E-Business: Definition and Characteristics

1. E-Business Organisations

In modern business environment, which is both complicated and dynamic, organizations are looking for new ways to compete effectively in their markets (Phillips & Wright, 2009) and satisfy the ever increasing customer demands. Indeed, the ways in which business is conducted are going through very significant changes.

Some companies are already organized in new ways, whereas others are still thinking about it; however, there is a growing general awareness of a new and different way of running a business, namely the e-business approach. Becoming an e-business typically involves adopting new technologies, redesigning processes and coping with various organizational issues (e.g., employees readiness) (Lay, Ong, Yang, & Wang, 2008). In this section we describe the main characteristics of an e-business and provide a definition of the term.