E-commerce, e-business and digital business (2024)

E-commerce is a multi-disciplinary subject that comprises Business, Marketing, Computer Science, Management Information Systems and Business Law, making it difficult to find one agreed definition.

Some people use e-commerce and e-business interchangeably, however, these are two different concepts that have some degree of overlap. E-commerce is a subset of e-business, which includes:

• Placing orders
• Making payments online
• Organising delivery of the order

E-business, however, covers most of the digital-related information exchange both inside and outside the organisation.

While e-commerce is the narrower scope of e-business, digital business (d-business) goes further and describes not only the buying and selling of goods and services, but also servicing customers, collaborating with business partners and conducting electronic transactions within an organisation.

Digital business refers to a digital business model where most of the business processes are digitally tuned and performed, not only buying and selling online.

In the following infographic, Gartner illustrates the differences between digital business (d-business) and e-business.

_{Adapted from Is your organization an e-business or d-business? (McCall, 2015, cited in Gartner, 2015)}

Your task

Reflecting on the infographic above, which activities represent e-commerce? Share your responses below.

Further reading

_{Laudon, K., & Traver, Carol Guercio, author. (2017). E-commerce business, technology, society (Global edition [of] twelfth ed.). Locate link (Available to fee paying students)}

References

_{McCall, T. (2015, February 18). What’s the key difference between e-business and d-business? Gartner. Web link}

This article is from the online course:

Introduction to Digital Transformation and E-Commerce

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