E-business research

Citation

Stone, M. and Abbott, J. (2002), "E-business research", Qualitative Market Research, Vol. 5 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/qmr.2002.21605daa.001

E-business research

E-business research

This is a special issue of QMRIJ which reflects important aspects of research and business. This special issue has been guest edited from IBM by Professor Merlin Stone and Julie Abbott. Far reaching advances in communications and information technology mean that interaction between companies and their customers – whether face-to-face, over the counter, on the telephone or via the Internet, are becoming more frequent, intense and data-rich. Many companies want to achieve more using these technologies, and customers expect to be served better. These twin pressures are forcing companies to look hard at how they manage these interactions and the knowledge resulting from them.

This special edition of QMRIJ encompasses both practitioner and academic views of research in the world of the Internet. The result is an interesting mix that was certainly enjoyable and informative to the audience at the Business Intelligence and e-Marketing Workshop held at IBM Warwick in December 2001. The workshop, which was chaired by Professor Merlin Stone, was again run by Professor Len Tiu Wright and co-hosted by IBM, who are pleased to be associated with this prestigious annual academic and practitioner exchange of views in the area of e-business.

IBM was delighted to present the prize for best paper to Corner and Hinton, for their research on managing risks when implementing a multi-channel customer relationship management (CRM) system within medium sized organisations. This excellent paper also discussed the dynamics of relationships between the players involved in the implementation, both internal and external to the company. Finally, using a model developed during the research, a framework for guidance in the implementation process can be given.

All this is very relevant to today's businesses, most of which are using the Internet in some form or other to improve their customer management. This is bringing about great changes, as outlined by Hughes, who researched the impact of adopting e-business in financial services, in the areas of information provision, transactions and servicing, cost reduction and productivity. Key issues included that of leadership and whether to have an integrated or stand alone approach to e-business. Leadership is critical to the success of all large changes to a business. Those that are driven from the top with a clearly defined strategy have a much greater chance of success.

We are often told about the great paradigm changes that are being brought about by the pervasiveness of the Internet – but has business really changed so much? Palmer argues that it has not, rather that e-business is a major change in technology but not in the underlying business values and that it has still not delivered all its benefits, one of which is that of customer knowledge. Huge amounts of data can be collected via e-business and through the use of business intelligence can be turned into valuable knowledge about the customer. This knowledge is an important business asset that needs managing if it is to be fully utilised. Rowley discusses the characteristics of knowledge management and sets out to formulate a set of questions businesses must ask if they are to get the best from their databases, turning the data into knowledge that facilitates better business decisions. Abbott, Dobbs and Stone examine briefly what it takes in practice to translate high volumes of customer data into useful customer knowledge and then into profit.

But what of the consumer? The Internet has changed consumer behaviour tremendously, with more people buying over the Web as well as from more traditional "bricks and mortar" outlets. Dennis, Harris and Sandhu studied shopping styles amongst teenagers and university students, and speculate on the possible future of shopping. This is contrasted by Liebermann and Stashevsky who researched the barriers to entry for consumers using the Internet for purchasing and the perceived risks to usage by adults.

The growth of e-business has had far reaching consequences to global markets and we now have a new term – the digital economy. Fuentelsaz, Maicas-López and Polo examine this new scenario, adapting traditional frameworks and identifying the keys to value creation in this new and important environment.

These papers are a selection of those presented at the Business Intelligence and e-Marketing Workshop. Another set will be published in a future edition of QMRIJ. The editors wish to wholeheartedly thank the authors, the reviewers, the editor of QMRIJ Professor Len Tiu Wright and of course the participants of the workshop for their input and support of this special issue. Abstracts of earlier versions of the papers were published in Business Intelligence and e-Marketing Proceedings of the IBM Workshop, 6 December 2001.

Merlin Stone and Julie Abbott