E-Business Report on HMV.CO.UK - Essay Example

"e-commerce is just, when all is said and done, another kind of business. As with businesses that have come before it, there are countless "right" answers, endless combinations of business models and infinite permutations of key themes and approaches. There will be no magic bullet. No matter how often consultants and academics pretend that business is more science than art, every practitioner knows that business is almost all art, just as the genius of nearly every corporate strategy lies in its implementation.

" (Rayport, 1999). Indeed, these are strong words that have to be taken seriously when it comes to doing business on the Web. The reason behind these truthful remarks lies in the fact that not long ago, shortly after the increasing popularity of the Internet as a new technology, the infamous "Dot-Com Bubble" made e-marketers think and act much more cautiously regarding the real potentialities of the new technology as a profit-making tool. Rayport states it as follows: "Business models themselves do not offer solutions; rather, how each business is run determines its success.

So the success of e-commerce businesses will hinge largely on the art of management even as it is enabled by the science of technology. The scarce resource will be, as it is in practically all of business, the building block of free enterprise: entrepreneurial, and increasingly managerial, talent." (Rayport, 1999). The "Dot-Com Bubble" sprang out of Amazon's new concept of dintermediation that would eventually make successful any online enterprise by eliminating the middleman. (InternetNews.Com, 2001).

The concept of reintermediation was not considered into the new marketing mix as InternetNews.Com states it clearly: "Disintermediation is not a myth, but it is just one half of a process that any significant change in technology brings about. The other half is reintermediation, the introduction and reshuffling of players in the supply chain. Access to suppliers and information resources has become easily available; expertise and service cannot be downloaded." (InternetNews.Com, 2001). In spite of the negative effects of the "Dot-Com Bubble", Teri Robinson (2002) finds some lasting benefits of the sudden crash in the e-market.

In her article published in E-Commerce Times, Robinson interviewed AMR Research analyst Louis Columbus who emphasised that the concept of integration surfaced to centre stage as a result of the "Dot-Com Bubble". Columbus said that "enterprises found that to develop a comprehensive e-commerce strategy, their applications had to work together seamlessly." (Robinson, 2002). The concept of integration is fundamental for any e-business model in the widest meaning of the word. It means integration at all levels of business operations.

On the other hand, Robinson finds other key indirect benefits that surfaced as a real issue as a result of the e-market crash known as the "Dot-Com Bubble":"Referring to the Internet as a once-in-a-generation