E-Business

Introduction

Since the introduction of dot.com companies in the late 90's to the way we do e-Business in today's market. Dot.com companies were a collection of start up companies selling products or service using the Internet. e-Business on the other hand is opening new avenues of collaboration in the apparel and retail industries, and companies across the supply chain.

They proliferated in the late 1990's dot.com boom, a speculative frenzy of investment in Internet and Internet-related technicial stock and enterprises. The name derives from the fact that many of them have the ".com" internet top level domain suffix built into their company name. (Remember why the dot. com companies tanked?)

Modell's Sporting Goods is the nation's oldest, family-owned and operated, retailer of sporting goods, sporting attire, for men, women and children wear and brand name athletic footwear. Modells.com (e-Business) currently offers a large collection of products from top name brands in the sporting goods and clothing business and has prospered from its e-business.

Modell's has taken full advantage of its e-business opportunity like most of the dot.com companies but survived the rise and fall of the boom. The electronic medium (Internet) has reduced or eliminated many costs associated with doing store front business. For example: investment in real estate and facilities are reduced, and certain administrative costs related to these stores have been eliminated. Moreover, the accomplishment of the electronic medium opens up many opportunities. Here are some advantages in which Modell's has undergone to conduct e-business which has made them profitable:

* "Promote Availability and Market Reach," Electronic media is available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week from any location in the world with an Internet connection.

* "Build Buyer/Seller Relationships," Consumer are able to receive highly customized service and can build one-to-one relationships.

* "Reduce Costs and Overhead Costs," paperwork, time and errors can be reduced and are done in a centralized location.

* "Improve Marketing Capabilities," analysis of markets and products may be improved because buyer information is more readily available.

* "Promote Brand Equity," Build its company's reputation and brand among distant shoppers.

* "Meet the Price of Entry - Increasingly," companies in many supply chains and in many industries are being forced to do business electronically in order to be considered as viable partners. ( eBusiness Advantage, http://www.src.si/en/solutions/ebusiness/default.asp)

Companies need to redesign operations of their business procedures in order to achieve the full advantages that e-business has to offer. For example, a company may present a good "front end" web site that successfully generates sales, but it may process orders using traditional business practices. In this case, the company is not a fully incorporated e-business. It may receive an order over the Internet, but then manually process the order, which means the employees must use labor intensive