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Electronic 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. Commerce constitutes the exchange of products
and services between businesses, groups and individuals and hence can be seen as one of
the essential activities of any business. Hence, electronic commerce or eCommerce
focuses on the use of ICT to enable the external activities and relationships of the
business with individuals, groups and other businesses [1].

Louis Gerstner, the former CEO of IBM, in his book, Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?
attributes the term "e-Business" to IBM's marketing and Internet teams in 1996.

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.

In practice, e-business is more than just e-commerce. While e-business refers to more
strategic focus with an emphasis on the functions that occur using electronic capabilities,
e-commerce is a subset of an overall e-business strategy. E-commerce seeks to add
revenue streams using the World Wide Web or the Internet to build and enhance
relationships with clients and partners and to improve efficiency using the Empty Vessel
strategy. Often, e-commerce involves the application of knowledge management systems.

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 between 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.

Subsets
Applications can be divided into three categories:

1. Internal business systems:

o customer relationship management
o enterprise resource planning
o document management systems
o human resources management
2. Enterprise communication and collaboration:
o VoIP
o content management system
o e-mail
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o voice mail
o Web conferencing
o Digital work flows (or business process management)
3. electronic commerce - business-to-business electronic commerce (B2B) or
business-to-consumer electronic commerce (B2C):
o internet shop
o supply chain management
o online marketing
o offline marketing

Models
When organizations go online, they have to decide which e-business models best suit
their goals. [2] A business model is defined as the organization of product, service and
information flows, and the source of revenues and benefits for suppliers and customers.
The concept of e-business model is the same but used in the online presence. The
following is a list of the currently most adopted e-business models:

• E-shops
• E-commerce
• E-procurement
• E-malls
• E-auctions
• Virtual Communities
• Collaboration Platforms
• Third-party Marketplaces
• Value-chain Integrators
• Value-chain Service Providers
• Information Brokerage
• Telecommunication

Classification by provider and consumer

Roughly dividing the world into providers/producers and consumers/clients one can
classify e-businesses into the following categories:

• business-to-business (B2B)
• business-to-consumer (B2C)
• business-to-employee (B2E)
• business-to-government (B2G)
• government-to-business (G2B)
• government-to-government (G2G)
• government-to-citizen (G2C)
• consumer-to-consumer (C2C)
• consumer-to-business (C2B)
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Electronic commerce
Electronic Commerce, commonly known as (electronic marketing) e-commerce or
eCommerce, consists of the buying and selling of products or services over electronic
systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. The amount of trade
conducted electronically has grown extraordinarily with widespread Internet usage. A
wide variety of commerce is conducted in this way, spurring and drawing on innovations
in electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online
transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management
systems, and automated data collection systems. Modern electronic commerce typically
uses the World Wide Web at least at some point in the transaction's lifecycle, although it
can encompass a wider range of technologies such as e-mail as well.

A large percentage of electronic commerce is conducted entirely electronically for virtual

items such as access to premium content on a website, but most electronic commerce
involves the transportation of physical items in some way. Online retailers are sometimes
known as e-tailers and online retail is sometimes known as e-tail. Almost all big retailers
have electronic commerce presence on the World Wide Web.

Electronic commerce that is conducted between businesses is referred to as business-to-

business or B2B. B2B can be open to all interested parties (e.g. commodity exchange) or
limited to specific, pre-qualified participants (private electronic market). Electronic
commerce that is conducted between businesses and consumers, on the other hand, is
referred to as business-to-consumer or B2C. This is the type of electronic commerce
conducted by companies such as Amazon.com.

Electronic commerce is generally considered to be the sales aspect of e-business. It also

consists of the exchange of data to facilitate the financing and payment aspects of the
business transactions.

Business applications
Some common applications related to electronic commerce are the following:

• Email
• Enterprise content management
• Instant messaging
• Newsgroups
• Online shopping and order tracking
• Online banking
• Online office suites
• Domestic and international payment systems
• Shopping cart software
• Teleconferencing
• Electronic tickets
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Online transactions
The buying and selling of goods and services on the Internet, especially the World Wide
Web. In practice, this term and a new term, "e-business," are often used interchangeably.
For on-line retail selling, the term e-tailing is sometimes used. It is also called e-
commerce for short, on-line commerce, Internet commerce, e-business, or Cyberspace
commerce. E-commerce can be divided into: (1) e-tailing or "virtual storefronts" on Web
sites with on-line catalogs, sometimes gathered into a "virtual mall." The gathering and
use of demographic data through Web contacts; (2) Electronic Data Interchange (EDI),
the business-to-business exchange of data; (3) e-mail and fax and their use as media for
reaching prospects and established customers (for example, with newsletters); (4)
business-to-business buying and selling; and (5) the security of business transactions.

Credit card
A credit card is part of a system of payments named after the small plastic card issued to
users of the system. It is a card entitling its holder to buy goods and services based on the
holder's promise to pay for these goods and services.[1] The issuer of the card grants a line
of credit to the consumer (or the user) from which the user can borrow money for
payment to a merchant or as a cash advance to the user.

A credit card is different from a charge card, where a charge card requires the balance to
be paid in full each month. In contrast, credit cards allow the consumers to 'revolve' their
balance, at the cost of having interest charged. Most credit cards are issued by local banks
or credit unions, and are the shape and size specified by the ISO/IEC 7810 standard as
ID-1.

Debit card
A debit card (also known as a bank card or check card) is a plastic card which
provides an alternative payment method to cash when making purchases. Functionally, it
can be called an electronic check, as the funds are withdrawn directly from either the
bank account (often referred to as a check card), or from the remaining balance on the
card. In some cases, the cards are designed exclusively for use on the Internet, and so
there is no physical card.[1][2]

The use of debit cards has become widespread in many countries and has overtaken the
cheque, and in some instances cash transactions by volume. Like credit cards, debit cards
are used widely for telephone and Internet purchases.
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Debit cards can also allow for instant withdrawal of cash, acting as the ATM card for
withdrawing cash and as a cheque guarantee card. Merchants can also offer
"cashback"/"cashout" facilities to customers, where a customer can withdraw cash along
with their purchase.

Online Debit Card

Online debit cards require electronic authorization of every transaction and the debits are
reflected in the user’s account immediately. The transaction may be additionally secured
with the personal identification number (PIN) authentication system and some online
cards require such authentication for every transaction, essentially becoming enhanced
automatic teller machine (ATM) cards. One difficulty in using online debit cards is the
necessity of an electronic authorization device at the point of sale (POS) and sometimes
also a separate PINpad to enter the PIN, although this is becoming commonplace for all
card transactions in many countries. Overall, the online debit card is generally viewed as
superior to the offline debit card because of its more secure authentication system and
live status, which alleviates problems with processing lag on transactions that may have
been forgotten or not authorized by the owner of the card. Banks in some countries, such
as Canada and Brazil, only issue online debit cards

Offline Debit Card

Offline debit cards have the logos of major credit cards (e.g. Visa or MasterCard) or
major debit cards (e.g. Maestro in the United Kingdom and other countries, but not the
United States) and are used at the point of sale like a credit card. This type of debit card
may be subject to a daily limit, and/or a maximum limit equal to the current/checking
account balance from which it draws funds. Transactions conducted with offline debit
cards require 2–3 days to be reflected on users’ account balances. In some countries and
with some banks and merchant service organizations, a "credit" or offline debit
transaction is without cost to the purchaser beyond the face value of the transaction,
while a small fee may be charged for a "debit" or online debit transaction (although it is
often absorbed by the retailer). Other differences are that online debit purchasers may opt
to withdraw cash in addition to the amount of the debit purchase (if the merchant
supports that functionality); also, from the merchant's standpoint, the merchant pays
lower fees on online debit transaction as compared to "credit" (offline) debit transactions.

Prepaid Debit Card

Prepaid debit cards, also called reloadable debit cards or reloadable prepaid cards, are
often used for recurring payments. The payer loads funds to the cardholder's card
account. Particularly for US-based companies with a large number of payment recipients
abroad, prepaid debit cards allow the delivery of international payments without the
delays and fees associated with international checks and bank transfers. Web-based
services such as stock photography websites (istockphoto), outsourced services (oDesk),
and affiliate networks (MediaWhiz) have all started offering prepaid debit cards for their
contributors/freelancers/vendors abroad. [5]
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Electronic Purse Card

Smart-card-based electronic purse systems (in which value is stored on the card chip, not
in an externally recorded account, so that machines accepting the card need no network
connectivity) were tried throughout Europe from the mid-1990s, most notably in
Germany (Geldkarte), Austria (Quick), Belgium (Proton), France (Moneo), the
Netherlands (Chipknip and Chipper), Switzerland ("Cash"), Norway ("Mondex"),
Sweden ("Cash"), Finland ("Avant"), UK ("Mondex"), Denmark ("Danmønt") and
Portugal ("Porta-moedas Multibanco").

The major boom in smart card use came in the 1990s, with the introduction of the smart-
card-based SIM used in GSM mobile phone equipment in Europe. With the ubiquity of
mobile phones in Europe, smart cards have become very common.

Smart card
A smart card, chip card, or integrated circuit card (ICC), is in any pocket-sized card
with embedded integrated circuits which can process data. This implies that it can receive
input which is processed — by way of the ICC applications — and delivered as an
output. There are two broad categories of ICCs. Memory cards contain only non-volatile
memory storage components, and perhaps some specific security logic. Microprocessor
cards contain volatile memory and microprocessor components. The card is made of
plastic, generally PVC, but sometimes ABS. The card may embed a hologram to avoid
counterfeiting. Using smartcards also is a form of strong security authentication for single
sign-on within large companies and organizations.

Financial

The applications of smart cards include their use as credit or ATM cards, in a fuel card,
SIMs for mobile phones, authorization cards for pay television, pre-pay utilities in
household, high-security identification and access-control cards, and public transport and
public phone payment cards.

Smart cards may also be used as electronic wallets. The smart card chip can be loaded
with funds which can be spent in parking meters and vending machines or at various
merchants. Cryptographic protocols protect the exchange of money between the smart
card and the accepting machine. There is no connection to the issuing bank necessary, so
the holder of the card can use it regardless of him being the owner. Examples are Proton,
Geldkarte, Chipknip and Mon€o. The German Geldkarte is also used to validate the
customers age at vending machines for cigarettes.
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Electronic money
Electronic money (also known as e-money, electronic cash, electronic currency,
digital money, digital cash or digital currency) refers to money or scrip which is
exchanged only electronically. Typically, this involves use of computer networks, the
internet and digital stored value systems. Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) and direct
deposit are examples of electronic money. Also, it is a collective term for financial
cryptography and technologies enabling it.

While electronic money has been an interesting problem for cryptography (see for
example the work of David Chaum and Markus Jakobsson), to date, use of digital cash
has been relatively low-scale. One rare success has been Hong Kong's Octopus card
system, which started as a transit payment system and has grown into a widely used
electronic cash system. Singapore also has an electronic money implementation for its
public transportation system (commuter trains, bus, etc), which is very similar to Hong
Kong's Octopus card and based on the same type of card (FeliCa). There are also one
implementation is in the Netherlands, known as Chipknip.

Automated teller machine

An automated teller machine (ATM) is a computerized telecommunications device that
provides the customers of a financial institution with access to financial transactions in a
public space without the need for a human clerk or bank teller. On most modern ATMs,
the customer is identified by inserting a plastic ATM card with a magnetic stripe or a
plastic smartcard with a chip, that contains a unique card number and some security
information, such as an expiration date or CVC (CVV). Security is provided by the
customer entering a personal identification number (PIN).

Using an ATM, customers can access their bank accounts in order to make cash
withdrawals (or credit card cash advances) and check their account balances as well as
purchasing mobile cell phone prepaid credit. ATMs are known by various other names
including automated banking machine, money machine, bank machine, cash machine,
hole-in-the-wall, cashpoint, Bancomat (in various countries in Europe and Russia),
Multibanco (after a registered trade mark, in Portugal), and Any Time Money (in India).

KING