Where Is E-Business Going?

All business functions from the front office (e.g., sales, marketing, customer service) to the back office (e.g., accounting, manufacturing, logistics/distribution/delivery) will continue to be automated, primarily via software that is built on or takes advantage of Web technologies. Closing of sales, payment, and delivery of product will occur electronically, especially for products that are created in digital media (e.g., music, books, videos, reports, financials, etc.). Potential customers will to a greater extent be able to participate in their own “lead qualification” process by filling out an online form or survey, the results of which are analyzed by e-business software and fed back to the potential customer in real-time (where applicable).

E-business will be augmented by customer self-service and e-service applications that allow customers to find information about products/services without or with the assistance of live human customer service agents. Customer expectations regarding the availability of information about their respective purchases via e-commerce, will definitely increase. If a product or service is not being offered through e-business, customers will question why this is not so, because they expect the e-business environment of rapid results. This applies for business-to-business as well as business-to-consumer transactions. In addition, customers will expect that any organization that the customer does business with will have CRM systems, which will capture all transaction-based, permission-based, and observation-based knowledge and make this information available to any “customer touch-points” so that a company presents a unified voice to the customer.

E-business is blurring the lines that divide business departments and functions such as manufacturing, marketing, sales, and distribution. Advances in the development of XML and other Web-centric languages, architectures, and systems will further facilitate movement of data across the Web. Nonetheless, the integration of people, process, and technology between remains the key to success for e-business and CRM.