Building e-Business Capabilities in Canada - Glossary              Index: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z  Business Support and Financing  Building e-business Capabilities in Canada E-Business GlossaryAffiliate: Companies that sell other manufacturers' or retailers' (sponsoring merchants) productson their Web sites. Users select a product at the affiliate Web site, but the sale is actuallytransacted at the sponsoring merchant's Web site. Affiliates are similar in concept to industry-based manufacturer representatives that sell multiple manufacturers' product lines.Agent: Software that acts as an intermediary for a person by performing some activity. Agentscan "learn" an individual's preferences and act in the person's best interest and may evennegotiate and complete transactions. A purchasing manager's agent may learn corporatespecifications, determine when inventory is low and search the Internet for the lowest-costsupplier.Aggregator: Enables buyers within a market to select among various competitors byaggregating information about the market and its suppliers and providing this information via aWeb site. Aggregators may provide decision-support applications that integrate supplierinformation with third-party information and with user requirements or preferences to allowusers to differentiate services and features of the various competitors. Content aggregatorsaggregate information and match it to user preferences. These preferences may be declaredactively (user explicitly specifies) or passively (software discerns preferences from userbehavior or interest) and are used to filter aggregated content and deliver only what matchesuser preferences.Application Service Provider (ASP): ASPs aggregate, facilitate and broker IT services todeliver IT-enabled business solutions across a network via subscription-based pricing.Available to Promise (ATP): The uncommitted portion of a company's inventory or plannedproduction. ATP is maintained as a tool for promising orders to buyers.Auction: An electronic market, which can exist in both a business-to-business and business-to-consumer context. Sellers offer products or services to buyers through a Web site with astructured process for price-setting and fulfillment. Web auctions may follow English, Dutch,reverse-bid or sealed-bid processes.Banner: An advertisement that appears on a Web site. The ad format is a "banner," acombination of graphic and textual content entreating the Web site user to "click through" forfurther information on the advertised product or service."Brick and Mortar": Describes a traditional company with no Web channels as a sales outletfor its products or services.Browser: A software program used to locate and display information on an intranet, extranet orthe Internet. Browsers are most often used to access Web pages. Most browsers can displaygraphics, photographs and text; multimedia information such as sound and video may requireadditional software called "plug-ins."Business-to-Business Commerce (B2B): Using electronic interactions to conduct businessamong enterprises, typically as a result of formal, contractual arrangements. B2B functionsinclude sophisticated Web authorization and control (WAC) for delivery of sensitive price,contract and content information for each partner; catalogs that provide custom views based onaccess control and parametric search for serious business buyers; and order entry functions suchas standardized "ship to" locations, dynamic order recalculation and payment options.Business-to-Consumer Commerce (B2C): Using electronic interactions to conduct businesswith consumers. B2C may include formal relationships (e.g., customers with assets under careor with subscription services or content) and ad hoc relationships (formed in real time to enablea new user to buy, sell or access information).Business Intelligence (BI): An interactive process of analyzing and exploring structured,domain-specific information (often stored in a data warehouse) to discern trends or patterns,thereby deriving insights and drawing conclusions. The BI process includes communicatingfindings and effecting change. BI domains include customers, products, services or competitors.Business Process Re-Engineering (BPR): Fundamental analysis and radical redesign ofbusiness processes and management systems to achieve dramatic change or performanceimprovement. BPR uses objective, quantitative methods and tools to analyze, redesign andtransform business processes including their supporting organization structures, informationsystems, job responsibilities and performance standards.Buy Side: Processes for companies to purchase products. Includes requisitioning, productcatalogs, approvals, user identification, purchase order creation, payment processing andintegration to other systems. Processes occurring upstream from the company with tradingpartners, suppliers, etc."Click and Mortar": Describes a company with physical outlets as well as an on-line presencefor the sale of its products or services.Clickthru: A clickthru occurs when a web site visitor responds to a banner or otheradvertisement by clicking on the advert. Advertisers pay websites additional fees based on thenumber of clickthru's per unit time.Collaborative Commerce (C-Commerce): The collaborative, electronically enabled businessinteractions among an enterprise's internal personnel, business partners and customersthroughout a trading community. The trading community could be an industry, industrysegment, supply chain or supply chain segment..com: an Internet only entity. .coms can be created by traditional brick and mortar entities orby independent entities. Examples: amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com (barnesandnoble.com isa separate legal entity from the physical book retailer.)Commerce Service Provider (CSP): Service providers that specialize in Web-enabled e-commerce services, as well as those offering specific software or outsourcing support for theseservices.Community: A constantly changing group of people collaborating and sharing their ideas overan electronic network (e.g., the Internet). Communities optimize their collective power byaffiliation around a common interest, by the compression of the time between memberinteractions (i.e., communicating in real time), and by asynchronous "postings" whichpotentially reach more participants and allow for more reflection time than real-timeinteractions.Competitive Intelligence (CI): Analysis of an enterprise's marketplace to understand what ishappening, what will happen and what it means to the firm. CI business goals may be offensive:to confidently position the firm in the marketplace, to plot a course for future positioning and toallocate short- and long-term resources; or defensive: to know what is happening, what mayhappen and how to react.Content Provider: A firm whose products are information-based (content), including servicesto access and manage the content.Cookies: Small files that are automatically downloaded from a Web server to the computer ofsomeone browsing a Web site. Information stored in cookies can then be accessed any time thatcomputer returns to the site. Cookies allow Web sites to "personalize" their appearance byidentifying visitors, storing passwords, tracking preferences, and other possibilities.CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture): It can be tough to get computersand software to talk to each other, particularly if the products use different operating systems andarchitectures. The OMG's (Object Management Group) CORBA standard, established in 1991,provides a set of common interfaces through which object-oriented software can communicate,regardless of computer platform..corp: a bricks and mortar AND Internet entity operating together/in parallel. .corps are usuallycreated by traditional brick and mortar entities as a response to on-line retailers. Example: TheGap and gap.com.Customer Relationship Management (CRM): A technology-enabled strategy to convert data-driven decisions into business actions in response to, and in anticipation of, actual customerbehavior. From a technology perspective, CRM represents the systems and infrastructurerequired to capture, analyze and share all facets of the customer's relationship with theenterprise. From a strategy perspective, it represents a process to measure and allocateorganizational resources to those activities that have the greatest return and impact on profitablecustomer relationships.Demand Aggregators: A term used to describe operators who 'collect' demand fromconsumers for a particular item. Priceline.com (airline tickets, hotel rooms, etc.) andAdauction.com (advertising space) are examples. These companies allow consumers to obtaindiscounts to market prices and allow sellers to sell what might otherwise go unsold and 'see'the latent demand for their goods/services that exists below the established price points.Digital Cash: A system that allows a person to pay for goods or services by transmitting anumber from one computer to another. Like the serial numbers on real dollar bills, the digitalcash numbers are unique. Each one is issued by a bank and represents a specified sum of realmoney. One of the key features of digital cash is that, like real cash, it is anonymous andreusable. That is, when a digital cash amount is sent from a buyer to a vendor, there is no way toobtain information about the buyer. This is one of the key differences between digital cash andcredit card systems. Another key difference is that a digital cash certificate can be reused.Digital Wallet: A digital token downloaded and stored on a PC used by a consumer duringInternet shopping. Using the token during a buying process initiates a customer profile download(credit card information, the shipping and billing addresses, etc) into the purchase form as well ascreating a record of information about the transaction. For consumers, the initial valueproposition behind the wallet is to make it ease of transaction by putting an end to filling outforms. Advanced uses of the wallet include storing shopper preferences, alerting the consumer tospecial offers, alerting the consumer to better pricing for an item at another site, alerting theconsumer his car is in need of an oil change, etc.Discount Rate: A percentage fee paid to the merchant account provider or ISO (independent service organization) for handling an electronic transaction. Most Web merchants pay betweentwo and 10 percent of their revenue from online credit card or electronic check orders.Domain Name: A unique identifier for an Internet site which consists of at least two (butsometimes more) parts separated by periods (e.g., http://www.info-edge.com). Enterprises mustregister top-level domains with the Web Internet Registry and pay a yearly fee to maintain theregistry. E Business: Any Internet- or network- enabled business activity that transforms internal andexternal relationships to create value and exploit market opportunities driven by new rules of the'connected economy'.Electronic Commerce (E-Commerce, EC): The use of communication technologies totransmit business information and transact business. Taking an order over the telephone is asimple form of EC. Internet commerce is also EC, but is only one of several advanced forms ofEC that use technology, integrated applications and business processes to link enterprises.Electronic Catalog (E-Catalog): An aggregation mechanism that presents goods or services forsale and enables users to buy goods or services in electronic marketplaces.Electronic Data Interchange (EDI): The electronic exchange of trading documents (e.g.,invoices and orders) to enable e-commerce. Originally conducted only through value-addednetworks, EDI is gradually moving to the Internet.E-Mall: A Web site that maintains catalogs from multiple suppliers. Buyers enter the site, viewmany suppliers at once and purchase products or services. E-malls often charge a fee fortenancy or membership, may take title to the goods themselves, and are selling environmentsbased on traditional notions of print and broadcast advertising that entice visitors to buy.E-Market Maker: Intermediaries that develop a B2B e-marketplace of buyers and sellerswithin an industry, geographic region or affinity group. They enter supply chains introducingnew efficiencies and new ways of selling and purchasing products and services by providingcontent, value-added services, and often e-commerce capabilities. They are generally managedby a third party within a trading community.E-Marketplace: A Web site that enables buyers to select from many suppliers. E-marketplaces-- which focus on putting the buyer in control -- are buying environments that aggregatesupplier content and provide decision support tools that enable a buyer to make the mostinformed decision.Employee Self-Service (ESS): Electronic services for employees to access or edit informationpreviously controlled by an internal support staff. Examples are procurement (ordering supplies)or human resources (training registration or update of benefit choices).Extranet: A collaborative, Internet-based network to link an enterprise with its suppliers,customers or other external business partners and to facilitate intercompany relationships.Extranets use Internet-derived applications and technology to become the secured extensions ofinternal business processes to external business partners.Frictionless Commerce/Frictionless Economy: According to theory, the Internet is a nearlyperfect market because information is instantaneous and buyers can compare the offerings ofsellers worldwide. The result is fierce price competition, dwindling product differentiation, andvanishing brand loyalty. Real world evidence casts doubts on the validity of this theory. Positive Feedback Markets, Demand Side and Supply Side Economies of Scale, and Lock Inand Switching Costs are concepts that rebut the notion of Frictionless Commerce.Functional Hub: A B2B hub focusing on a specific business function or process acrossindustries. Functional hubs focus on MRO purchasing, employee benefits administration,logistics, etc. and provide deep process or functional expertise for customers.Hit: A Website 'visit' from a site visitor. Different statistical packages count hits differently,which creates confusion about how many users actually visit a given site. This can be a problemas Websites determine fees for advertisers.Holdback: A portion of the revenue from a merchant's credit card transactions, held in reserveby the merchant account provider to cover possible disputed charges, chargeback fees, and otherexpenses. After a predetermined time, holdbacks are turned over to the merchant. Note: Merchant account providers almost never pay interest on holdbacks. Hub: An electronic marketplace facilitating e commerce by aggregating buyers and sellers andacting as the transaction intermediary.Hybrid Business: A brick-and-mortar business that has responded to Internet threats bycreating a Web front end with links to back-end systems; or a dot.com (virtual company) that iscreating traditional infrastructure, such as a warehouse and logistics system, to meet customerexpectations.Impression: A banner, pop-up, or other advertisement on a portal, or website. Advertisers paythe website on an impressions per unit time basis. 1000 impressions per day. (this definition isin question)Intellectual Assets: Intangible assets including employees' knowledge; data and informationabout processes, experts, products, customers and competitors; brand names and image; andintellectual property, such as patented, trademarked or copyrighted materials and regulatorylicenses.Interactive Relationship Managers (IRM): Infomediaries that collect user data based onsurfing habits of ISP customers and tailor marketing/promotional programs according to whatthose customers might like or need.Internet Sales Outlet (ISO): A third-party Web site that attracts visitors looking to buy goodsor services. ISOs make money by selling links or ads that lead directly to the merchant Websites, or by selling products or services on behalf of Web merchants.Independent Service Organization (ISO): A firm or organization that offers to process onlinecredit card transactions, usually in exchange for transaction fees or a percentage of sales.Merchants must generally establish a merchant account before contracting for ISOservices,although some ISOs claim not to require separate merchant accounts.Issuing Bank: The bank that maintains the consumer's credit card account and must pay out tothe merchant's account in a credit card purchase. The issuing bank then bills the customer for thedebt.Java: A programming language frequently used on Web sites. Some Java programs, or "applets"are downloaded from the Web server to the visitor's own computer, which then runs them. Thisdistinguishes Java programs from other Web programming languages, such as PERL, that resideand run on the Web server (only the results are downloaded to the visitor's computer).JPEG (or JPG): A file format used for storing graphic images, usually photographs. JPEG filesare larger than GIFs of the same image but offer better color control and clarity. See also GIF.Knowledge Management (KM): A business process that formalizes management and leverageof a firm's intellectual assets. KM is an enterprise discipline that promotes a collaborative andintegrative approach to the creation, capture, organization, access and use of information assets,including the tacit, uncaptured knowledge of people.Mail Order / Telephone Order Discount Rate (MOTO Discount Rate): The discount ratecharged by the merchant account provider for credit card transaction in which the actual creditcard was not available to the merchant. MOTO discount rates are generally higher than swipediscount rates to account for the increased chance of fraud or nonpayment.Maintenance, Repair and Operations (MRO): The activities and material purchased tosupport activities associated with the operation and repair of any facility, equipment or asset. Companies enter into contracts with functional hubs to outsource MRO procurement.MAP (Merchant Account Provider): A bank or other institution that hosts merchant accountsand processes online credit card transactions. The term is also often used broadly to include anycredit card processing service, including ISOs.Market of One: Continuous customization of the content, services and interactions with acustomer to deliver exactly what he or she needs and to create the sense that he or she is amarket of one.Market Spoilers or Market Killers: Web-based businesses that aggregate information about amarket and its suppliers, present the aggregated information to consumers via a Web site, andincreasingly offer decision support to allow customers to differentiate based on independentvalidation of competitors' services and features. These businesses diminish the advantage ofsuppliers that compete through brand identity or reputation.Matchmakers: Web sites that refer a buyer to a Web merchant willing to sell a good or serviceat the price specified by the buyer.Merchant Account: A bank account established by a merchant to receive the proceeds of creditcard purchases. By establishing a merchant account, the merchant bank agrees to pay themerchant for valid credit card purchases in exchange for the right to collect on the debt owed bythe consumer.Merchant Bank: A bank that holds a merchant account . After a consumer buys a product usinga credit card, the merchant bank places funds into a merchant account in exchange for the right tocollect on the debt owed by a consumer. See also merchant account provider .Merchant Services Provider: A bank, ISO , or other firm that provides services for processingfinancial transactions, usually credit card sales. Many MSPs provide merchant accounts , whileothers require their clients to establish merchant accounts on their own. Some MSPs claim thatthey do not require merchant accounts; this may indicate factoring, which is illegal in manyareas. See also holdback .Micro-Marketplace (MM): A narrowly focused market that aggregates multiple vendorofferings, content and value-added services (such as comparison of features) to enable buyerswithin a particular industry, geographic region or affinity group to make informed purchasingdecisions.Micropayment: Very small charges, perhaps even less than a penny, processed through e-commerce systems. Until this time, e-commerce has been largely limited to purchases of $10(U.S.) or more. With micropayments, however, e-commerce merchants can sell products for farlower prices, such as charging small fees for downloading documents or charging per click foronline advertising. Micropayment systems are still largely experimental and not widely available. Personalization: Using continually adjusted user profiles to match content or services toindividuals. Personalization includes determining a user's interest based on his or herpreferences or behavior, constructing business rules to select relevant content based on thosepreferences or behaviors, and presenting the content to the user in an integrated, cohesiveformat.Portal: A high-traffic, broadly appealing Web site with a wide range of content, services andvendor links. It acts as a value-added middleman by selecting the content sources andassembling them together in a simple-to-navigate (and customize) interface for presentation tothe end user. Portals typically include services such as e-mail, community and chat.Public Key Encryption: A method of encrypting electronic data. Developed to account forweaknesses in symmetric encryption, public key encryption does not require the transmission ofdecoding keys themselves.Profile: A definition of customer preferences, behaviors or demographics.Sell Side: Processes for companies to sell their products, including catalogs, transactionprocessors, payment processors, and supply chain management methods and tools. Processesoccurring downstream from the company with trading partners, distributors, end consumers, etc.SET (Secure Electronic Transaction): A system for encrypting e-commerce transactions, suchas online credit card purchases. Developed by Visa, MasterCard, Microsoft, and several majorbanks, SET combines 1,024-bit encryption with digital certificates to ensure security. SET is stillin development.SSL (Secure Socket Layer): A system for encrypting data sent over the Internet, including e-commerce transactions and passwords. With SSL, client and server computers exchange publickeys, allowing them to encode and decode their communication.Sticky: A website quality referring to the amount of time a visitor stays at the site. A sticky siteis one with longer than average visit times. An average web page visit is five minutes.Streaming: Technology that allows the user to play audio or video as the audio/video data isdownloading.Supply Chain Management (SCM): The process of optimizing delivery of goods, services andinformation from supplier to customer. SCM is a set of business processes that encompasses atrading-partner community engaged in a common goal of satisfying the end customer.Uniform Resource Locator (URL): The character string or Web address that identifies anInternet document's exact name and location.Vertical Hub: A B2B hub focusing on a vertical market or industry. Vertical hubs focus onenergy, steel, telecommunications, paper, plastics, etc and provide deep domain-specific contentand domain-specific relationships for customers.Virtual Company: A company integrating several ideals: outsourced noncore competencies; afocus on core strength/business; little or no physical presence or infrastructure; a network ofbusiness alliances; the exploitation of intellectual capital; and a heavy reliance ontelecommunications. Virtual companies have outsourced the physical processes andadministrative attributes of traditional business, and expanded and combined intellectualactivities (e.g., problem solving) with standard business processes such as marketing.Web Site: A collection of files accessed through a Web address, covering a particular theme orsubject, and managed by a particular person or organization. Its opening page is called a homepage. A Web site resides on servers connected to the Web network and is able to format andsend information requested by worldwide users 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Web sitestypically use the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) to format and present information and toprovide navigational facilities that make it easy for the user to move within the site and aroundthe Web.XML: Extensible Mark-up Language. Last Modified: Important notices and disclaimers Privacy Statement  http://strategis.gc.ca |
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