What is e-Business and Where is it Going?

The first Internet boom started in the mid-1990s, and it quickly led to a dot.com bubble on the stock markets which eventually went bust in 2001.  However, the market recovered very rapidly and by 2005, there were already talks about a second Internet boom which is much more robust than the first one. For many commentators, the Internet boom itself has never stopped, because even during the stock market downturn people from all over the world continued to join the Internet to search, chat, e-mail and spend money. Today, the way we work, play, communicate, learn and shop has changed significantly, and in business and governmental organisations throughout the world, new strategies, new business models and new organisational designs have emerged to exploit the new possibilities enabled by the Internet and related technologies.

In the midst of such radical changes, one fundamental question remains unanswered today: What is E-Business and does it still matter?  If so, in what ways and what can we do about it?  Most of all where is it going and what are the main business opportunities and challenges?  The business environment has changed, and ‘information’ has become the most critical strategic resource upon which the efficiency and competitiveness of all organisations depend.  The continued rapid development of ICTs (Internet related technologies in particular) enables us to acquire, communicate and manipulate the most important resource of the economy (i.e. information) cheaply and in ways not possible in the past.

The combination of these changes – together with various policy initiatives at different levels - means that organisations old and new, large and small - can, should, and indeed, must review the way they are organised and managed.  In this sense, e-Business is not just another management fad created by academics and the media and pushed by business consultants and technology companies.  It calls for the development of a new generation of organisation and management theory.

Professor Feng Li, PhD
Chair of E-Business Development
University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

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