E-Commerce

UNIT- I

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 Overview of e-Commerce

• Commerce
– Conducting business in which buyers and sellers come together in
a market place to exchange information, products, services and
payments
– Conducted in buildings, personal interactions also involved

• Electronic Commerce
– Market place is electronic. Business transactions occur across a
telecommunications network (Electronic market place – Market
space) where buyers, sellers and others involved in the business
transaction.
– People rarely see / know each other, physically located anywhere in
the world.
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 Overview of e-Commerce

• Electronic commerce is a modern business methodology

that addresses the needs of organizations, merchants and
consumers to cut costs while improving the quality of
goods and services and increasing the speed of service
delivery. 
• e-commerce is associated with the buying and selling of
information, products and services over the Internet

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 Overview of e-Commerce
• Information processing in e-commerce can be categorized
as
– Transactions between a company and the consumer over
public networks for the purpose of home shopping home
banking using encryption for security and electronic
cash, credit or debit tokens for payment.
– Transactions with trading partners using Electronic
Data Interchange ( EDI).
– Transactions for information gathering such as market
research using bar code scanners, information
processing for managerial decision making or
organizational problem solving, and information
manipulation for operations and supply chain
management.
– Transactions for information distribution with
prospective customers, including interactive advertising,
sales and marketing.
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 e-Commerce – Framework

Common business services infrastructure

(security/ authentification, electronic payment),

Messaging and information distribution

architecture

Multimedia contents and network

publishing infrastructure

Information superhighway infrastructure

(telecom, cable TV, wireless ,Internet)

• Public policy legal Technical Stds for electronic

and privacy issues docs, multimedia and network protocols
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 e-Commerce – Framework
• Building Blocks in the infrastructure
– Common business Services, for facilitating the
buying and selling processes
– Messaging and information distribution.
– Multimedia contents and network publishing – for
creating a product and a means to communicate
about it.
– The Information super high way – for providing the
high way system along which all e-commerce must
travel
• Two supporting pillars for e-commerce are
– Public policy to govern such issues as universal
access, privacy and information pricing
– Technical standards, to dictate the nature of
information publishing, user interfaces and transport
in the interest of compatibility across the network.
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 e-Commerce – Framework
• Elements of the framework:
– Any successful e-commerce application will require the I-way
infrastructure in the same way that regular commerce needs the
interstate high way network to carry goods from point to point. The
I-way will be a mesh of interconnected data high ways of many
forms: telephone wire, cable TV wires, radio based wireless- cellular
and satellite.
• On the I-way the nature of vehicular traffic is extremely
important. The information and multimedia content determines
what type of vehicle is needed.
– Movies = Video + Audio
– Digital games = Music + Video + Software
– Electronic Books = Text + data + Graphics + Music +
Photographs + video
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 e-Commerce – Framework
• Elements of the framework:
– On the I- way messaging software moves the information from one
point to another in the form of e-mail, EDI, or point-to-point file
transfers.
– Encryption and decryption methods have been developed to ensure
security of the contents while traveling the I-way and at their
destination and numerous electronic payment schemes are being
developed to handle highly complex transactions with high
reliability.
– In information traffic, public policy issues deal with the cost of
accessing information, regulation to protect consumers from fraud
and to protect their right to privacy and the policing of global
information traffic to detect information pirating
– Standards are crucial in the world of global e-commerce to ensure
not only seamless and harmonious integration across the
transportation network but access of information on any type of
device the consumer chooses and on all types of operating systems. 8
 The Anatomy of e-Commerce Applications

• Multimedia Contents for e- Commerce Applications

– Multimedia is the use of digital data in more than one format, such as the
combination of text, video, audio, and graphics in a computer
file/document.

images
text
audio
graphics
MULTIMEDIA
Numerical data video

hologram animation

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 The Anatomy of e-Commerce Applications
– Multimedia mimics the natural way people
communicate. Its purpose is to combine the interactivity
of a user friendly interface with multiple forms of
content.
– The success of e-commerce application depends on the
variety and innovativeness of multimedia content and
packaging.
• Multimedia Storage servers and e-commerce applications:
– e-commerce requires robust severs to store and
distribute large amounts of digital content to consumers.
These servers must handle large scale distribution,
guarantee security and complete reliability.

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The Anatomy of e-Commerce Applications
– Client Server Architecture in E-Commerce:
• All e-commerce applications follow the client server model.
• The client server model allows the client to interact with the
server through a request reply sequence governed by a
paradigm known as message passing.
• The server manages applications tasks handles storage and
security and provides scalability – ability to add more clients as
needed for serving more customers – and client devices handle
the user interface.

PROCESSING REQUEST
APPLICATION LOGIC APPLICATION LOGIC

PRESENTATION LOGIC
MULTIMEDIA CONTENT
RESULT
MULTIMEDIA DESKTOP MULTIMEDIA SERVER

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The Anatomy of e-Commerce Applications
– Internal Processes of Multimedia Servers:
• Internal processes involved in the storage, retrieval and
management of multi media data objects are integral to e-
commerce applications. Most multimedia servers provide a
core set of functions to display, create, and manipulate
multimedia documents over computer networks and to store
and retrieve multimedia documents
– A multimedia server must do the following:
• Handle thousands of simultaneous users
• Manage the transactions of these users
• Deliver information streams to consumers at affordable costs.
– For these requirements platform choices include high-end
symmetric multiprocessors, clustered architecture and massive
parallel systems.

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 The Anatomy of e-Commerce Applications
• Video Servers and Electronic Commerce:
– Video servers are an important link between the content providers
and transport providers.
– Video Servers are designed to deliver information to hundreds of
consumers simultaneously via public telecommunications and
cable networks
• Information Delivery/ Transport and e-commerce Applications
– Transport providers are principally telecommunications, cable,
and wireless industries, computer networks.
– Different route providers are
• Telecon based including long-distance and local telephone
service providers. It cannot handle live-transmissions and the
picture it produces is not as clear as that provided by a well
tuned cable hookup.

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The Anatomy of e-Commerce Applications

– Different route providers are

• Cable based : Depend on coaxial cable as transport
roads and will help determine which broadband
application and services the viewing public prefers.
• Computer network based: These providers are often
dial-up linkages of lower bandwidth when compared
to telecom and cable high ways.
• Wireless: Are typically radio based cellular, satellite
and light based.
• Currently about 65% of e-commerce applications are
delivered on-line via computers equipped with
modems.
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The Anatomy of e-Commerce Applications
– Consumer Access Devices:
• How the majority of users will access e-commerce applications
is heavily linked to the access device they opt to use.
• Number of devices can provide access to information: Video
phones, PCs capable of handling multimedia, personal digital
assistants, televisions capable of two-way transmission, cellular
phones, mobile and portable computers.

Information consumers Access Devices

Computers with audio and video Personal/Desk top computing
capabilities mobile
computing
Consumer ElectronicsTelevision + Television + Set-top box game
Set-top box game systems systems
Personal digital assistants (PDAs), Pen Pen based computing
based computing Voice driven Voice driven computing, Software
computing, Software agents agents

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 Architectural Framework for Electronic
Commerce
• Electronic commerce application architecture consists of six layers of
functionality or services.
• Applications
• Brokerage services, data or transaction management
• Interface and support layers
• Secure messaging, security and electronic document
interchange
• Middleware and structured document interchange
• Network infrastructure and basic communication services
– These layers cooperate to provide a seamless transition between
today’s computing resources and those of tomorrow by
transparently integrating information access and exchange within
the context of the chosen application

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Architectural Framework for Electronic
Commerce
Application Services Customer –to-business
Business-to-business
Intra-organizational
Brokerage and data management Order Processing-mail-order houses
Payment schemes-electronic cash
Clearing house or virtual mail
Interface layer Interactive Catalogs
Directory Support functions
Software agents
Secure Messaging Secure hypertext transfer protocol
Encrypted e-mail, EDI
Remote Programming (RPC)
Middleware Services Structured documents
(SGML,HTML)
Compound
documents(OLE,OpenDoc)
Network Infrastructure Wireless – cellular, radio
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Wireline –coaxial, fiber optic
 Architectural Framework for Electronic
Commerce
• Electronic Commerce Application Services
– Three distinct classes of electronic commerce applications

• Customer to business
• Business to Business
• Intra organization
• Consumer-to-Business Transaction
– This is called market place transaction. In a market place
transaction, customers learn about products differently
through electronic publishing, buy them differently using
electronic cash and secure payment systems and have
them delivered differently.
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Architectural Framework for Electronic Commerce
• Business-to-Business Transactions
– This is called market link transaction. Businesses,
government and other organizations depend on
computer-to-computer communication as a fast, an
economical, and a dependable way to conduct business
transactions. Business-to-Business transactions include
the use of EDI and electronic mail for purchasing goods
and services, buying information and consulting
services, submitting requests for proposals and
receiving proposals.

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Architectural Framework for Electronic Commerce
• Intraorganizational Transactions:
– This is called market driven transactions.
– A company becomes market driven by dispersing throughout the
firm information about its customers and competitors; by
spreading strategic and tactical decision making so that all units
can participate; and by continuously monitoring their customer
commitment by making improved customer satisfaction an
ongoing objective.
– Three major components of market driven transactions are
• customer orientation through product and service
customization;
• cross-functional coordination through enterprise integration
• advertising, marketing and customer service.

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Architectural Framework for Electronic Commerce
Global Suppliers
Classical EDI

Procurement, distribution and logistics

Accounting,
Engineering Manufacturing and
Finance and
and research production
Internal management
Private
commerce publishing

Advertising sales customer service

Consumer Oriented
Electronic Commerce

customers
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Architectural Framework for Electronic Commerce
• Information Brokerage and Management:
– Information brokerage and management layer provides
service integration through the notion of information
brokerages, the development of which is necessitated by
the increasing information resource fragmentation.
– Information brokers are becoming necessary in dealing
with the voluminous amounts of information on the
networks. With the complexity associated with large
number of on-line databases and service bureaus, it is
impossible to expect humans to do searching.
Information broken or software agents that act on the
searchers behalf.

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Architectural Framework for Electronic Commerce
• Information Brokerage and Management:
– Ex: In foreign exchange trading, information is
retrieved about the latest currency exchange
rates in order to hedge currency holdings to
minimize risk and maximizing profit.
– Brokerage function supports data management
and traditional transaction services. This is
accomplished by tools such as software agents,
distributed query generator, the distributed
transaction generator, and the declarative
resource constraint base – which describes a
business’s rule and environment information.
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Architectural Framework for Electronic Commerce
• Interface and Support Services
– This layer provides interfaces for electronic commerce
applications such as interactive catalogs and will support
directory services – functions necessary for information
search and access.
– Interactive catalogs are the customized interface to
consumer applications such as home shopping.
– Directories operate behind the scenes and attempt to
organize the enormous amount of information and
transactions generated facilitate electronic commerce.
– The primary difference between the two is that unlike
interactive catalogs, which deal with people, directory
support services interact directly with software
applications. 24
Architectural Framework for Electronic Commerce
• Secure Messaging and structured Document
Interchange Services
– Messaging is the software that sits between the
network infrastructure and the clients or
electronic commerce applications, masking the
peculiarities of the environment.
– Messaging services offer solutions for
communicating non-formatted data –letters,
memos, reports – as well as formatted data such
as purchase orders, shipping notices, and
invoices.
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Architectural Framework for Electronic Commerce
• Secure Messaging and structured Document Interchange
Services
– Unstructured messaging consists of Fax, e-mail, and
form based systems like Lotus Notes. Structured
documents messaging consists of the automated
interchanging standardized and approved messages
between computer applications. Ex: EDI
– Messaging supports both synchronous and
asynchronous message delivery and processing. It is not
associated with any particular communication protocol.
With messaging tools, people can communicate and
work together more effectively.

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Architectural Framework for Electronic Commerce
• Secure Messaging and structured Document
Interchange Services
– Due to lack of standards, there is often no
interoperability between different messaging
vendors leading to islands of messaging.
– Security, privacy and confidentiality through
data encryption and authentication techniques
are important issues that need to be resolved
for ensuring the legality of the message based
transactions.

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Architectural Framework for Electronic Commerce
• Middleware Services
– With the growth of networks, Client–Server technology,
and all other forms of communicating between / among
unlike platforms, the problems of getting all the pieces
to work together became a necessity.
– Middleware helps to mediate between diverse software
programs that enables them talk to one another. To
achieve data-centric computing, middleware services
focus on three elements; transparency, transaction
security and management and distributed object
management and services.

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Architectural Framework for Electronic Commerce
• Middleware Services
– With the growth of networks, Client–Server technology,
and all other forms of communicating between / among
unlike platforms, the problems of getting all the pieces
to work together became a necessity.
– Middleware helps to mediate between diverse software
programs that enables them talk to one another. To
achieve data-centric computing, middleware services
focus on three elements; transparency, transaction
security and management and distributed object
management and services.

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Architectural Framework for Electronic Commerce
• Middleware Services
• Transparency:
– Transparency implies that users should be
unaware that facilitates a distributed computing
environment.
– Transparency is accomplished using middleware
that facilitates a distributed computing
environment. This gives users and applications
transparent access to data, computation, and
other resources across collections of multi
vendor, heterogeneous systems.

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Architectural Framework for Electronic Commerce
• Middleware Services
• Transaction Security and Management
– Security and management are essential to all
layers in the electronic commerce model.
– At the transaction security level, two broad
general categories of security services exist;
authentication and authorization. For electronic
commerce, middleware provides the qualities
expected in a standard TP system: ACID
properties.

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Architectural Framework for Electronic Commerce
• Middleware Services
• Distributed Object Management and Services
– Object orientation is proving fundamental to the
proliferation of network based application.
– Instance of an object in electronic commerce is a
document. The term object is being used
interchangeably with document resulting in a
new form of computing called document oriented
computing. The trend is moving from single data
type documents to integrated documents known
as compound architectures

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 e-commerce consumer Applications

• Entertainment on-demand
– Video on-demand
– News on-demand
• Electronic Retailing via catalogs and kiosks
• Home shopping
• Interactive distance education
• Collaboration through desktop video conferencing
• Medical consultations

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 e-commerce Organization Applications
• Changing Business Environment
– The traditional business environment is changing rapidly
as customers and businesses seek the flexibility to change
trading partners, platforms, carriers, and networks at
will. The Information Superhighway allow business to
exchange information among constantly changing sets of
customers, suppliers, and research collaborators in
government and academia on a global basis. It will
become a powerful business tool that no organization can
do without.
– Companies are restructuring. Lean and mean is the
objective of companies seeking increased market share to
offset decreasing profit margins and to gain competitive
global positioning through reduced operational costs
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e-commerce Organization Applications

Competitive Pressures from stakeholders

pressures for improved financial Pressure to reduce
performance Inventories and
Production costs

Demanding Changing Internal Global

Customer Structure and business Regulatory’
Practices of firms
requirements changes

Reduced product
Life cycles making new product Problems of keeping up
Development and with changing information
Introduction a priority and communication technology

Pressures influencing business

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 e-commerce Organization Applications
• Electronic Commerce and Retail Industry
– Consumers are pushing retailers to the wall, demanding
lower prices, better quality, a large selection of in-
season goods. Retailers are slashing back-office costs,
reducing profit margins, reducing in times, buying
more wisely, and making huge investments in
technology. They are putting the pressure on the
manufacturing and supplier end of the pipeline

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 e-commerce Organization Applications
• Marketing and Electronic commerce
– Electronic commerce is forcing companies to rethink
the existing ways of doing target marketing,
relationship marketing, and event marketing.
– Interactive marketing is accomplished in electronic
markets via interactive multimedia catalogs that give
the same look and feel as a shopping channel.
Consumer information services are a new type of
catalog business.

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 e-commerce Organization Applications
• Inventory Management and Organizational Applications
– One often-targeted business process is inventory management. In
the manufacturing industry, they are known as just-in-time
inventory systems, in the retail industry as quick response
programs, and in the transportation industry as consignment
tracking
– Just–in-time Manufacturing - Just-in-time is viewed as
an integrated management system consisting of a
number of different management practices
dependent on the characteristics of specific plants.
– The JIT is based on two principles:
» Elimination of waste
» Empowering workers

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 e-commerce Organization Applications
• Inventory Management and Organizational Applications
– The following management practices are typically associated with
JIT systems
• Focused factors
• Reduced set-up times
• Group technology
• Total productive maintenance
• Multifunction employees
• Uniform workloads
• JIT purchasing
• Total quality control
• Quality circles
• To achieve JIT savings, many large corporations have installed private
communication networks. The I-way makes this practice more affordable
and easily available to a number of small firms.
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 e-commerce Organization Applications
• Inventory Management and Organizational Applications
– Quick Response Retailing:
• Quick Response (QR) is a version of JIT purchasing
tailored for retailing.
• QR provides for a flexible response to product
ordering and lowers costly inventory levels.
• QR retailing focuses on market responsiveness while
maintaining low levels of stocks.
• Supply Chain Management
– Supply Chain Management includes the following
functions.
– Supplier Management: The goal is to produce the
number of suppliers and get them to become partners
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in a win-win relationship.
 e-commerce Organization Applications
• Supply Chain Management
• Inventory Management: The goal is to shorten the
order-ship-bill cycle.
• Distribution Management: The goal is to move
documents related to shipping. Paperwork that
typically took days to cycle in the past can now be sent
in moments and contain more accurate data, thus
allowing improved resource planning.
• Channel Management: The goal is to quickly
disseminate information about changing operational
conditions to trading partners. Electronically linking
production with their international distributor and
reseller networks eliminates thousands of labor hours
per week in the process. 41
 e-commerce Organization Applications
• Supply Chain Management
– Payment Management: The goal is to link the company
and the suppliers and distributors so that payments can
be sent and received electronically.
– Financial Management: The goal is to enable global
companies to manage their money in various foreign
exchange accounts.
– Sales Force Productivity: The goal is to improve the
communication and flow of information among the
sales, customer, and production functions.
– Supply chain management process increasingly depends
on electronic markets.
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 e-commerce Organization Applications
• Work Group Collaboration Applications
– For work group applications, e-commerce represents the critical
component of connectivity. A ubiquitous inter-network that
enables easy and inexpensive connection of various organizational
segments to improve communications and information sharing
among employees and to gather and analyze competitive data in
real time.
– E-commerce facilitates sales force automation by enabling sales
people to carry product and reference information in one portable
device.
– Other application such as video conferencing document sharing,
and multimedia e-mail are expected to reduce travel and
encourage telecommuting.
– Have to meet the challenges of service quality, flexibility and
customization of production
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 Benefits of e-Commerce
• Basic Benefits of e-Commerce
• Increase sales - this is the first thing that people
consider  when dealing with e-commerce
• Decreasing costs
• Increase profits
• Expands the size of the market from regional to
national or national to international
• Contract the market
• Reach a narrow market
• Target market segmentation allows you to focus on a
more select group of customers and therefore have a
competitive advantages in satisfying them
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 Benefits of e-Commerce
– Decreasing costs
• Costs of creating the product
– Marketing
– Of promotional material
– Costs of distribution   
• e.g. Netscape allowing you to download instead of waiting to
get the CD by mail
– Costs of processing (orders from the customers)
• repeat activities and information processing
• of handling customer phone calls
• of handling sales inquiries
• determine product availability (inventory management)
– Costs of storing information
– Lowers telecommunication costs
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 Benefits of e-Commerce
• Provide price quotes
– With a web site, one can have the prices listed, and change
them
– In a printed catalogue one is stuck with the expense of
printing a new version if one need to change many of the
prices
• Other Benefits ....
– Enables customization of products
– Allows for innovative business models
– Allows for a high degree of specialization
– Reduces the time exposure
– Supports BPR
– Increases productivity
– Improves customer service
             
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 Benefits of e-Commerce
• A large component of business these days is dealing with other businesses
(B2B) that supply parts and components. Companies supplying services
often have that service broken down into sub-contracting services eg. - a
building maintenance contract can be subdivided into the following
services
– Security service
• access control   
• alarm response
– Landscaping service
• Summer - grass cutting
• Winter - snow removal 
• Heating, ventilation and air conditioning service
• Electrician service
• Plumbing service
• Window washing service
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 Benefits of e-Commerce
• Benefits to organizations that use e-Commerce with their business partners -
manufacturers and service companies
– Minimizes Supply Chain inefficiencies
• reduces inventories
• reduces delivery delays
• enables efficient e-procurement
– Build more collaborative and stronger relationships with suppliers. This
includes streamlining and automating the underlying business processes,
enabling areas such as
• direct marketing 
• selling, 
• customer services (call centers)
• procurement
• replenishment and 
• information management. 

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 Benefits of e-Commerce
• Benefits to consumers that use e-Commerce (e-Business) 
– can buy when you want, from more locations (internet connected
terminals) more choices
– when you have more choices you can decide on a product with 
better features at a more competitive price
    o sometimes products are less expensive online
    o can receive more information about the product, make a more
informed decision
– greater information leads to more confidence to make a purchase
decision
– more info also leads to enhanced customer satisfaction because the
customers has a better idea how to use the product
• Quicker delivery (for online products)
• Quick delivery is important for people who want to use the product
immediately, as opposed to waiting longer - if they have to wait long,
they may pick a competitor's product
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 Benefits of e-Commerce

• Benefits to society 
(when consumers and business use e-Commerce) 
– Cocooning - more individuals can work offsite
– This decreases HR costs for companies because they
can have smaller office buildings, less parking spaces,
fewer IT services, etc.
–  Less affluent people can buy more and increase
standard of living
– Facilitates delivery of public services
• Sending out bill payment info is a significant cost for
companies
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 Limitations of e-Commerce
• Not everyone is convinced the internet will be a major way to conduct business

• Technical Limitations  
– costs of a technological solution
– some protocols are not standardized around the world
– reliability for certain processes
– insufficient telecommunications bandwidth
– software tools are not fixed but constantly evolving (ie. Netscape 3,4,4.7,4.75
etc.)
– integrating digital and non-digital sales and production information
– access limitations of dial-up, cable, ISDN, wireless
– some vendors require certain software to show features on their pages,
which is not common in the standard browser used by the majority
– Difficulty in integrating e-Commerce infrastructure with current
organizational IT  systems

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 Limitations of e-Commerce
• Non-Technical Limitations
•  customer fear of personal information being used wrongly
– customer expectations unmet
– rules and regulations
– security and privacy
• vulnerability to fraud and other crimes
– lack of trust and user resistance
• fear of payment information being unsecured
• legal issues outstanding such as jurisdiction
• legal environment has many new and conflicting laws
• cultural obstacles
• linguistic challenges

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 Limitations of e-Commerce
• Non-Technical Limitations
– limitations of support services
• financial cost
• sourcing tech support in foreign languages
– lack of critical mass in certain market areas for sellers and buyers
– accessibility outside of urban/suburban and areas effects
universality 
– people's resistance to change 
– people not used to  faceless / paperless / non-physical transactions 

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 Impact of e-Commerce
• On the Efficiency of the economy
– Falling costs of Information and communication
technologies
– Impact on production costs
• Changing firm’s cost structure
– Cost of executing a sale
» physical establishment, order placement
/execution, customer support and after-sales
service , staffing
– Purchase orders / procurement
» Inventories , distribution
54
 Impact of e-Commerce
• On the Efficiency of the economy
– Changing cost structure of the value added chain
• Disintermediation
– Reduction of distributors, retailers
– Displacement of intermediary products –Air Travel, Stock
trading
• Re-intermediation
– Advertising /branding , Secure on-line payments and
delivery / logistics
» Directories, Search Services, Malls, Publishers,
Virtual resellers, Web site evaluators, Financial
Intermediaries,
– Impact on Prices
• Different pricing schemes

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 Impact of e-Commerce

• On the Firms Business Model, Sectoral Organization and

Market Structure
– E-commerce is transforming the market place by changing firm’s business
models, by shaping the relations among market actors and by contributing
to changes in the market structure
– Cyber Traders play a catalytic role in forcing e-commerce solutions in
sectoral and national contexts
– Changes firm’s competitive advantages, nature of firm’s competition, as
well as the market on which firms compete
– Likely to increase market size and change market structure in terms of
number and size of players
– Flexibility and adaptability of the work force will be crucial for firm to
reorganize
– Combination of streamlined business processes, flat organizational
hierarchies, continuous training and skills acquisition, inter-firm
collaboration and networking

56
 Impact of e-Commerce

• Societal Impacts
– Access to digital economy
– Education and Training – Change in skill mix
– Pressure to perform quickly on individuals
– Change in work environments
– Creation of “Information haves and have nots”

57
 e-commerce in India

• India is currently in the midst of an e-commerce revolution.

The arrival of the Internet followed by the escalating
growth of Web-based businesses is leading to e-commerce
both on the B2B and the B2C sides. The e-commerce trends
in India are in perfect accordance with the sweeping
changes taking place in the global markets. Even the
IT friendly Government has taken significant strides in the
past few months to ensure that the economic climate is ripe
for e-business.
• India has the potential to earn revenues worth US$ 10
billion by 2008 from e-business solutions. (Both the
domestic and export markets put together).
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 e-commerce in India

• Supply Chain Management optimization and Customer Relation

Management are going to be one of the strongest drivers of the global e-
commerce solutions market. And more than 72 percent of Indian
software houses were found to possess strong expertise in Supply Chain
Management and CRM.
• Some of the areas of e-commerce services available are:
– Legacy application integration
– Internet application integration
– EDI
– Migration to Web-based models
– New IT frameworks
– Integration with business strategies
– E-commerce training services
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 e-commerce in India
• Nasscom has recommended a five-year moratorium on e-
commerce transactions and also suggested a
comprehensive study on the various issues involved, before
a decision is taken to tax e-commerce.
• Due to the global nature of e-commerce, it is suggested that
India should support a permanent ban on taxes on Internet
access, a permanent ban on custom duties on electronic
transmissions, international tax rules that are neutral,
simple and certain; and simplification of state and local
sales taxes.

60
 e-commerce in India

• Issues
– Still to take full advantage of e-commerce
– Lack of computing power – less number of computers
– Access to internet
– Less usage of credit cards
– Lack of adequate Communication Infrastructure

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 Prospects
• Business-To-Consumer
– A number of markets are sprouting in the business-to-consumer
category. Such markets include shopping malls, single-vendor retail
stores and electronic software delivery.
– It has been estimated that the world-wide e-Commerce market will
exceed $46 billion in consumer transactions and 15% of all WWW
users have used it to purchase a product or service online
– It is estimated that 75% of WWW sites are sponsored by
advertising, while only 25% are supported by customers. With
more than 50 million users world-wide, the Internet has become a
attractive market for advertisers.
• Business-To-Business
– According to recent projections by industry analysts, Business-to-
Business E-Commerce may exceed $176 billion in business
transactions
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