A construction firm, Tyne Construction Ltd, wishes to benefit from the e-business but needs some expert advice regarding the e-business.

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Introduction

The E-business has witnessed an increasing trend in its applications within the construction industry over the last few years. Significant efforts have been made to categorise e-business activities in order to help the industry identify the potentials of each category in business improvement.

A construction firm, Tyne Construction Ltd, wishes to benefit from the e-business but needs some expert advice regarding the e-business and the following e-business categorisations:

  1. Product and supplier search (construction portals)
  2. Project hosting

The report will also need to include three e-business providers within each of the categories and they must be compared and contrasted. Out the selected providers, two (one from each category) is to be recommended for adoption to the firm.


What is E-commerce?

The Internet today is a very important tool in everyday life. It used widely among many people for various uses such as

  • Communicating and collaborating
  • Searching, accessing and retrieving information
  • Provide information
  • Sharing information
  • Entertainment and leisure
  • Carrying out business and financial transactions
  • Participating in online discussion

The Internet is made easier to use for individuals and business by the use of e-commerce. E-commerce is where business transactions take place via telecommunications networks, primarily the Internet. It is not only just buying and selling but also servicing customers and collaborating with partners and conducting electronic transactions.

“It is all about cycle time, speed, and globalisation, enhanced productivity, reaching new customers, and sharing knowledge across institutions for competitive advantage

Information Technology for management p211


E-commerce enables the exchange of goods and services in the following industry functions

  • Marketing
  • Finance
  • Manufacturing
  • Selling and negotiation

Where such information, products, services and payments are exchanged is known as an electronic market. The key players in a ‘market’ are transaction handlers, buyers, brokers, and sellers.

An interorganisational system (iso) allows information to be exchanged among two or more organisations. Its major objective is efficient transactions such as transmitting bills, orders, payments using electronic data interchange (edi). There is no negotiation just a straightforward execution.


The most common ISO’s are

  1. Electronic data interchange (EDI) –  this can be defined as

“Electronic movement of specially formatted standard business documents, such as orders, bills and confirmations sent between business partners.”

Information Technology for Management, 2nd Ed, p256

It is similar to email in that it sends and receives messages by a communication link. But has much more benefits such as:-

  • Business transaction messages- used for repetitive business transactions
  • Data formatting standards- as its repetitive a standard code can be made to prevent data entry errors
  • EDI translator- these simply convert data into standard format

  1. Electronic funds transfer (EFT) - developed in 1960’s it has shortened the time for funds payment between banks, and reduced float. But it was mostly used by large companies. Now, consumers can use ATM’s and online banking.
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  1. Extranets- this allows secure communications between business partners. A few people in the company’s intranet and a selected few on the Internet can only access it.

  1. Integrated messaging – transfer of fax and electronic documents through a single electronic transmission system.

  1. Shared databases – information stored in repositories that can be shared between trading partners and is accessible to both.


Classification of Transactions

Transactions can be classified by their nature. The following types are distinguished:

Business to business (B2B)

  • This dominates the majority of the ...

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