Mastering E-business

e-Business – business collaborations enabled through information and communication technologies – is an essential activity for any business organization and constitutes a significant and growing sector. This textbook presents an innovative teaching framework to help students gain a thorough understanding of the principles of this vital aspect of business and management.

Casting aside the over-complicated and narrow introductions of other textbooks, Grefen presents, analyzes and explains the principles of e-Business with refreshing clarity. The book covers both the business and technology aspects of this topic, using a unique framework integrating:




Business – focuses on why a specific e-Business scenario exists and how an organization can profit from it


Organization – analyzes how organizations and their processes are structured to achieve strategic goals


Architecture – explains the high level design of advanced information systems to describe how e-Business functions


Technology – examines the technological implementation of e-Business scenarios using a wide variety of ingredients from IT



Mastering e-Business offers a well-structured overview of all aspects of e-Business and is an essential read for all students and professionals interested in this central aspect of modern, global business.

Paul Grefen is a Professor at the School of Industrial Engineering at Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands. He has a rich background in research in information systems and e-business, cooperating with industry and academia. He has published many international journal and conference papers and several books.

1. Introduction 2. An e-Business Classification Space 3. The BOAT Framework 4. Business Aspect 5. Organization Aspect 6. Architecture Aspect 7. Technology Aspect 8. BOAT as an Analysis Instrument 9. Concluding Remarks