Ch 5Emerging Modes of Business — Class 11 Business Studies, concept-first.

The way business is carried on has changed fundamentally over the last decade or so. The manner in which business is conducted is called the mode of business, and the word 'emerging' signals that thes…

If business is taken to mean the wide range of activities that make up industry, trade and commerce, then e-business may be defined as the conduct of industry, trade and commerce using computer networ…

The scope of e-business is very wide. Almost every business function — production, finance, marketing and personnel administration — as well as managerial activities like planning, organising and cont…

Doing business in the electronic mode offers several distinct advantages over the traditional mode. The main benefits of e-business are:

Compared with the many procedural requirements of setting up an industry, e-business is relatively easy to start, and its benefits are available to big and small firms alike.

The internet offers the convenience of a '24 hours × 7 days a week × 365 days a year' business — the very flexibility that let Rita and Rekha shop well after midnight.

Much of buying and selling really involves the exchange of information, and the internet allows this to happen at the click of a mouse.

The internet is truly without boundaries. On one side it gives the seller access to the global market; on the other it gives the buyer the freedom to choose products from almost any part of the world.…

The use of the internet has considerably reduced dependence on paperwork and the accompanying 'red tape'.

e-business is not all rosy. Doing business in the electronic mode also suffers from certain limitations, and it is wise to be aware of them. The main limitations are:

Despite being technologically sophisticated, e-business is unable to reproduce the warmth and personal rapport that flow naturally from face-to-face dealings.

A basic mismatch exists in e-business between the speed at which an order can be placed and the speed at which it can actually be fulfilled.

Apart from the traditional three R's — Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic — e-business requires a fairly high degree of familiarity with computers.

Internet transactions take place between cyber personalities, so it becomes difficult to establish the identity of the parties — and one may not even know the location from which the other party is op…

Shifting to e-business asks people to learn new technology and adapt to an unfamiliar way of working, and this adjustment is not always welcomed.

e-business can raise serious ethical questions, particularly around privacy. The text illustrates this with Sabeena, who was shocked when her HR manager confronted her with a copy of a personal e-mail…

An online transaction can be visualised in three stages:

Before shopping online, the customer must register with the online vendor by filling up a registration form. Registration means you now have an 'account' with that vendor.

Placing an order is the purchase (or sale) stage of an online transaction, the point at which the buyer, having searched for information, settles on what to buy and commits to the deal.

Payment for online purchases can be made in several ways:

Unlike arm's-length transactions in physical exchange, online transactions are prone to a number of risks.

Online transactions are vulnerable to the following transaction risks:

Information is power — but consider what happens if that power falls into the wrong hands. Data stored in systems, as well as data en route during transmission, is exposed to a number of risks: vital…

The internet is an open space. Once information is available on the internet, it moves out of the private domain, and it then becomes difficult to protect it from being copied.

Like any business, an e-business needs the classic resources of money, men and machines (hardware). Beyond these, however, conducting business electronically calls for additional resources devoted to…

- e-Business — the conduct of industry, trade and commerce over computer networks; wider than e-commerce, covering internal functions too.

The world of business is changing, and e-business and outsourcing are the two most visible expressions of that change.