e-Business Models Paper
The “level of commitment to e-business” pyramid is a graphical representation of how involved a company is in e-business. The pyramid is broken into four sections with the lowest level of e-business commitment at the bottom and the highest level of commitment at the top. The lowest level of commitment is the Activity level, followed by the Business Process level, the Enterprise level, and finally the Pure Play level. This paper will analyze each level of commitment by a company that has been assigned.
Amazon (Pure Play)
Amazon is considered in the Pure Play level of commitment because it is a pure dot-com company that was created based on its Internet presence (Straus, 2003). Amazon started its web presence in July 1995 and completed its IPO in May 1997 (www.amazon.com). It does not have brick-and-mortar stores that people could walk into, so the only way to interact with Amazon is electronically. According to their website, Amazon’s vision is to: “Our vision is to be earth’s most customer centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online”. This vision statement alone is almost enough to categorize Amazon in the Pure Play level. Their only goal of the company is to provide the online level of service.
Target (Enterprise)
Target is categorized as an Enterprise level of commitment. They participate in e-commerce activities that complement their brick and mortar stores. Target was started in 1902 and then they started their e-commerce activities in 1999 (www.target.com, 2003). According to Straus, e-commerce refers to selling goods over the Internet either in one transaction or in many transactions over time (Straus, 2003). Target is the typical example of what many people expect when they think about shopping online. They think of existing businesses that now provide the ability to purchase online and have the items shipped directly to themselves. Many other retail businesses have this sort of setup, including: Wal-Mart, Sears, JC Penny’s, and others.
Before entering the e-commerce market, Target existed for over 90 years as a brick and mortar establishment. This alone has given them the reason to commit to e-business at the enterprise level. It would be foolish of them to try to convert wholly to an e-business and could very well put them out of business. In addition, since they have the established retail locations it makes sense for them to extend their sales ability to the Internet. If they only committed to the Activity or Business Process level, they would have been wasting the existing capabilities their infrastructure provided to them.
Intel (Business Process)
Intel is categorized into the Business Process level of commitment. They are a company that was established in 1968, well before the Internet was the information highway it is today and today they offer over 450 products and services to customers in across the world. (www.intel.com). Under the business level of commitment, Intel is expected to use technologies to keep customers (CRM), manage their resources (ERP), manage their knowledge bases (KM) and build communities around their products and services. (Straus, 2003). Intel has fulfilled these expectations in a number of ways. In the area of knowledge management, Intel has a successful web site that provides a wealth of information to existing customers and potential customers. Information can be found on a wide variety of their products and services that can help a customer. The primary reason to classify Intel as under the Business process can be taken from this statement on their website:
Intel’s mission is to be a worldwide, 100 percent e-Corporation that maximizes profitability, responsiveness and innovation. The company has built its internal infrastructure and practices around its own products and technologies. Intel handles everything online, from order processing to materials management to accounts payable. More than 60 percent of Intel’s materials transactions and 85 percent of customer orders are processed electronically. (www.intel.com)
From reading this statement, it is plain to see that although Intel has an established base in the brick and mortar world, they are actively seeking to use e-technology to manage their business in a way that will benefit the customers and the company.
Goodwill Industries International (activity)
Goodwill Industries International (Goodwill) has been classified into the Activity level of e-business commitment. In this classification, they would be expected to use e-business for some or all of the following: order processing, online purchasing, email, online advertising, business intelligence, and content publishing (Straus, 2003). When one looks at the Goodwill website at www.goodwill.org, it is plain to see that they meet many of the expectations. They provide the ability to purchase items online through their new website, www.shopgoodwill.com. They also provide forms for contacting the Goodwill through email and offer the ability to search for local stores. Goodwill is also a Census Information Center. This means that they will help to disseminate census information to those that need it, but that might not be able to access it through traditional means. They also will help these parties to interpret the information so that it is relevant to what it is being used for.
The Goodwill website is also a good form of online advertising and content publishing as it provides a lot of information to interested people. This information includes corporate information along with suggestions for the do’s and don’ts of donating items. On their website, they also provide an online learning area for members to increase their knowledge and advance their careers. They are in the process of advancing this e-learning initiative and expect to have it fully online later this year. This initiative has been funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce and is a pilot project expected to continue after it’s initial three years (www.goodwill.com).
Conclusion
As can be seen, there are four levels of commitment to e-business that are defined by the pyramid. Each level has it’s own unique features that a company can offer at that level. It is important to note that a company can cross more than one level of the pyramid based on their Internet offerings, however this author would pick only one level of commitment based on the most features offered per level.
Reference
Amazon, (n.d.). retrieved Aug 20, 2004, from http://www.amazon.com.
Intel, (n.d.). retrieved Aug 20, 2004, from http://www.Intel.com.
Goodwill Industries International, (n.d.). retrieved Aug 20, 2004, from http://www.goodwill.org.
Strauss, J., El-Ansary, A., & Frost, R. (2003). E-marketing . 3rd ed. : Prentice Hall.
Target, (n.d.). retrieved Aug 20, 2004, from http://www.target.com.
