E-Business Value Creation, Platforms, and Trends

Background

The basis of the net economy is formed by four technological innovations: Telecommunication, information technology, media technology and entertainment (the so-called TIME markets). These innovations had, and continue to, significantly impact the possible ways in which information, communication and transactions are managed (Kollmann, 2001). The increased support of business processes using electronic systems takes center stage here. There are a number of terms for this that can be identified (e.g. e-business, e-commerce, information economics, network economics), which can, to some degree, be used synonymously (Jelassi & Enders, 2005). It is easiest to structure and clarify the terms, define their boundaries and field of application by using the shell model of the net economy, which will subsequently be described in more detail (see Figure 1).

Figure 1.

The shell model of the net economy (Adapted from Kollmann, 2013)

The initial assumption in the shell model is the general development towards an information society (see Figure 1). Since the beginning in the 1990s, innovative information technology induced a structural change in both social and economic spheres especially through the digitalization of information and the networking of computers (Hagel & Singer, 1997; Tapscott, 1996). Whereas just a few decades ago, computers and networks were reserved for only a few specialists, today they are already an integral part of daily life: Digital technologies and their influence on the transfer of information are ubiquitous. The results of this development are clear – innovative information technologies such as the Internet/WWW, mobile telecommunications and interactive television (ITV). These technologies are changing the world as radically as the steam engine, loom, railways and tractor once did (Pruden, 1978). The digitalization and spread of information via electronic data pathways or networks serve as a pace maker for future economic growth that is comparable with the significance of the printing press in the 15th century or motorization in the 20th century. The information society is respectively characterized by the intensive use of information technologies and the resulting change from an industrial to a knowledge society (Evans & Wurster, 1997). Analogously, from a global economic point of view, there is an obvious shifting from the traditional economic sectors of agriculture, production and (non-virtual or rendered) services towards the information industry sector.