WHAT IS E-BUSINESS E-business is more than a new form of electronic data exchange; it's about creating internet applications that in effect become virtual employees.  As you move toward becoming an e-business, your administrative functions change considerably.  Your customers, employees, and business partners can now do many things themselves by using Web based self-service tools.  Information is entered directly into the system and is automatically routed to the appropriate departments, managers and suppliers.  This streamlining of administrative duties frees up employees formally dedicated to paperwork and follow-up for more value-added tasks. Using self-service applications eliminates the need for an administrator between your customer, your suppliers, and your applications. These self-service applications eliminate wasted time entering data into the system and your employees can focus on using the data out of the systems to understand your customer better - what they bought, what problems they are having, what services they've required, whether they received their deliveries, etc.  Your employees can use all of this information to improve the customer experience and better serve and educate your customers.  By restructuring your lines of business applications, data is consolidated no matter the source and is managed more effectively on a single system.