E-BUSINESS is about how organizations are using Internet technologies to fundamentally change the way they do business:

• How companies use the Internet to run themselves more efficiently.
• How companies use the Internet to interact with others (suppliers, customers, and partners) more efficiently.

E-business does not consist of simply creating a corporate website; rather e-business involves using the Internet to:

• Attract, retain, and satisfy customers buying your company's products and services.

Streamline your supply chain, manufacturing, and procurement systems to deliver the right products and services to customers more efficiently.

• Automate your corporate business processes to reduce cost and improve efficiencies through self-service.

Capture, analyze, and share business intelligence about your customers and your company's operations to make better business decisions.

Further, e-business is not about any one of these things; e-business is about integrating all of these aspects of an organization so that every organization can expand its market opportunities, streamline its corporate business processes, and attract and retain customers.

• Expand markets: The Internet offers companies the ability to conduct their existing business using a fundamentally new business model, to expand globally, and to enter completely new markets.

Improve efficiencies: The Internet has eliminated traditional market entry barriers and created efficient markets where prices can be easily compared. Faced with the resulting increase in competitive and margin pressure, e-businesses must leverage Internet technologies to streamline business processes and integrate their suppliers and partners to deliver products and services more efficiently to customers.

Retain Customers: Every e-business has a direct relationship with its customers and can differentiate itself by offering personalized products and distinctive customer service.

Since Internet customers are only a click away from switching, e-businesses that manage customer relationships distinctively have a significant competitive advantage.

E-commerce is one specific aspect of an e-business focused on either buying or selling products or services over the Internet. E-commerce is typically divided into two parts:

• Sell-Side: focused specifically on selling products and services over the Internet typically through an electronic storefront or website.
• Buy-Side: focused specifically on consolidating purchasing for manufacturing components and MRO (Maintenance, Repairs & Operations) products over the Internet typically by using a Web-based supply chain and delivery solution.

Therefore, what specifically is part of e-business but not part of e-commerce? Any business process or activity in a company that is not related specifically to buying or selling products and services over the Internet is not part of a company's e-commerce efforts. However, streamlining those same business processes using the Internet may be a critical part of a company's overall e-business strategy.

For instance, consider Oracle Corporation's own corporate benefits, human resources, travel, procurement and legal services, all of which can be accessed as self-service applications via the Internet. While these services would not be considered a part of Oracle's e-commerce effort (since they are not specifically related to Oracle's buying or selling of software or services over the Internet), they are important parts of Oracle's efforts to improve its own internal business process efficiencies and, as a result, are important parts of our own company-wide e-business effort.

E-business solutionsOracle is the only solution provider that offers a comprehensive suite of enterprise applications to run your e-business, a platform on which to build e-business applications, and professional services to help you formulate your e-business strategy, and to design and customize the e-business applications you need.

It has applications, platforms and other services

Oracle's products and services are being used around the world by a variety of businesses, both small and large, to conduct e-business today.

The firm's EVP Gary Bloom recently announced that Oracle customers account for 10 of Asia's 11 leading companies, as identified by the Far Eastern Economic Review's most recent Review 200 readership survey.

Described as the region's "top achievers," the Review 2000 ranks leading companies in each of 11 Far Eastern countries in addition to a category for non-Asia based companies doing business in the region. For its most recent survey, more than 4,000 readers selected winners for corporate leadership attributes that included customer service, product quality, financial soundness, long-term vision and innovation.

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