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The Myths of E-Commerce: An IPC White Paper - Executive Overview (Sept '00)
September 22, 2000 | IPCEstimated reading time: 2 minutes
Electronics association IPC's E-Business and Supply Chain Committee has produced a White Paper titled, "The Myths of E-Commerce." The paper addresses five prevailing myths about e-commerce, countering them with statistics and examples of revolutionary business developments over the years.
To download the entire document for free, click on the IPC link in the title.
Executive Overview
An IPC White Paper Report by Mehul Davé, Cimnet Systems
The overall growth of ebusiness has been dramatic and will continue to be fueled by businesstobusiness activity. Ebusiness offers the opportunity for businesses to establish new competitive standards by expanding distribution channels, integrating external and internal processes, and offering a costeffective method of providing products and services. The Internet provides online businesses with the ability to reach a global audience and to operate with a minimal infrastructure, reducing overhead, and providing greater economies of scale, while providing customers and businesses with a broad selection, increased pricing power, and unparalleled convenience.
As shown in the graph below, we are reaching the inflection point for significant ebusiness adoption.
The Internet technologies and infrastructure are in place to exploit this revolutionary technology; industry competition is driving companies to adapt quickly. The electronics industry will be at the forefront of this activity due to the intense timetomarket and timeto volume pressures.
The projections for ebusiness activity are staggering. Forrester Research predicts that the total volume of ebusiness will exceed $6 trillion by the year 2004. The uptake of ebusiness will evolve over time, starting with service offerings that are relatively easy to implement with less business impact to more complex capabilities involving connectivity to internal back end systems.
The businesstobusiness (B2B) model is much more complex compared to the businessto commerce (B2C) model, which is more prevalent today. B2B spans the full spectrum of business processes, from raw material to the consumer.
As diagram ("A") shows, one of the key elements will be the ability to manage endtoend business transactions throughout the supply chain. This is becoming even more critical as the trend toward outsourcing in the electronics industry continues at a rapid pace. In order to reduce waste trapped in the supply chain and automate various business processes, all the key players will need to be linked together:
- OEMs
- EMS Providers
- PCB Fabricators
- Raw Material Suppliers
- Component Suppliers
Along with any new enterprise, invention, or variation on the familiar come myths. Some of the widelyheld myths about ecommerce are:
- "Ecommerce is 5% technology and 95% business"
- "Ecommerce will replace purchasing."
- "Ecommerce is a zerosum game."
- "Ebusiness represents Interesting Opportunities but for the distant future."
- "Ecommerce is only about exchanges."
The impact of ecommerce will be significant and the time to get prepared is now. The objective of this white paper is to educate the readers and dispel some of the myths concerning ebusiness so that they are in a better position to adopt this new way of doing business.
THE MYTHS OF ECOMMERCE AN IPC WHITE PAPER REPORT