【正文】 is, in turn, creates many market opportunities for service providers and business partners as more businesses join the ranks in the march toward acquiring ebusiness capability. This article is for solution developers of smalltomedium businesses, who could be inhouse IT shops, services providers or business partners. It explains what you II文獻綜述 第 2 頁 as a solution provider can do to help a small or medium business meet its goal of being an ebusiness. Our IBM Software Group System House eExchange team has developed a solution based on this scenario. Based on our market research, we39。ll show how this pany can establish an Inter presence and progressively extend its reach in the marketplace to serve its customers more effectively. This article and subsequent articles in this series illustrate how IBM products and solutions, in particular the IBM Express Portfolio of products, can help you create and evolve such a solution. Each subsequent article in this series will expand on the concepts discussed in this introduction to explain how you can enable a small or medium pany for ebusiness. Smalltomedium business description What are the characteristics of a smalltomedium business? We define a midmarket, smalltomedium business as a pany with fewer than 1,000 employees. The typical pany has been in business for 17 years and has between six and ten branch offices. It is located in a suburban office park and uses local solution providers to build and maintain its IT solutions. The number of IT staff for any business scales with the size of the pany. On average, panies between 100 and 249 employees dedicate five staff members to ITrelated projects. This number sometimes exceeds 20 in panies between 500 and 999 employees. Business values Compared to large enterprises, a smaller business may have a limited budget for building adaptive, information technology infrastructures. With fewer resources, it needs tools and solutions that work out of the box, with minimal additional services. The most important business objectives are reducing operating costs, improving process efficiency, and demonstrating quick return on investment. Solution development, customization, and deployment must be rapid, lowering the cost of services. Ease of installation and upgrade are important too, and unwanted features must be avoided to keep cost and plexity in check. The time required to II文獻綜述 第 3 頁 implement such a solution should be measured in weeks and days, not months. At the same time, the solution needs to represent a petitive advantage. To help smaller panies attain these goals, solution providers look for features that enable easy installation and administration of their solutions. Products must be selfdiagnosing and selfcorrecting in response to user, environmental, and internal errors. They must also provide simple upgrade paths for increasing functions and migrating to new releases. All of these attributes reduce the training, technical expertise, and time mitments required of the end users in the SMB. Business context For this article, we39。s printed catalog and can purchase products from the business partners or place direct orders by mail, telephone, or fax. Several staff members maintain or interact with the IT system: An office manager, who administers information systems A business analyst, who maintains product information and monitors business results An order clerk, who enters customers39。 questions and concerns Figure 1 illustrates the interaction between the roles in the broader business context. II文獻綜述 第 4 頁 Figure 1. Business context diagram The Swish Swash Windshield Wiper Company wants to extend its business, enabling customers to browse catalogs and order online, while still maintaining a high level of customer service and interaction. At the same time, it want to connect with its suppliers and resellers electronically, integrating its backend processes and sharing data with these business partners. Once this is acplished, it wants to continually improve its site and capabilities to provide the best user experience for both customers and partners, and a petitive advantage for itself. Solution overview An infrastructure is the foundation of a business or anization, serving as the framework for internal and external munication, processes, and transactions. The infrastructure39。s existing IT infrastructure includes an intra, , and Inter access for conducting pany business. It uses packaged applications for HR management, order fulfillment, and inventory. The sales anization developed a simple database to maintain customer information. The solution includes ponents described in the following table. Refer to Solution overview for a diagram that shows relationships between these ponents. Component Description Web server Provides a Web server (HTTP server) with a servlet redirector. Separating the Web server from the application server improves performance and enhances security. Appli