where can the benefits of e-business be seen ?

Simply everywhere. One of the most important aspects of e-business is that it can be used throughout your organisation. However, there are particular areas that will benefit from e-business.

The marketing function of your organisation may be fundamentally improved by introducing e-business. The view you have of your customers (or don’t have) can be greatly enhanced through correct e-business and customer relationship management implementations. The term Mass Customisation was coined almost 15 years ago, however, e-business technology has made this concept feasible. By using and amalgamating your sources of customer information you can obtain a much rounder view of micro customer profiles. Whilst in the beginning these may not be one to one relationships, they may be one to one hundred. By understanding your customer profiles in this manner, your organisation will be able to offer the precise product, at the precise time to a very satisfied customer. If you introduce web marketing into this mix – you square the circle – you provide very accurate and focused information to precisely the right customers. If you are sceptical about whether a customer will spend large sums of money purchasing via the web the following fact might surprise you. "Recently one customer spent $100,000,000 in one purchase purely through the web at Cisco Systems’ interactive site" – Striking it Rich.com. Perhaps you can create revenues in this manner.

Procurement/Purchasing will also greatly benefit from e-business. By creating favoured relationships with down- and up-stream suppliers and sharing relevant business information with them, economies will become very evident. You will be able to get what you want when you require it. If marketing is showing a trend of increasing sales, your suppliers will share this information and pre-order the goods that you need. This is not fantasy, there are very expensive ways to do this now, however, e-business provides a much less expensive route into this capability. e-business procurement and value chain efficiencies are already providing huge return on investment in the US – the more advanced UK companies are starting to implement now!