Abstract

The Internet has dramatically changed our lives and the way we do business. With the innovation of e-commerce companies can reach customers and sell products almost instantaneously. As an outcome, e-commerce has grown tremendously and the rapid changes taking place in information technology in conjunction with the dynamic nature of the market provide rich opportunities for research. ;This research assesses emerging e-commerce technologies and the impact of these technologies on overall business processes. The methodology utilized is an analytic Delphi study where experts assessed the adoption of e-commerce technologies and the impacts of these technologies on overall business processes. Delphi offered a mechanism to make these assessments via a panel of experts and was the chosen methodology because the Internet is a relatively new technology and thus, sufficient historical data were not available to effectively utilize other traditional forecasting methodologies. Once the initial e-commerce technologies were identified via traditional Delphi, the Analytic Hierarchy Process was used to quantify experts' judgments. ;The research methodology required a team of twelve e-commerce experts to respond to three sets of research instruments. The experts for this study were chosen based on their: knowledge of emerging technologies, existing usage of e-commerce, development of e-commerce technologies, and understanding of existing business processes across functional groups. ;The results of the research were that experts identified seven major e-commerce technologies that are currently in use and will continue to be in use in their forecasting time horizon of two years: Email, ECRM Tools, E-Teleconferencing, B2C Tools, B2B Tools, M-Commerce, and Streaming Video. Experts also identified eight major business change agents based on the adoption of these e-commerce technologies: Improved Communication, Improved Product Development, Increased Overall Efficiency, Decreased Face-to-Face Interaction, Increased 240 Work, Decreased Overall Costs, Decreased Inventory, and Increased Telecommuting. ;The experts identified email as the most significant technology to impact overall business processes followed by ECRM tools. According to the panel, the major areas through which these technologies impacted overall business processes were improved communication and product development