Mastering e-Business

e-Business – business collaborations enabled through information and communication technologies – is an essential activity for any business organization and constitutes a significant and growing sector. This textbook presents an innovative teaching framework to help students gain a thorough understanding of the principles of this vital aspect of business and management. Casting aside the over-complicated and narrow introductions of other textbooks, Grefen presents, analyzes and explains the principles of e-Business with refreshing clarity. The book covers both the business and technology aspects of this topic, using a unique framework integrating: Business – focuses on why a specific e-Business scenario exists and how an organization can profit from it Organization – analyzes how organizations and their processes are structured to achieve strategic goals Architecture – explains the high level design of advanced information systems to describe how e-Business functions Technology – examines the technological implementation of e-Business scenarios using a wide variety of ingredients from IT Mastering e-Business offers a well-structured overview of all aspects of e-Business and is an essential read for all students and professionals interested in this central aspect of modern, global business.

1. Introduction 2. An e-Business Classification Space 3. The BOAT Framework 4. Business Aspect 5. Organization Aspect 6. Architecture Aspect 7. Technology Aspect 8. BOAT as an Analysis Instrument 9. Concluding Remarks

Paul Grefen is a Professor at the School of Industrial Engineering at Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands. He has a rich background in research in information systems and e-business, cooperating with industry and academia. He has published many international journal and conference papers and several books.