What is Electronic Commerce?

Definition Online Perspective "a way of executing business transactions such as ordering, invoicing and paying using electronic media" Business Process Perspective "application of technology towards the automation of business processes and workflow"

Broadly, electronic commerce can be defined as "any form of business transactions where interaction is done electronically rather than physically"

It is the application of technology to improve productivity in business processes, decrease cost, increase communication efficiency and to generate increasing business values.

Due to the ever-increasing supply capabilities, ever-increasing global competition and customer expectations, electronic commerce is a means of enabling and supporting such changes on a global basis. It provides the means and ability for companies to be more efficient and flexible in the internal operation and to work tightly with its suppliers to be more responsive to the needs and expectations of its customers.

Electronic Commerce as defined by the High Performance Computing and Communications Program, an initiative conducted by the Office of Science and Technology Policy, US is as follows :-

"Electronic Commerce integrates communications, data management, and security services, to allow business applications within different organisations to automatically interchange information. Communication services transfer the information from the originator to the recipient. Data management services define the interchange format of the information. Security services authenticate the source of information, verify the integrity of the information received by the recipient, prevent disclosure of the information to unauthorised users, and verify that the information was received by the intended recipient. Electronic commerce applies and integrates these infrastructure services to support business and commercial applications including financial transactions such as electronic bidding, ordering and payments, and exchange of digital product specifications and design data.