What is e-commerce?

1. What is e-commerce

2. The emergence and development of e-commerce

3. What exactly does e-commerce solve?

4 .Application of e-commerce

5. Overall e-commerce solution

6. How to develop e-commerce

7. Three steps for e-commerce development

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8. Levels of e-commerce

9. E-commerce security issues

10. Structure of e-commerce application systems

11. Towards B to B Three Steps

1. What is e-commerce? E-commerce Basics 1

E-Commerce Basics 2

E-commerce originates from the English ELECTRONIC COMMERCE, abbreviated as EC. As the name suggests, its content includes two aspects, one is electronic means, and the other is business activities.

E-commerce refers to the use of simple, fast, and low-cost electronic communication methods for buyers and sellers to conduct various commercial activities without meeting. E-commerce can be accomplished through a variety of electronic communication methods. Simple, for example, if you conduct business activities with customers by making phone calls or sending faxes, it seems that it can also be called e-commerce; however, the e-commerce that people are discussing now is mainly completed by EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) and INTERNET. of. Especially as INTERNET technology becomes increasingly mature, the real development of e-commerce will be based on INTERNET technology. Therefore, some people refer to e-commerce as IC (INTERNET COMMERCE).

From the perspective of trade activities, e-commerce can be realized in multiple links. Therefore, e-commerce can also be divided into two levels. Lower-level e-commerce such as e-commerce, e-commerce, and e-commerce Contracts, etc.; the most complete and advanced e-commerce should be able to use the INTENET network to carry out all trade activities, that is, to completely realize information flow, business flow, capital flow and part of logistics online. In other words, you can Starting from finding customers, all the way to negotiation, ordering, online payment (receipt), issuance of electronic invoices, electronic customs declaration, electronic tax payment, etc. are all done in one go through the INTERNET.

To achieve complete e-commerce, many aspects will be involved. In addition to buyers and sellers, banks or financial institutions, government agencies, certification agencies, distribution centers and other institutions must also join. Since all parties involved in e-commerce do not physically meet each other, the entire e-commerce process is not a replica of business activities in the physical world. Conditions such as online banking and online electronic payment and technologies such as data encryption and electronic signatures are important in e-commerce. plays an important and indispensable role.

1. E-commerce model

In general, as everyone knows, e-commerce can be divided into e-commerce from business to end customer (Customer) There are two main models: (i.e. B2C) and business-to-business e-commerce (B2B).

B2C

When it comes to B2C, you may be more familiar with it. It is a business model from enterprises to end customers (including individual consumers and organizational consumers). The B2C in the e-commerce era we are talking about today is a new business model that uses electronic and information technology, especially Internet technology, to deliver products and services provided by the company or other companies directly to consumers without going through any channels. Because it is closely related to the daily life of the public, it is first recognized and accepted by people.

One of the most familiar implementation forms of the e-commerce B2C model is the emerging website that specializes in e-commerce. Now, as if overnight, countless such companies have emerged, including online stores, online bookstores, online ticket sales, etc., and there are even some e-commerce websites that do and sell everything. People jokingly call them "Qianhuo" company". But no matter what, the emergence of these new model enterprises allows people to purchase goods or enjoy information services through the Internet without leaving home. This is undoubtedly a great progress of the times. Among these newly emerged Internet companies, Amazon can be said to be the most representative example.

Amazon was originally an online bookstore that sold books through the Internet. When almost no one knew where its store was, it surpassed countless well-known companies that had been famous for hundreds of years in just two years. The old store has become the largest bookstore in the world, and its market value far exceeds the book-selling business itself. Through Amazon's WEB website, users can enjoy great convenience when purchasing books. For example, if you want to find a book among 1 million kinds of books, the traditional method may require you to visit several bookstores and take a lot of time, but on Amazon , users can use the search function and just click a few mouse clicks, and soon someone will have the book they want delivered to their home. Another attractive aspect of Amazon is that it provides many value-added services, including providing numerous book reviews and introductions. Under traditional sales methods, these value-added services will become very expensive. After "successfully" developing itself into the world's largest bookstore beyond traditional bookstores, Amazon's business today has expanded to audio and video products, software, various daily consumer goods and other fields, becoming the largest electronics store in the United States and the world. Business website company. But its "success" is still in quotation marks, and people question the huge losses it left for investors while building its own scale and customer base.

When people reflect on the reasons for Amazon’s losses, they realize that perhaps the task of establishing B2C in the e-commerce era should not be pinned entirely on these websites built from scratch. The conscious Internet and e-commerce revolution in traditional industries may It is more economical, more affordable, and more necessary, and will not bring so much pressure and worry to investors and stockholders. Perhaps, only when these two forces rush to the same mountain top together, the e-commerce world will be more exciting, and the real e-commerce era will arrive faster.

The most successful example of a traditional enterprise successfully transforming into the Internet and e-commerce is DELL. At the beginning, DELL was just a company that sold computers directly through the phone. Bao? Lian Hua Tao サ Gui ≡ 骳 tax salt stack? Gou? Make an appointment with Han Na? Geng dripping the Cape stirred up? First ィ? Make up the stack チ? Bag? When the cooking is exhausted, it will be dried up? Mechanical Nao scull? Tu Tao exploration? Xing Lao Xuan? ⒘ tax? ㄏ? Di⑸? With a growth of more than 0%, the company has become one of the largest computer manufacturers in the world today, which has also caused other competitors that have been slower to transform. posed huge threats and challenges.

There is a big difference between the two implementation methods of B2C. B2C that started from a website is more difficult to develop its own brand products and industries, so they are more like a department store, which is of course different from The most different thing about department stores is that department stores are for door-to-door delivery, while B2C websites are for door-to-door delivery. B2C, which was transformed from a traditional enterprise, is more likely to be like a specialty store, specializing in its own brand of products, which is different from traditional specialty stores. What's more interesting is that users and manufacturers are more interactive here and can be customized. At the same time, since the cost of building a physical store is eliminated, the cost may be reduced.

B2B

After talking about B2C, let’s talk about B2B. The business model between enterprises is called B2B. The connotation of e-commerce B2B is that enterprises communicate with external parties through internal information system platforms. The website organically links the purchasing business of upstream suppliers and the sales business of downstream agents, thereby reducing transaction costs and improving satisfaction. In fact, B2B, which is oriented towards inter-enterprise transactions, is larger than B2C in terms of transaction volume and transaction area coverage, and its significance to the development of e-commerce is also more profound.

Similar to B2C, B2B applications between enterprises also have two main implementation forms.

One implementation of B2B is its application in traditional enterprises. The substantive business of some traditional enterprises is gradually transforming to B2B, and more and more WEB methods are used to transmit information and realize online orders. However, the logistics method has not changed as before. It is still the supplier to the enterprise, and the enterprise to the agent. supplier or end customer. Take General Motors as an example. General Motors has established a B2B e-commerce website, TradeXchange, and plans to conduct its annual procurement business of up to US$87 billion entirely through the website by the end of this year.

And this website not only caters to GM's own procurement business, but its more than 30,000 suppliers will also conduct transactions on this system. It will charge a 1% handling fee for e-commerce transactions conducted through TradeXchange. Experts estimate that this will Generating annual revenue of $5 billion for General Motors.

But as I reminded in the first part of the example above, don’t regard the Internet and e-commerce as just a tool. It may also bring changes to marketing models and management models. B2B The second implementation method has this meaning. This type of B2B company does not provide procurement or sales services for its own enterprises. It may not produce any products itself, but it purchases or sells products for a certain type or several types of enterprises by establishing a unified WEB-based information platform. Sales matchmaking, the logistics method at this time is very different from the previous category, it is directly from the supplier to the agent. For example, the Company B we cited in the first part is somewhat similar to this kind of company. It builds a bridge between sellers and buyers of computer parts and other commodities. Therefore, it does not have factories or even warehouses. Instead, it only uses information systems to deploy, organize supply and sales, and provides some value-added services to obtain commissions. or value-added service income. Of course, the key to the success of this type of company is that it must be able to gather sellers and buyers of this type of products and make them willing to trade on your platform through special services. But whether they are willing or not is also discussed in B2C. When arriving at a department store or a specialty store, the method is somewhat similar.

2. The essence of e-commerce

Although today, whether it is B2C or B2B, whether it is the e-ization of traditional enterprises or the birth of new Internet enterprises, everything has It’s nothing new; the stories and models that the stock market requires everyone to tell have almost seamlessly occupied all of people’s imagination. But can we say that we have entered the century or society of e-commerce? ? cannot! Because even many of our companies today under the banner of e-commerce have not even understood the full and true connotation of e-commerce, let alone fully realize them.

There is a quiz question: I opened a website that sells flowers. Users can order flowers online and I will deliver them to their doorsteps. So I am an e-commerce company, right? If right! Then you may encounter the video below.

Okay, after laughing, our previous proposition should also have a conclusion. Obviously, an enterprise with only one website cannot achieve the purpose of e-commerce to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and improve customer satisfaction. An enterprise that does not have a certain management foundation, including a certain organizational structure, work process, and work specifications, is not an e-commerce enterprise; an enterprise that has management but no informatization is not an e-commerce enterprise. The so-called e-commerce that only has a website without management and informatization is like a highway connected to a small alley, and there is no traffic jam.

In fact, it is not only today's emerging Internet companies that will see the previous scenario. It is also a challenge faced by our traditional companies that are not highly informatized. Such challenges are particularly severe for Chinese enterprises that have been operating under a planned economy for a long time, because for a long time we have been purchasing according to the plan issued by the superiors at the beginning of the year, producing according to the plan, and selling according to the inventory. This reverse business model lacks basis. The flexible mechanism and awareness of rapid response to changes in the market, so how to make traditional enterprises e-commerce is also a serious topic.

In turn, what kind of enterprise can be considered an e-commerce enterprise? Of course, using the Internet and WEB websites to achieve business is a basic feature, but more importantly, the enterprise must operate on an "Enterprise Resource Planning System (ERP)" based on sound management ideas and work processes.

This resource planning system is the basic platform for enterprises to conduct business. User orders enter this system after being filtered by the company's business department and become the most important input to the system. The other input to the system is the actual current inventory. situation (including the quantity and geographical distribution of materials, finished products, and products in progress), transportation resources and cycles, procurement resources and cycles, production capacity and cycles, etc. The system runs once at a fixed time (Lenovo is every two hours), and each run The output results obtained are: a user order confirmation form, a purchasing plan, a production plan, and a distribution plan.

The user order confirmation results will be directly fed back to each ordering user, telling him whether the goods can be delivered, the exact time of delivery, delivery location, transportation method and other information. This information is based on the clear supply priorities set by the company. Calculated by the sequential model and certain boundary conditions. For example, in the previous example of buying flowers, if there is a warehouse, then the delivery time is only the time required for delivery (depending on the geographical location); if not, then the procurement cycle must be added; if an order contains multiple products, Then the delivery time will have to be determined by the final delivery time, etc. These are all automatically controlled by the system, reducing the difficulty and variability of human control, and user satisfaction will definitely improve as a result. And all the procurement, production, and distribution systems of the company are not mechanical or passive work. If there is a shortage, buy it, go to the finished product warehouse to produce it, and deliver it when it is ready. Instead, they completely follow the system planning instructions. , Act according to information and be methodical. The scenes that appear in the video can be completely avoided in most cases. This not only guarantees user satisfaction, but also guarantees that companies can reduce costs and increase profits. The system runs once at a certain time, rather than once after each order comes in. The reason is also to make the resources within the enterprise more optimally utilized. For example, purchasing in batches may be more economical and better reflect the efficiency of people's work. The same is true for production, and the production process itself also has an informatization problem. Now please watch another video. This video is basically recorded with Lenovo itself as the background, reflecting how a real e-commerce enterprise operates.

After watching this video, we can summarize: the essence of real e-commerce is actually the informatization process of all aspects of business operations, and it is not simply the informatization of past work processes and specifications, but It is a process of changing old processes according to new means and conditions.

The following is a model that we have summarized based on Lenovo's experience on how e-commerce can be implemented by China's larger enterprises. Of course, it is impossible for everyone to copy it, but I hope it can inspire everyone. As an important part of its own business, Lenovo will also provide targeted consultation, suggestions, and even implementation plans based on the specific conditions of different companies in the future.