advanced theory and practice in sport marketing - Marshalls University

ETHICS IN E-BUSINESS: SUSTAINABLE
KNOWLEDGE – Continued
$1 million and required 10 months to implement. Today one can purchase
the Google Server for under $50,000 and it requires only 6 minutes to install.
This is the contribution afforded to everyone during that technology boom,
benefits that are only now coming to light.
Now into the 21st century (2005), every type of American business is now
dependent on some form of information technology: credit card transactions,
supply chain, inventory control, etc. Most adults conduct some manner
of transactions via the Internet for travel, hotels, little league registration,
birthday wishes, and charitable donations. It has recently been suggested
that eBay has become the largest employer in the world, with its ecosystem
of buyers and sellers providing products via that portal.
With the ubiquity of technology enabling business transactions for even
the smallest stores and markets, when all business has become an e-business,
how can we specifically distinguish the term “e-business” today? The term
remains useful to help us understand our evolving information economy by
means of a more distinct definition: in an information economy, e-business is
that form of financially related exchange that is accompanied by aggregated
information – information about the customer, the supplier, and the product.
For example, according to this definition, a small site providing handcrafted
stationary via an online Web form may not be an e-business. It may simply
be a modern version of retail automation reminiscent of the vacuum tubes –
a more efficient method for buying and selling product. To be an “e-business”
by the above definition, the transaction must also be founded upon a secure
gathering of pertinent information that can be usefully reviewed and utilized
to further understand the exchange. In other words, as a part of the financial
transaction, there must be a transfer of knowledge.
In its simplest form, it may be the provision of basic contact information,
so that the next time the customer visits the site, their shipping address and
billing information are already provided by the underlying system. In more
complex transactional systems, this information becomes a valuable repository
of customer preferences, allowing for additional sales – of similar items,
additional software licenses, etc. Value increases (to the buyer and the seller)
as our knowledge of the transactions increases, allowing for in-depth analysis
of patterns and trends.
A basic diagram (Figure 1) demonstrates this definition of e-business. This
circular aspect of successful e-business ventures is wholly dependent on the
capability of the provider to capture, analyze, and utilize knowledge about
the interaction for the benefit of all parties involved. This sustainable knowledge
becomes an essential component of an institution’s ability to leverage a
single event’s information in multiple dimensions; indeed, the knowledge
about the initial transaction may prove to the more valuable than the actual
profit margin of that transaction over time.
Continued
SPORT E-BUSINESS AND E-COMMERCE 317