THIS OFF OF ORACLE'S WEBSITE!!! FYI
Here are answers to some common questions about e-business; Oracle's e-business solutions, and some of the major benefits businesses have garnered using Oracle's e-business solution.
What is e-business?
Why should I care about e-business?
Why has the internet had such an impact on business?
How does the internet enable an e-business to improve efficiencies?
How will the internet and e-business help me expand into new markets?
Is the internet really ready to support mission-critical business operations?
What's wrong with the traditional business model?
Can e-business catalyze a major strategic shift for my business?
How has e-business created other new business models?
How do I transform my business into an e-business?
What is Oracle's e-business solution?
What is unique about Oracle's e-business solution?
What are the specific components of Oracle Applications that support an e-business?
What is the Oracle internet platform?
What are the specific components of Oracle's platform?
What are some of the unique features of Oracle's platform?
How will Oracle's platform simplify how I develop, deploy, and manage e-business applications?
How will Oracle's platform help me to grow my e-business?
What are Oracle Services?
Are companies using Oracle's e-business solutions to change how they do business?
Can Oracle help my business become an e-business?
What is the difference between e-commerce and e-business?
Does Oracle offer e-commerce products?
What is e-business?
e-business describes the way companies are using internet technologies to fundamentally change the way they do business. An e-business is any business that uses the internet or internet technologies to:
Attract, retain, and cultivate life-time relationships with customers
Streamline supply chain, manufacturing, and procurement systems to deliver the right products and services to customers in the shortest possible time
Automate corporate business processes to reduce cost and improve efficiencies
Capture, analyze, and share business intelligence about customers and company operations with employees, suppliers and partners in order to make better business decisions
Why should I care about e-business?
Embracing the e-business model will help your company expand into new markets; defend itself effectively from new competitors in those markets in which you already compete; improve business process efficiencies; attract and retain customers; and exploit new e-business opportunities.
Why has the internet had such an impact on business?
First, the internet is the great leveler--even small- and medium-sized companies can now compete effectively with larger and more established players in the internet space. The internet also creates greater market efficiencies by allowing companies to "disintermediate"--remove the middlemen--and sell products and services directly to customers.
The internet has also made price comparisons much easier for consumers, and has enabled dynamic trade--now online communities of buyers and sellers can match the demand and supply for a product and set its price more dynamically. As a result, traditional profit margins are facing severe pressure.
At the same time, however, while fueling the competitive pressure, the internet also provides companies with the technological infrastructure they need to streamline their business processes. For instance, it allows companies to streamline traditionally administrative business processes to self-service, resulting in lower cost and less overhead, and to better integrate its supply chain partners to fulfill orders more efficiently.
How does the internet enable an e-business to improve efficiencies?
In numerous ways across the board, but to cite one example: Cisco Systems, the world's largest supplier of network equipment, conducts over 73% of its business over the internet today. The shift to the internet has reduced the lead time required to fulfill orders from 3 weeks to 3 days. While total revenues have grown 500%, the number of employees required to service requests has grown by only 1%. The internet and Oracle's e-business solution have enabled Cisco Systems to radically improve business process efficiencies.
How will the internet and e-business help me expand into new markets?
Because the internet is a global communications infrastructure that eliminates geographical and national boundaries, every company--including yours--can now offer products and services to a global audience in a global marketplace. Another impact of the dissolution of these boundaries is in the market sectors themselves--traditional boundaries that have existed between markets have also eroded.
Is the internet really ready to support mission-critical business operations?
Yes. Although some companies continue to be concerned about the internet's ability to support mission-critical e-business operations, many small- and medium-size businesses and Fortune 100 companies are using Oracle's internet platform without worry today to support business-critical function. They're able to do so because Oracle's internet platform provides the scalability, high-availability, reliability, and operational simplicity these companies demand in their mission-critical data center applications.
In fact, Oracle's internet platform is the e-business engine behind virtually all of the internet's major e-businesses including eBay, Excite, amazon.com, OnSale, Cisco Systems, Dell Computers, CDNow, Federal Express, and many others. excite.com is a global online media company and one of the world's top-five most-visited internet sites, which supports over 50 million page views each day and many thousands of users simultaneously. excite.com uses Oracle as its information management and personalization engine and provides excellent quality of service to its customers. Furthermore, excite.com has successfully migrated its system through several Oracle releases without any downtime.
What's wrong with the traditional business model?
Traditional businesses are ill equipped to handle the many challenges of a global, internet economy for many reasons, including inefficient administrative processes; being internally focused; and limited business intelligence.
Briefly, businesses burdened by bureaucratic internal administrative process have higher costs structures and are slower in delivering products and services. Being internally focused restrains such companies from having direct customer relationships, so they lack customer information and cannot service customers distinctively. Lacking customer information also means an inability to capture and analyze business intelligence about customers, suppliers, campaigns, and operations in order to make better decisions. These are just some of the problems of the traditional business model.
Can e-business catalyze a major strategic shift for my business?
Yes. And indeed, many traditional businesses will go through radical strategic shifts in order to survive in the e-business economy. Consider egghead.com, one of the world's largest software distributors, with over 500 brick-and-mortar stores around the world just over 16 months ago. Recognizing that software distribution was primarily moving to the internet, egghead closed every one of its physical stores and moved its business completely online. egghead.com has grown rapidly, with over 7,000,000 visits a month and revenue growth of over 94%. Oracle has been egghead's strategic partner, helping it transform itself into an e-business using Oracle's products and services.
How has e-business created other new business models?
Many business models never before thought of have come about thanks to the internet. For example, the concept of a portal site is a new development that could only exist because of the internet, but this concept is being adapted and extended into the e-business environment--even in businesses that don't conduct business on the internet.
As an example of the ever-expanding universe of business models, amazon.com through a single online store sells books, videotapes, compact discs, and even conducts auctions bringing together markets that have before now been quite distinct. Amazon.com, an Oracle e-business customer, is also a global competitor affecting companies in many geographic regions each time it enters a new market such as the UK, Canada, and Latin America. European booksellers, such as W.H. Smith and Co., have been forced to go online in order to protect their traditional retail bookstore market from the aggressive new entrant.
How do I transform my business into an e-business?
To transform a traditional business into an e-business, you must implement applications and infrastructure that enable you to manage customer relationships distinctively, streamline your corporate business processes, and improve how you use information to make strategic and operational decisions. The Oracle e-business solution meets all three of these requirements.
What is Oracle's e-business solution?
Oracle offers a comprehensive suite of enterprise applications to run your e-business; a platform to build e-business applications; and professional services that can help you formulate your e-business strategy and that can help you design, customize, or implement the e-business applications you need. Oracle is the only solution provider to offer this complete, end-to-end solution.
What is unique about Oracle's e-business solution?
Oracle's e-business solution is unique in the marketplace for three reasons:
Breadth: While many solution providers provide point products, such as electronic storefronts, Oracle is the only company to offer a comprehensive suite of Applications, an internet platform, and a trained professional services organization to help you transform all aspects of your business into an e-business model. Oracle's solution can transform your e-business, providing a more effective customer interface, streamlining internal processes and supply chain and providing you with the business intelligence you need to make better business decisions to compete.
Enterprise-Quality: Unlike point product providers, Oracle offers the industry's only e-business solution capable of supporting business-critical operations on the internet. Oracle's solution addresses the security, scalability, availability, and reliability requirements that are critical for allowing companies to use the internet for e-business.
Most Widely Used: Oracle's e-business solution is the most widely used by the most successful e-businesses in the world today. Oracle today is the world's leading provider of e-business solutions and is the e-business vendor of choice for 19 of the world's top 20 e-businesses and more than 70% of Fortune 100 companies. Oracle is itself using all aspects of its e-business solution to transform itself into an e-business.
What are the specific components of Oracle Applications that support an e-business?
Oracle Applications are a comprehensive suite of applications built using the Oracle internet platform that support the critical baseline e-business functions, including:
Customer Relationship Management Applications that enable you to attract, retain, and satisfy customers and offer them personalized products and services
Supply Chain, Manufacturing and Strategic Procurement applications that allow you to deliver the right products and services to customers in the shortest possible time
Self-Service Applications to automate your corporate business processes to reduce cost and improve efficiencies
Strategic Enterprise Management and Financial Applications to manage your business globally
What is the Oracle internet platform?
The Oracle internet (or e-business) platform is a development, deployment, and management platform that implements open, internet-based standards. The internet platform simplifies how you develop, deploy, and manage e-business applications. Also called the Oracle e-business platform or simply the internet platform, the Oracle internet platform provides you with the reliability, availability, scalability, and security you need to run your e-business on the internet.
What are the specific components of Oracle's platform?
Oracle's e-business platform consists of an integrated set of products to develop, deploy and manage e-business applications. Specifically, the platform consists of:
A comprehensive set of tools to develop e-business applications, including: Oracle WebDB to build portal web sites; JDeveloper to build transactional e-business applications in Java; and Designer and Developer to build self-service e-business applications.
The robust, scalable, highly-available Oracle8i database server and Oracle Application Server to deploy and run mission-critical e-business applications, and the Oracle8i Lite database to support mobile application needs.
A Web-based management using Oracle Enterprise Manager for managing your e-business systems infrastructure, internet Directory for managing e-business users, and end-to-end security services.
What are some of the unique features of Oracle's platform?
Oracle's platform is the only e-business platform that lets you:
Develop e-business applications using 100% open internet standards
Deploy e-business applications on highly available, scalable, reliable, and secure servers that meet your business critical requirements
Lower your total cost-of-ownership by simplifying how you maintain and manage your systems, users and security infrastructure
Oracle's platform is the e-business engine behind virtually all of the major internet brands, including eBay, Excite, amazon.com, OnSale, Cisco Systems, Dell Computers, CDNow, Federal Express, and many othersOracle Applications are also built using Oracle's platform.
How will Oracle's platform simplify how I develop, deploy, and manage e-business applications?
Oracle's platform simplifies how you develop by centralizing all kinds of internet content on fewer, more robust database servers and developing e-business applications using 100% internet standards. Oracle's platform simplifies deployment by confining applications to a small number of professionally managed, highly scalable and available servers--rather than on many, small servers. Finally, the Oracle platform simplifies management by integrating management for systems, users, and security directly over the internet.
How will Oracle's platform help me to grow my e-business? The Oracle platform includes data warehousing, decision support (ad hoc query and analysis), online analytical processing, and business intelligence tools that will let you capture information about your customers, analyze the information, and use it to target specific market segments more effectively--even a segment of one. The platform will also help you enter new markets, create more effective marketing campaigns, and streamline operations.
For example, the world's largest online seller of fresh flowers, gift baskets, and floral-related items to customers around the world, 1-800-FLOWERS, uses the Oracle platform for its data warehouse to collect and track all customer and product purchase information, and it uses Oracle's Express OLAP tool for business analysis. It also uses Oracle's Sales Analyzer to understand sales patterns and which of its products are profitable.
What are Oracle Services?
Oracle Services encompass Oracle Consulting, Oracle Education, and Oracle Support:
Oracle Consulting Services is the world's largest client services operation focused on helping customers transform themselves into e-businesses using Oracle's products and technology. Oracle has over 15,000 consultants located in over 50 countries who have worked with more than 5,000 customers, helping them to formulate their e-business strategy and to implement the systems necessary to make them leading e-businesses.
Oracle Education Services offers instructor lead and internet-based training courses for companies wanting to transform themselves into e-businesses.
Oracle Support offers business critical 24X7 technical support to help you run your e-business using the internet.
Are companies using Oracle's e-business solutions to change how they do business?
Yes. Oracle today is the world's leading supplier of e-business solutions. Oracle has helped many companies transform their businesses into e-businesses successfully using Oracle products, services, and partners. Today, Oracle runs:
9 of the world's Top 10 business-to-business e-businesses
All 10 of the world's Top 10 business-to-consumer e-businesses
Over 70% of the Fortune 100 companies
Oracle has worked with new internet players, such as Amazon.com, and helped them grow to become leading e-businesses. Oracle has also worked with traditional businesses in over 25 different industries, helping these organizations to reinvent themselves as e-businesses. Oracle's solutions have helped transform all of the elements of e-businesses, including the way in which e-businesses manage customer relationships, how they streamline their corporate business processes (supply chain, manufacturing, and procurement processes), and the way in which they use business intelligence to make better business decisions.
Can Oracle help my business become an e-business?
Absolutely. Oracle offers a number of different services that can help you transform your company from a business into an e-businesses, including Oracle Consulting services, Oracle FastForward programs, and Oracle Business OnLine. Oracle can help companies transform themselves from businesses into e-businesses in less than 90 days through the Oracle FastForward Programs and Oracle Business OnLine. For example, over 100 companies have used Oracle's FastForward programs with various modules of Oracle's internet enabled Applications Release 11i to transform themselves into e-businesses.
The Business OnLine offering provides some companies the quickest avenue to e-business. For instance, Triton Network System, Inc., a market leader in access technology for telephone and internet services, needed a set of e-business applications to support its high rate of growth. Triton turned to Oracle's Business OnLine solution for network access, server architecture and management, technical talent, customer support, and application activation and management. Business OnLine leveraged Oracle's FastForward methodology to take Triton live on four applications--General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Purchasing, and Inventory--in less than 30 days.
Within days of going live with Business OnLine's service, Triton accelerated its implementation schedule for Oracle's Manufacturing Application suite. In addition, Triton's early satisfaction with Business OnLine encouraged management to expand the solution scope to include Oracle's Human Resources applications.
What is the difference between e-commerce and e-business?
e-commerce is only one aspect of the e-business model; it's specifically focused on buying and selling products and services, typically to consumers, over the internet. An e-commerce company is one instance of the e-business model in action, but not all e-businesses will be involved in e-commerce--indeed, many companies may limit their use of internet technologies to streamlining internal processes and functions, such as financial, manufacturing, and customer service areas.
Does Oracle offer e-commerce products?
Yes. Oracle offers a comprehensive e-commerce solution that includes a strategic procurement solution that enables companies to consolidate purchasing and manage suppliers using the internet; an internet Commerce Server, which is an electronic store that supports catalog management, shopping cart facilities, tax calculation, online service, and other such features to enable companies to sell products over the internet; and Oracle Bill Presentment and Payment, which companies can use to consolidate customer billing and accept payment for products over the internet.
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