The Impact of the Internet on Business Processes

Abstract

The Internet has the potential to deliver a unique set of business benefits over and above existing IT technologies. There are a number of reasons for this:

• It is simple to use compared to most of the application software that we normally encounter in the business environment. This ease of use spans the different types of computer and operating system which an organisation may be using.

• It has breadth of access both geographically and in terms of the range of people who are now able to connect and use its services. This huge increase in the number of users has been fuelled by the charging model, which is both time and distance independent, and the way in which it has become a service aimed at consumers as much as to the business community.

• It has a synergistic effect when supporting existing paper, radio and TV media formats. While there will always be changes in the relative popularity of various media delivery methods the evidence to date shows the Internet extending rather than substituting for existing technologies. This factor will change if organisations can completely abandon other types of media. For most businesses this is not a possible alternative.