An e-business glossary

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An e-business glossary
An A-Z guide to the key e-business terms and their meaning.
Adhocracy: A non-bureaucratic networked organization with a
highly organic organizational design.
Affiliate marketing: Pioneered by the likes of Amazon and CDNow,
anybody with a website can sign up with them as a sales affiliate and
receive a commission (typically 5%-15%) for any sales that are chan-
neled through the affiliate site.
Anoraknophobia: An exaggerated, irrational fear of computers and
the Internet. It derives from ‘anorak,’ a term once used to describe a
person with trainspotting tendencies but which has evolved to
embrace people obsessed with technology.
Bricks and mortar: Companies that use traditional methods of selling
and distributing products.
Browser: A software application that allows people to surf the web.
Some of the most popular web browsers right now are Internet
Explorer, Firefox and Safari.
Business process re-design: This involves changing both organi-
zational structure and processes to ensure that future customer needs
can be anticipated and fulfilled in the most cost-effective manner. This
is generally known as business process re-design. It should not be
confused with crude cost-cutting exercises (such as downsizing)
although many organizations have used both approaches simulta-
neously, with the result that the value of process redesign has been
permanently tarnished in the eyes of many managers.
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Choiceboards: Interactive, online systems that let people design their
own products from a menu of attributes, prices and delivery options.
Clusters: Critical masses of linked industries in one place that enjoy
a high level of success in their particular field. Famous examples are
Silicon Valley and Hollywood but clusters can be found everywhere.
According to Michael Porter, clusters can affect competition in three
ways:
1. by increasing the productivity of companies based in the area
2. by driving the direction and speed of innovation in their field
3. by stimulating the formation of new businesses within the
cluster.
Source: Derived from an article entitled ‘Clusters and the New
Economics of Competition’ by Michael Porter, Harvard Business
Review, November–December 1998.
Cluster geeking: The process by which devoted fans of anything from
Dr Who to Lego bricks form internet communities to pursue their
particular passion.
Communities of practice: Groups that form within an organization,
typically of their own accord, where members are drawn to one other
by a common set of needs that may be both professional and social.
Compared to project teams, communities of practice are voluntary,
longer-lived, have no specific deliverable, and are responsible only
to themselves. Because they are free of formal strictures and hierar-
chy within an organization, they can be viewed as subversive.
Competitive advantage: John Kay, following in the footsteps of
Michael Porter, defines competitive advantage as: ‘The application
of distinctive capability to a specific market place differentiating an

organization from its competitors and allowing it to achieve above
average returns in that market’.
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Competitive convergence: This is what happens when companies
are drawn towards imitation and homogeneity. The result is often static
or declining prices and downward pressures on costs that compro-
mise companies’ ability to invest in the business in the long term.
Competitive intelligence: In a world of rapid technological change
where new and sometimes surprising competitors can suddenly
appear, a company’s success will increasingly depend on how effec-
tively it can gather, analyze and use information. According to Larry
Kahaner, author of a book on the subject, companies that can turn
raw information into powerful intelligence will ‘build market share,
launch new products, increase profits and destroy competitors’.
Confusion marketing: A process described by the UK Consumer
Association as the way in which some businesses are seeking to deny
customers the means of making an informed choice by swamping
them with an excess of confusing price information. The intention is
clear – to make price comparisons with rivals impossible in practi-
cal terms. The hope is that customers will give up in frustration and
stay with, or move to, well-known companies or brands. Customers
signing up for a mobile phone or obtaining a mortgage for a house
purchase in the UK are facing confusion marketing tactics.
Core competents: The small number of people in an organization
who are absolutely vital to that organization’s success. Bill Gates has
reflected that if 20 people were to leave Microsoft, the company would
risk bankruptcy. In a study by the Corporate Leadership Council, a

computer firm recognized 100 ‘core competents’ out of 16,000 employ-
ees; a software company had 10 out of 11,000; and a transportation
group deemed 20 of its 33,000 as really critical.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM): A set of techniques
and approaches designed to a provide personalized service to
customers and to increase customer loyalty. Increasingly viewed as a
strategic issue, and one that typically requires technological support.
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Cyberspace: Term originally coined by William Gibson in his book
Neuromancer. Now generally used to describe the notional social arena
we ‘enter’ when using computers to communicate.
Data marts: Scaled-down version of a data warehouse containing
specific information of interest to a particular target group.
Data mining: The process of using advanced statistical tools to iden-
tify commercially useful patterns or relationships in databases.
Data warehouse: A database that can access all of a company’s
information.
Discontinuities: One-off changes in the market place that force radical
change, e.g. Amazon’s entry into the book market place.
Disintermediation: Buzzword for how the internet is cutting out the
middlemen, enabling wholesalers/manufacturers to sell direct to the
end user. Classic potential victims of disintermediation are estate agents
and travel agents.
Domain name: Unique internet address used to identify a website,
e.g. www.futurefilter.com
e-business: Using the internet or other electronic means to conduct
business. The two most common models are B2C (Business-to-

Consumer) and B2B (Business-to-Business). Partly due to news
coverage given to high profile companies like Amazon, B2C is the
better known model; on the other hand, B2B is growing faster than
its more glamorous cousin.
e-by gum: A term to describe the quaint practice of sending a message
via the traditional postal service using a sealed envelope.
e-commerce: Commercial activity conducted via the internet.
Ego surfing: Looking on the web for occurrences of one’s own name.
e-lancers: independent contractors connected through personal
computers and electronic networks. These electronically connected
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freelancers – e-lancers – join together into fluid and temporary
networks to produce and sell goods and services.
e-tailing: Retail strategy based on selling and order processing via
the web.
e-zines: The online equivalent of print-based newsletters and
magazines.
Eyeballs: A measure of the number of visits made to a website.
Globalization: The integration of economic activity across national
or regional boundaries, a process that is being accelerated by the
impact of information technology.
Going dot.com: The trend that started in the US of leaving a well-
paid job to join an internet organization.
HTML: Abbreviation for Hypertext Markup Language, a computer
language, the one that most web pages are currently written in.
Infomediary: A company or individual that makes money by bridg-
ing the gap between companies’ need for capture of detailed customer

information and customers’ desire for protection of such informa-
tion from exploitation by companies.
Informate: Term coined by Harvard academic Shoshana Zuboff to
describe the capacity for information technology to translate and make
visible organizational processes, objects, behaviours and events.
Intellectual capital: Intellectual material – knowledge, information,
intellectual property, experience – that can be put to use to create wealth.
In a business context, the sum total of what employees in an organ-
ization know that gives it a competitive edge.
The Internot: Business executives or organizations that see no value
from getting online. The term was devised by psychologist David Lewis,
who also coined the phrase ‘road rage” to describe when motoring
frustration spills over. Research conducted by Lewis suggests that
about half of all managers are Internots.
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Intranet: A network designed to organize and share information that
is accessible only by a specified group or organization.
ISP: Abbreviation for Internet Service Provider, the party that connects
users to the internet.
Killer app: A new good or service that establishes an entirely new
category and, by being first, dominates it, returning several hundred
percent on the initial investment.
Knowledge management: A system, normally computer-based, to
share information in a company with the goal of increasing levels of
responsiveness and innovation. It may be tacit (inside the heads of
individual staff-members, and possibly including personal experience,
intuition, belief and values) or explicit (what has or can be written

down, including technical specifications, procedures, training manuals,
financial and management information).
Mass customization: Cost-efficient mass production of goods and
services in lot sizes of one or just a few at a time as a matter of routine.
m-commerce: David Potter, Chairman of Psion, predicts that elec-
tronic commerce, today conducted largely via internet connected
desk-tops will soon be overtaken by mobile (or m-) commerce using
mobile phone technology.
Meme: An idea, behaviour, or skill that can be transferred from one
person to another by imitation. Examples include the way in which
we copy ideas, inventions, songs, catch-phrases and stories from one
another. In a wired global economy, memes will have the capability
of spreading at astonishing speeds.
Netiquette: A system of tacit codes encouraging members of the on-
line community to uphold certain standards of behavior.
Net generation: A term coined by Don Tapscott to describe the first
generation – now in their early teens to mid-twenties – to grow up
surrounded by digital media.
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New capitalism: A term coined by Robert Reich, former US Secre-
tary for Labor, to characterize how the chief assets of new economy
companies are intellectual assets rather than traditional assets like
machinery, buildings etc.
One-to-one marketing: Customizing and personalizing a product
or service to meet an individual’s specific needs.
Out of the garage: A term for a young company that has just moved
to its first real office.

Portal: Web page that serves as a start-point or central directory for
a range of internet services.
Product overlap: This occurs when more than one generation of the
same product is available simultaneously. For example, the original
version of a piece of software may sell at a reduced price alongside
the latest version at a higher price.
Push technology: The delivery of news and multimedia information
via the world wide web to personal computers on people’s desks. The
Web is basically a ‘pull’ medium. Users decide what they want, point
their browsers at the relevant website and then pull the designated
pages back to their PCs.
Silver surfers: A term used to denote older members of the popu-
lation who are comfortable ‘surfing’ the internet for information and
services.
Spam: In a phrase, junk e-mail – unwanted messages sent to unin-
terested recipients.
Sticky content: The term refers to whether a website is alluring enough
to ‘catch’ visitors as they go flying past. Until recently, most compa-
nies have concentrated their website efforts on increasing the flow
of traffic to their site. Companies are now realizing that the empha-
sis needs to be less on attracting visitors on a one-off basis, and more
on enticing visitors to stay, return again and even tell their friends.