3.1. Introduction

Organizations face many pressures as they seek to improve the services they deliver to their markets. By far the most compelling motivation for many organizations is the need to participate in the e-business revolution.

The e-Business Revolution

Much has been written about the current changes taking place in the business practices of many organizations as a result of the e-business revolution [1, 2]. Taken in its broadest sense, e-business is the transformation of key business processes through the use of Internet technologies. The hype around this transformation is so extreme that it is essential to ask the question, "Is the Internet really revolutionizing the business world?"

The answer is an emphatic "yes!" Organizations ...

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