Lesson 6 Handout

E commerce and E Business

Difference of E-Commerce and E-Business
Introduction to Digital Marketing
Introduction to Technopreneurship

The Difference Between E-Business and E-Commerce

Some people use the terms "e-business" and "e-commerce" interchangeably, but they aren't synonymous. To
put it simply, e-commerce refers to buying and selling online, while e-business encompasses all business
conducted online. E-commerce can be viewed as a subset of e-business. If you plan on starting or working
closely with an internet-based company, you should strive to understand all the ways these two concepts are
unique.

E-Business Basics
In a tech-driven world, it might be tough to tell which businesses are truly e-businesses. Perhaps the best way
to understand e-businesses is with the help of examples:
• Email marketing to existing and/or prospective customers is an e-business activity. It electronically
conducts a business process—in this case, marketing.
• A company that builds and sells an online system that tracks inventory and triggers alerts at specific
levels is an e-business. Inventory management is a business process, and when facilitated
electronically, it becomes part of e-business.
• A content management system that manages the workflow between a content developer, editor,
manager, and publisher is another example of an e-business. In the absence of an electronic
workflow, the physical movement of paper files would conduct this process. By electronically enabling
it, it becomes an e-business.
• Online tools for human resources can be produced by an e-business. These tools include online job
boards, application processers, and systems that collect and maintain data about employees.
Many processes that are described as e-business might be handled in-house through a company's network,
or it might be something the company outsources to a provider that specializes in whatever service is desired.
By producing them in-house, standard businesses may incorporate some elements of e-business into their
plan—the two types of businesses are not mutually exclusive.

Sometimes the difference between a standard business and an e-business is just a matter of how business is
conducted. For example, if you are an advisory firm helping people choose the right furniture, then you are a
business, but if you run a website where people can compare furniture options, then you are an e-business.

E-Commerce Basics
Compared to e-business, the definition of e-commerce is clearer. In its basic form, it involves placing orders
and making payments online. E-commerce comes in multiple forms. In business-to-consumer (B2C) e-
commerce, a business sells goods and services to consumers through its website. Many brick-and-mortar
retailers have adapted to the popularity of e-commerce, and they now conduct sales through their websites as
well as in their stores.

E-commerce sales can include every element of a sale: ordering a product, paying for a product, and having it
delivered. It might also involve only part of the process. For example, a customer might order a product online
to be picked up at the store. Payment might be conducted online or at the store when the item is picked up.
Either way, the transaction still involved an element of e-commerce.

Many businesses also sell through virtual marketplaces in addition to their own websites. For example, a
popular brand like Nike will sell shoes from its website, as well as through an online retailer like Amazon.
Whether you buy it from Nike's website or Amazon's, the transaction is still an example of e-commerce.

1
Business-to-Business (B2B) E-Commerce

While the average consumer might not realize it, much of the e-commerce that takes place around the world
involves B2B relationships. This type of e-commerce often involves transactions like restocking necessary
supplies, and very often it will be automated. For example, a landscaping company could have a contract with
an e-commerce company to remain stocked on items like garden shears, gloves, and fertilizer. To maintain
efficiency, the landscaping company might have an automated process in place to track supply levels. As
crews use fertilizer on the customers' yards, and the inventory drops below a set level, an automated system
will place an order for more.

Introduction to Digital Marketing

Today’s era of Internet has opened a gate of vast variety of opportunities for businesses. Using social
networks, one cannot only share a private picture of one’s birthday but also earn customers for one’s
business and reach them conveniently. The speed and ease with which the digital media transmits
information and help boost a business is amazing.

Let us first throw some light on the scope of digital marketing.

What is Digital Marketing?

Digital Marketing is the term used for the targeted, measurable, and interactive marketing of products or
services using digital technologies to reach the viewers, turn them into customers, and retain them.

So, how is digital marketing different from traditional marketing?

The traditional manner of marketing involved businesses to advertise their products or services on print
media, radio and television commercials, business cards, billboards, and in many other similar ways where
Internet or social media websites were not employed for advertising. Traditional marketing policies had limited
customer reachability and scope of driving customers’ buying behavior.

Digital marketing achieves targets of marketing a business through different online channels. Let us see how.

The following table lists a few points that differentiate digital marketing from traditional marketing −

Traditional Marketing Digital Marketing

Communication is unidirectional. Means, a Communication is bidirectional. The customer also can
business communicates about its products or ask queries or make suggestions about the business
services with a group of people. products and services

Medium of communication is generally phone calls, Medium of communication is mostly through social
letters, and Emails. media websites, chat, and Email.
Campaigning takes more time for designing, There is always a fast way to develop an online
preparing, and launching campaign and carry out changes along its development.
With digital tools, campaigning is easier.
It is carried out for a specific audience throughout The content is available for general public. It is then
from generating campaign ideas up to selling a made to reach the specific audience by employing
product or a service. search engine techniques.
It is conventional way of marketing; best for It is best for reaching global audience
reaching local audience.
It is difficult to measure the effectiveness of a It is easier to measure the effectiveness of a campaign
campaign. through analytics.
2
Social media marketing

• Social media marketing: this has risen hugely in popularity and there are now countless dedicated agencies
scattered around the web which promise to help with it. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn are all
examples of social networks which can be used as a part of your marketing efforts, although they are far from
the only ones.

Social media marketing allows two-way communication between a company and consumer in a way that wasn’t
previously seen and it’s safe to say that it has changed business approach to marketing as now, the consumer holds
the power.

It’s also based on one of the most effective forms of advertising; word of mouth.

Social media means that communication can be a lot more targeted and personalized than other forms of marketing,
as companies get the chance to receive feedback from customers daily.

It’s also useful for making content ‘go viral’, something which can help to strengthen a brand very quickly. It’s brand
personality that makes social work so well, as if this is done correctly, across the board, then it can boost
engagement considerably.

Search Engine Optimization

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO):

is a means of optimizing the content of a website in order to gain better placement on the Search Engine Results
Page (SERPS). A variety of techniques are employed to achieve this and it’s not a job for amateurs really as there
are many pitfalls that could have Google frowning on your site.

SEO includes:

• Keyword research and usage, on-page and off (within HTML)

• Link building /outreach blogging
• Content delivery
• Site structure
• Analytics

This is not an exhaustive list, but it does give an indication of how much work is necessary in order to optimize a site.

Search Engine Marketing

• Search Engine marketing (SEM):

is like, but incorporates, SEO and uses many of the same techniques as a part of that. The main difference between
the two terms is that SEM also includes paid online advertising models, such as pay-per-click (PPC).

PPC advertising models are those such as Google AdWords and Bing, which only require payment when the ad is
clicked through to the target website. SEM also requires keyword analysis as the words and phrases used in the ad
and site and these need to be monitored carefully to reflect the market and current search engine rules.

3
Whilst it can be said that SEM encompasses all kinds of digital marketing, it’s more commonly thought of in a
narrower niche, to describe paid models.

Email Marketing

• Email marketing:

remains a very effective tool, despite claims that it isn’t as important as social these days. Modern email marketing is
just beginning to evolve so that it can be linked to a database in order to personalize it, so that individual groups of
customers can be sent mail based on previous purchases and interests.

Content Marketing

• Content marketing:

is a technique where content is produced and distributed with the intention of providing relevant, interesting content
to attract and engage a audience that a business is targeting. The creation of useful content is a way of developing
communication with the customer in order to drive engagement and customer action. Content can mean anything
from blogs to videos and whitepapers tend to work well using content marketing techniques too. The goal is to win
customer loyalty and retain it. Beyond this, it is important to consistently monitor and analyze the results from your
efforts. Using this data-driven marketing approach to your content marketing will ensure you achieve the best results
possible.

Additional Channels

• SMS marketing:

is also highly effective and rising in popularity, due to the fact that many of us no longer go anywhere without our cell
phones. This ‘always-on’ aspect means that when SMS marketing is used, it’s highly likely that the customer will at
least read the text.

• Video marketing/video infographics:

is again becoming hugely popular and it’s likely that we’ll see an even bigger move in its direction this year as more
and more businesses begin to recognize the potential it has. People take in more information when watching video
and are more likely to engage, so it’s certainly worth looking at.

Whilst image-based infographics are already hugely popular, making these in the form of a series of frames for video
is beginning to really take off in the digital marketing space too.

How digital marketing helps business

These days, it’s important to have a strong online presence, coupled with a great brand that is presented uniformly
across all mediums. Digital marketing is an essential part of this for companies who want to utilize the power of the
internet in order to boost business.

Looking at last year’s figures, let’s see what AdAge discovered when looking at the statistics:

• 77% of people interact with brands on Facebook by looking at posts and updates
• 17% share news and experiences with others about the brand
• 13% post updates about brands they have connected with
• 56% said they would recommend a brand after becoming a fan on Facebook
4
 • 34% of digital marketers have generated leads from Twitter
• 43% of all consumers who are internet-connected use social

A business should always pay attention to where its customers are, and those who have customers on the net with a
strong online presence are more likely to succeed. This is even true of local businesses, as with mobile has come
location services, making it easy for mobile users to find a company who uses maps on social and its website.

Tried and tested or new media?

In short, both. Marketing is something that should be carried out on as many different mediums as a budget allows.
Social media marketing is free, or you can opt to advertise and as such, it’s a valuable resource which shouldn’t be
discounted.

As mentioned above, email and SMS certainly still have their place, as do TV, radio and newspaper ads. However,
traditional ads such as those in papers or leaflets are no longer trusted by the consumer, so it’s worth concentrating
efforts on the internet, SEO, PPC and social.

How can a CMS help?

A CMS is used to manage a website, intranet or portal. It can help to organise workflows to monitor marketing,
provide insights into what’s working and what isn’t and help with content delivery and SEO. For the latter, this can be
by suggesting keywords, checking readability scores, updating HTML headers across the board and adapting the
same content for different devices.

I think you’ll agree that it’s necessary to ensure that the company website can be read on a variety of devices such
as PCs, tablets and mobile to ensure a uniform experience and so that potential customers won’t leave due to a site
not displaying properly.

Consumers are fickle and easily deterred from a badly performing site and this is something that CMS can help to
automate so that the process isn’t long and laborious.

For eCommerce especially, a good CMS can handle orders, stock, online payments and vital aspects to the website,
so the ROI can be substantial. This is true of both large and small enterprises, as modern technology has made
CMS much more affordable and the advent of cloud computing has meant that a CMS can also be cloud-based and
so paid for by license, monthly.

Overall, digital marketing is an effective means of boosting sales in any industry. There are other means that can be
utilized, such as in-app advertising for mobile and social, but these are the most common now.

Introduction to Technopreneurship

What is a technopreneur?

We need to turn our local idea into a global tech business.

5
An Idea and two people

There are different types of companies involved, large companies that you and I sometimes dream to be
employees with. Look at the company logos below and see if you can think of what they all have in
common:

They were started by technopreneurs. They started out with an idea and two people. So I think you,
yourself, whoever is reading this can actually become a technopreneur. All you need is an idea, yourself
and a friend, because these large companies including Smart started with a few people. Focus on
technology and entrepreneurship.

Look at these faces below. Apple with Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, Intel with Gordon Moore and
Robert, Google with Sergey Brin and Larry Page. These are the faces of the people that started. They
actually didn’t know that their companies and ideas would be billion dollar companies, but what that did
they do? They started. So lesson number one, for everybody listening is that the first step to technology
entrepreneurship or entrepreneurship in general is to actually start. If you don’t start, then nothing will
happen. Right it’s just kind of logical.

Technology + Entrepreneurship =
Technopreneurship

• It is simply entrepreneurship in a
technology-intensive
context
• It is a process of merging technology

6
Technopreneur and the Economy

Three elements of the intellectual capital:

Human capital

• The skills, capabilities, and knowledge of the firm’s people.

Organizational capital

• The patents, technologies, processes, databases and networks

Social capital

• The quality of the relationships with customers, suppliers and partners

Entrepreneur Technopreneur
• Likes to compete • Likes to innovate
• Is a self-starter • Is part of a team
• Can do many things at once • Can do many things at once,
• Is creative, and has dreams and goals but chooses to delegate once, but chooses to delegate
• Likes to work for him or herself • Is innovative and has a greater vision
and be in control • Likes to be the one to control
• Is motivated by a strong desire to innovation and be part of an
achieve and attain financial success evolution
• Focuses his/her attention on the chances • Is motivated by a strong vision
of success rather than the possibility of
failure and his passion to innovate
• Takes failure in stride and knows
7
 it will lead to the chances of success rather than the
possibility of failure success if correction can be made
• Is able to determine risk and has the courage to take risks
• Is independent and self-confident, yet knows where to get help
• Likes a challenge
• Hardworking and willing to stick with a project
•Is a positive thinker who does dwell on setbacks
• Often has a close friend or relative who owns a business

Successful traits of technopreneur

• Integrity

• Leadership

• Impatient: bias toward action (with analysis)

• Quick clock speed

• Modest ego. Seeks and accepts coaching

• Willing to be different, but knows it (not oblivious)

• Pragmatic: willing to compromise

• Rejoices in other’s victories

• Driven to solve a valuable problem for customers

• Strong entrepreneurial intensity

• Willingness to incur the costs of growth

• Willingness to use wide range of financing sources

• Emphasis on a team-based organizing structure

• Focus on innovation

• Committed to commercialization of technology discovery

• Excellent communication skills

• Understand the value of business principles

• Formation and execution of a sound business plan

• Raising of money
• Building an organizational team