
servicing customer accounts, collaborating with partners, and exchanging
real-time information. During Web 1.0, entrepreneurs began creating the first
forms of ebusiness. Ebusiness advantages include expanding global reach,
opening new markets, reducing costs, and improving operations and
effectiveness.
Learning Outcome 3.3: Compare the four categories of ebusiness
models.
Business-to-business (B2B) applies to businesses buying from and selling to
each other over the Internet.
Business-to-consumer (B2C) applies to any business that sells its products or
services to consumers over the Internet.
Consumer-to-business (C2B) applies to any consumer that sells a product or
service to a business over the Internet.
Consumer-to-consumer (C2C) applies to sites primarily offering goods and
services to assist consumers interacting with each other over the Internet.
The primary di;erence between B2B and B2C are the customers; B2B
customers are other businesses while B2C markets to consumers. Overall,
B2B relations are more complex and have higher security needs; plus B2B is
the dominant ebusiness force, representing 80 percent of all online business.
Learning Outcome 3.4: Describe the six ebusiness tools for
connecting and communicating.
As firms began to move online, more MIS tools were created to support
ebusiness processes and requirements. The ebusiness tools used to connect
and communicate include email, instant messaging, podcasting, content
management systems, videoconferencing, and Web conferencing.
Learning Outcome 3.5: Identify the four challenges associated with
ebusiness.
Although the benefits of ebusiness are enticing, developing, deploying, and
managing ebusiness systems is not always easy. The challenges associated
with ebusiness include identifying limited market segments, managing
consumer trust, ensuring consumer protection, and adhering to taxation
rules.
CLASSROOM OPENER
GREAT BUSINESS DECISIONS – Edwin Land Develops the
Polaroid Camera
In 1937, Edwin Land started a company that made a polarizing plastic and
named it Polaroid. The business boomed. Land was taking family pictures
on his vacation in 1943 when his three-year-old daughter asked why they
had to wait so long to see the developed photographs. Land was struck with
the idea of combining the polarization technology with developing films. By