E-Business (For Information Technology class) Essay

E-Business (For Information Technology class) - Essay Example The bank's mission is to provide value added services to its customers in an efficient, timely, robust and reliable manner. It strives to become the bank of choice for its customers around the country. In order to achieve its mission objectives the bank needs to implement information technology bases systems to upgrade its current manual system which is tardy, slow, non-responsive and unreliable. This report is developed with a view to establish a framework for strategic IT direction for the bank. In addition, the rationale, extent, and timelines for implementing the information systems and technology within the bank have been identified and discussed. The purpose of the report is to establish a strategic plan for IT for the bank, to apprise higher management with the benefits and the value addition that IT provides to the business, the contemporary approaches to implementing IT based systems in financial industry and to provide recommendations customized to ABC Bank's operations. The report begins with an introduction of E-Business, describing the key areas and applications that this term covers; it then provides an insight into the latest IT trends in businesses; specifically banks around the globe. It is then followed up with the current issues and strategies that the businesses are adopting and dealing with in order to provide state of the art services to stakeholders. Suitable e-business systems are identified for the bank and recommendations are provided for IT managers to develop, acquire and implement e-business solutions. A tentative timeline for each strategic proposed solution is also provided. 3. BACKGROUND E-Business or Electronic Business, a termed introduced by Lou Gerstner (CEO of IBM), is defined as a business process that relies on automated information systems to function (Wikipedia.org, 2007). E-business is not just e-commerce, a technique for establishing and maintaining relationships with customers and suppliers online and over the internet; rather an e-business system spans over the entire value chain of the organization. It integrates the internal and external processes of the business. E-business applications can be generally divided into three categories namely (Wikipedia.org, 2007): Internal business systems (customer relationship management, enterprise resource planning, document management system, and human resource management); Enterprise communication and collaboration (VoIP - Voice Over IP, content management system, email, voice mail, web conferencing); and Electronic commerce (online marketing, internet shop, open catalog, supply chain management) The use of e-business techniques and applications allow the organizations, an ability to track resources, log expenses and revenues for proper