Electronic Commerce

• Which business models are relevant for the Internet;
• What are successful strategic approaches to marketing;
• What are appropriate related marketing programmes;
• How will electronic commerce develop in the future.

Business managers, researcher, MBA students, consultants and policy-makers look for a better understanding of electronic commerce in the Internet environment. They wish to learn from the experience of innovative companies involved in electronic commerce to understand how these identified new business opportunities and developed key elements of their marketing strategy like competitive positioning and the building of networked partnerships. There is also a need for a systematic approach and a set of tools to develop successful Internet marketing strategies and business models. Finally, there is a need to ‘imagine the future' through an in-depth analysis of possible scenarios for future business-to-business electronic commerce.

The book addresses those needs by providing :

• An overview of the opportunities to build key business assets with the Internet
• Detailed international case studies of competitive advantage building by innovative companies
• Electronic commerce business models, showing how companies organise their business and where their sources of revenues come from, within a systematic classification
• Marketing strategies of the companies in the case studies based on marketing concepts and economics, such as value chain analysis, competitive structure of industries, transaction cost theory, benefits segmentation, one-to-one marketing, etc.
• A set of new tools for the development of Internet marketing strategies, in particular for business-to-business electronic commerce
• An analysis of the challenge of strategy development in the turbulent and fast-moving Internet business
• Scenarios for the future of B-to-B electronic commerce that are analysed in great detail to understand future business strategies. The scenarios include value networks and dynamic markets, digital content business, convergence of B-to-B and B-to-C electronic commerce.

Although the number of books about electronic commerce is increasing rapidly there are still very few books that address business-to-business electronic commerce, which is remarkable as it is predicted that 80% of all electronic commerce will be between businesses rather than with consumers. With its focus on business-to-business electronic commerce, its strong basis in real-life international case studies and its use of strategic marketing and economics this book therefore attempts to fill a gap in the market for serious textbooks about electronic commerce.