from an online store, it is possible that all the companies involved in producing that CD, from raw materials suppliers to the warehouses to the actual store, could be involved in the transaction, all checking stock and order processing. Again the benefits of this are not in the money made from the transaction, but rather on the money put directly on the bottom-line with cost savings.

So going back to the beginning, e-commerce, or what ever you want to call it, is so much more than just online selling; it is also the whole way that businesses will interact in the future. So let us put name-calling behind us, focus on the opportunities and grow the market. Whether you call it e-business or I call it e-commerce, we are both trying to help businesses and consumers embrace the Web lifestyle.