BMIS 2678 - Electronic Commerce

From Information Systems at Pitt Business

Electronic Commerce
BMIS 2678
Credits:	3.0
Prerequisites:	BMIS 2411 or instructor permission

[edit] Course Descrpition

Electronic commerce is at the forefront of modern operations, marketing and strategy. Over the Internet, electronic commerce accounts for billions of dollars in transactions. Trillions of dollars move daily through private, non-Internet electronic commerce systems such as SWIFT. Competition and cooperation between firms of all sizes have been changed forever. There are new media outlets like iTunes and YouTube. There are huge online communities like Facebook and MySpace. There are new models of collaboration like Wiki and Blogs. While these are creating and reshaping industries and opportunities, long-existing business models such as those employed the music industry are failing.

E-Commerce is no longer a new phenomenon. It is totally mainstream. The incredible hype of the late-90's has been largely discredited and forgotten as the business world has moved from "irrational exhuberance" to real, practical and profitable utilization of network and computer capabilities. That e-commerce is now the norm does not, however, mean that there are not important aspects of the 21st century business environment that differ markedly from the prior century. Significant innovation continues.

In the late 90's, a course in E-Commerce would have spent considerable time teaching students about HTML and building web-pages. Another project would likely have been to propose a business plan for a new, pure-play Internet-based company.

Just ten years later, the technologies that enable e-commerce have grown far beyond HTML -- indeed they have become enormously complex. And just ten years later, the sophistication, complexity and diversity of business models that enable businesses to leverage e-commerce have advanced as much -- if not more -- than the technologies that support them. These 21st century business models are often quite different from the e-commerce models of the dot-com boom. It is also now far more probable that students will be involved with an existing business looking at new ways to leverage e-commerce than starting a whole new online enterprise -- though certainly that still could happen.

This course is designed to familiarize students with important aspects of the business world that are changing as a result of technology and the Internet, and from a managerial perspective focus on issues related to e-commerce such as:

• 21st century business models
• strategy development
• competitive advantage
• current and emerging technologies
• pricing, distribution, and promotion
• new revenue streams and cost structures