Digital Business and E-Commerce Management 6e by Chaffey

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Digital Business and E-Commerce Management 6e by Chaffey is the sixth edition of the Digital Business and E-commerce Management: Strategy, Implementation and Practice textbook authored by Chaffey, Dave by Pearson Education Limited, Harlow, United Kingdom in 2015.

The copyright belongs to Dave Chaffey and Marketing Insights Limited.

  • AB testing. A/B or AB testing refers to testing two different versions of a page or a page element such as a heading, image or button for effectiveness. The alternatives are served alternately with the visitors to the page randomly split between the two pages. Changes in visitor behaviour can then be compared using different metrics such as clickthrough rate on page elements like buttons or images or macro-conversion rates, such as conversion to sale or sign-up.
  • Acceptable-use policy. Statement of employee activities involving use of networked computers that are not considered acceptable by management.
  • Accessibility. An approach to website design that enables sites and web applications to be used by people with visual impairment or other disabilities such as motor impairment. Accessibility also demands that web users should be able to use websites and applications effectively regardless of the browser and access platform they use and its settings.
  • Accessibility legislation. Legislation intended to protect users of websites with disabilities, including those with visual disability.
  • Acquisition method. Defines whether the system is purchased outright or developed from scratch.
  • Activity-based process definition methods. Analysis tools used to identify the relationship between tasks within a business process.
  • Actors. People, software or other devices that interface with a system. See Use-case.
  • Ad serving. The term for displaying an advertisement on a website. Often the advertisement will be served from a web server different from the site on which it is placed.
  • Adaptive mobile web design. Generally a more sophisticated approach than Responsive web design that involves delivering an experience optimised for handsets targeted and splits the code and processing to render on different devices between the client and the server.
  • Affiliate. A company promoting a merchant typically through a commission-based arrangement either directly or through an affiliate network.
  • Affiliate marketing. A commission-based arrangement where an e-tailer pays sites that link to it for sales, leads (CPA-based) or less commonly visitors (CPC-based).
  • Affiliate networks. An e-tailer pays commission on sales referred from other sites.
  • Agents. Software programs that assist humans by automatically gathering information from the Internet or exchanging data with other agents based on parameters supplied by the user.
  • Aggregated buying. A form of customer union where buyers collectively purchase a number of items at the same price and receive a volume discount.
  • Aggregators. An alternative term for price comparison sites. Aggregators include product, price and service information, comparing competitors within a sector such as financial services, retail or travel. Their revenue models commonly include affiliate revenues (CPA), pay-per-click advertising (CPC) and display advertising (CPM).
  • Agile development. An iterative approach to developing software and website functionality with the emphasis on face-to-face communications to elicit, define and test requirements. Each iteration is effectively a mini software project including stages of planning, requirements analysis, design, coding, testing and documentation.
  • Allowable cost per acquisition. A target maximum cost for generating leads or new customers profitably.
  • ALT tags. ALT tags appear after an image tag and contain a phrase associated with that image. For example: <img src="logo.gif" alt="Company name, company products"/>.
  • Analysis and design. Analysis of system requirements and design for creation of a system.
  • Analysis for digital systems. Using analytical techniques to capture and summarise business and user requirements.
  • Anticipatory change. An organisation initiates change without an immediate need to respond.
  • Anti-virus software. Software to detect and eliminate viruses.
  • Applications service provider (ASP). A provider of business applications such as email, workflow or groupware or any business application on a server remote from the user. A service often offered by ISPs.
  • Asymmetric encryption. Both parties use a related but different key to encode and decode messages.
  • Attribute. A property or characteristic of an entity, implemented as a field; see Database.
  • Attrition rate. Percentage of site visitors that are lost at each stage in making a purchase.
  • Augmented reality. Blends real-world digital data capture typically with a digital camera in a webcam or mobile phone to create a browser-based digital representation or experience mimicking that of the real world.
  • B2B electronic marketplaces, B2B electronic exchange|exchange]]s and hubs. Virtual locations with facilities to enable trading between buyers and sellers.
  • Backbones. High-speed communications links used to enable Internet communications across a country and internationally.
  • Balanced scorecard. A framework for setting and monitoring business performance. Metrics are structured according to customer issues, internal efficiency measures, financial measures and innovation.
  • Bandwidth. Indicates the speed at which data are transferred using a particular network media. It is measured in bits per second (bps).
  • Behavioural ad targeting. Enables an advertiser to target ads at a visitor as they move within or between sites dependent on their viewing particular sites or types of content that indicate their preference. This approach increases ad relevance and the frequency or number of impressions served to an individual in the target market, so increasing response.
  • Bespoke development. Information system development specifically for a purpose.
  • Big Data. Within marketing, this concept describes the opportunity to harness customer data from different touchpoints including as point-of-sale transactions, desktop and mobile sites and apps, social media.
  • Blacklist. A compilation of known sources of spam that is used to block email.
  • Blog. An online diary or news source prepared by an individual or a group of people.
  • Blueprints. Show the relationships between pages and other content components, and can be used to portray organisation, labelling and navigation systems.
  • Boot-sector virus. Occupies boot record of hard and floppy disks and is activated during computer start-up.
  • Botnet. Independent computers, connected to the Internet, are used together, typically for malicious purposes through controlling software. For example, they may be used to send out spam or for a denial-of-service attack where they repeatedly access a server to degrade its service. Computers are often initially infected through a virus when effective anti-virus measures are not in place.
  • Bounce rate. Percentage of visitors entering a site who leave immediately after viewing one page only (known as 'single-page visits').
  • Brand. The sum of the characteristics of a product or service perceived by a user.
  • Brand equity. A brand's assets (or liabilities) linked to the brand's name and symbol that add to (or subtract from) a service.
  • Brand experience. The frequency and depth of interactions with a brand can be enhanced through the Internet.
  • Brand identity. The totality of brand associations including name and symbols that must be communicated.
  • Branding. The process of creating and developing successful brands.
  • Bricks-and-mortar or multichannel business. A traditional organisation with limited online presence.
  • Broad and shallow navigation. More choices, fewer clicks to reach required content.
  • Broadband connection. Access to the Internet via phone lines using a digital data transfer mechanism.
  • Brochureware. Brochureware describes a website in which a company has migrated its existing paperbased promotional literature on to the Internet without recognising the differences required by this medium.
  • Bundling. Offering complementary services.
  • Burn rate. The speed at which dot-coms spend investors' money.
  • Business-alignment IS strategy. The IS strategy is generated from the business strategy through techniques such as Critical Success Factor analysis.
  • Business continuity management or disaster recovery. Measures taken to ensure that information can be restored and accessed if the original information and access method are destroyed.
  • Business-impacting IS strategy. IS strategy analyses opportunities for new technologies and processes to favourably impact the business strategy.
  • Business Intelligence. Methodology, process and technologies used to support the transformation of different data sources to improve strategic, tactical and operational decision-making to improve business performance.
  • Business model. A summary of how a company will generate revenue identifying its product offering, valueadded services, revenue sources and target customers.
  • Business process automation (BPA). Automating existing ways of working manually through information technology.
  • Business process improvement (BPI). Optimising existing processes typically coupled with enhancements in information technology.
  • Business process management (BPM). An approach supported by software tools intended to increase process efficiency by improving information flows between people as they perform business tasks.
  • Business process re-engineering (BPR). Identifying radical, new ways of carrying out business operations, often enabled by new IT capabilities.
  • Business-to-business (B2B). Commercial transactions between an organisation and other organisations.
  • Business-to-consumer (B2C). Commercial transactions between an organisation and consumers.
  • Buy-side e-commerce. E-commerce transactions between a purchasing organisation, its suppliers and partners.
  • Card sorting or web classification. The process of arranging a way of organising objects on a website in a consistent manner.
  • Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). A simple mechanism for adding style (e.g. fonts, colours, spacing) to web documents. By separating the presentation style of documents from the content of documents, CSS enables different style elements to be controlled across an entire site or section of site.
  • Certificate and certificate authorities (CAs). A certificate is a valid copy of a public key of an individual or organisation together with identification information. It is issued by a trusted third party (TTP) or certificate authority (CA). CAs make public keys available and also issue private keys.
  • Change agents. Managers involved in controlling change transitions.
  • Change management. Managing process, structural, technical, staff and culture change within an organisation.
  • Changeover. The term used to describe moving from the old information system to the new information system.
  • Channel buyer behaviour. Describes which content is visited, time and duration.
  • Channel outcomes. Record customer actions taken as a consequence of a site visit.
  • Channel profitability. The profitability of the website, taking into account revenue and cost and discounted cash flow.
  • Channel promotion. Measures that assess why customers visit a site – which adverts they have seen, which sites they have been referred from.
  • Channel satisfaction. Evaluation of the customer's opinion of the service quality on the site and supporting services such as email.
  • Churn rate. The proportion of customers (typically subscribers) that no longer purchase a company's products in a time period.
  • Click ecosystem. Describes the customer behaviour or flow of online visitors between search engines, media sites, other intermediaries to an organisation and its competitors.
  • Clicks-only or Internet pureplay. An organisation with principally an online presence.
  • Client–server. The client–server architecture consists of client computers, such as PCs, sharing resources such as a database stored on more powerful server computers.
  • Client–server model. A system architecture in which end-user machines such as PCs known as clients run applications while accessing data and possibly programs from a server.
  • Cloud computing. The use of distributed storage and processing on servers connected by the Internet, typically provided as software or data storage as a subscription service provided by other companies.
  • Cold list. Data about individuals that are rented or sold by a third party.
  • Collaborative filtering. Profiling of customer interests coupled with delivery of specific information and offers, often based on the interests of similar customers.
  • Commoditisation. The process whereby product selection becomes more dependent on price than on differentiating features, benefits and value-added services.
  • Community. A customer-to-customer interaction delivered via email groups, web-based discussion forums or chat.
  • Competitor analysis for digital business. Review of digital business services offered by existing and new competitors and adoption by their customers.
  • Computer virus. A program capable of self-replication allowing it to spread from one machine to another. It may be malicious and delete data, or benign.
  • Consumer-to-business (C2B). Customer is proactive in making an offer to a business, e.g. the price they are prepared to pay for an airline ticket.
  • Consumer-to-consumer (C2C). Interactions between customers on a website, e.g. posting and reading of topics on an electronic bulletin board.
  • Content. Content is the design, text and graphical information which forms a web page. Good content is the key to attracting customers to a website and retaining their interest or achieving repeat visits.
  • Content management system (CMS). A software tool for creating, editing and updating documents accessed by intranet, extranet or Internet.
  • Content marketing. The management of text, rich media, audio and video content aimed at engaging customers and prospects to meet business goals published through print and digital media including web and mobile platforms which is repurposed and syndicated to different forms of web presence such as publisher sites, blogs, social media and comparison sites.
  • Content marketing strategy. Selecting, sourcing, scheduling and encouraging sharing of the most relevant types of content to meet your business goals.
  • Contextual display network. Contextual ads are automatically displayed according to the type of content on partner publisher sites by the search engine.
  • Control page. The page against which subsequent optimisation will be assessed. Typically a current landing page. When a new page performs better than the existing control page, it becomes your control page in subsequent testing. Also known as 'champion-challenger'.
  • Conversion marketing. Using marketing communications to maximise conversion of potential customers to actual customers and existing customers to repeat customers.
  • Conversion rate. Percentage of site visitors that perform a particular action such as making a purchase.
  • Conversion rate optimisation (CRO). Improving the commercial returns from a transactional site through increasing conversion to key goals such as sales, quotes or bookings or leads. CRO combines customer and competitor research with evaluation of customer behaviour using web analytics and AB and multivariate testing. (See Chapter 12 for details.)
  • Cookies. Cookies are small text files stored on an enduser's computer to enable websites to identity them.
  • Co-opetition. Interactions between competitors and marketplace intermediaries which can mutually improve the attractiveness of a marketplace.
  • Core competencies. Resources, including skills or technologies, that provide a particular benefit to customers.
  • Core product. The fundamental features of the product that meet the user's needs.
  • Cost per acquisition (CPA). The cost of acquiring a new customer. Typically limited to the communications cost and refers to cost per sale for new customers. May also refer to other outcomes such as cost per quote or enquiry.
  • Cost per click (CPC). The cost to the advertiser (or the revenue received by the publisher) of each click of a link to a third-party site.
  • Cost per thousand (CPM). Cost per 1,000 ad impressions for a banner advert.
  • Countermediation. Creation of a new intermediary such as a publisher or comparison site by an established company. May be a new site or acquired through purchase or partnering.
  • Covert monitoring. Monitoring which the employer undertakes without notification of staff.
  • Cross-media optimisation studies (XMOS). Studies to determine the optimum spend across different media to produce the best results.
  • Crowdsourcing. Utilising a network of customers or other partners to gain insights for new product or process innovations.
  • Culture. This concept includes shared values, i.e. cultures are created when a group of employees interact over time and are relatively successful in what they undertake.
  • Customer acquisition. Techniques used to gain new prospects and customers.
  • Customer-centric marketing. An approach to marketing based on detailed knowledge of customer behaviour within the target audience which seeks to fulfil the individual needs and wants of customers.
  • Customer engagement. Repeated interactions that strengthen the emotional, psychological or physical investment a customer has in a brand.
  • Customer experience management (CXM). User experience improvements are broadened to consider the context of use to different physical locations or customer touchpoints across different digital platforms including desktop, mobile sites, apps, social networks and email marketing. Context of use includes device type, location and interactions with customer service.
  • Customer extension. Techniques to encourage customers to increase their involvement with an organisation.
  • Customer insight. Knowledge about customers' needs, characteristics, preferences and behaviours based on analysis of qualitative and quantitative data. Specific insights can be used to inform marketing tactics directed at groups of customers with shared characteristics.
  • Customer journey. A description of modern multichannel behaviour as consumers use different media to select suppliers, make purchases and gain customer support.
  • Customer life cycle. The stages each customer will pass through in a long-term relationship through acquisition, retention and extension. There are more detailed stages within this.
  • Customer orientation. Developing site content and services to appeal to different customer segments or other members of the audience.
  • Customer profile. Information that can be used to segment a customer.
  • Customer relationship management (CRM). An approach to building and sustaining long-term business with customers.
  • Customer scenario. Alternative tasks or outcomes required by a visitor to a website. Typically accomplished in a series of stages of different tasks involving different information needs or experiences.
  • Customer self-service. Customers perform information requests and transactions through a web interface rather than contact with customer support staff.
  • Customer value. Value dependent on product quality, service quality, price and fulfilment time.
  • Data controller. Each company must have a defined person responsible for data protection.
  • Data migration. Transfer of data from old to new systems.
  • Data subject. The individual whose privacy is protected through data protection legislation.
  • Database. A database can be defined as a collection of related information. The information held in the database is stored in an organised way so that specific items can be selected and retrieved quickly. See Database management system.
  • Database management system (DBMS). The information held in an electronic database is accessed via a database management system. A DBMS can be defined as one or more computer programs that allow users to enter, store, organise, manipulate and retrieve data from a database. For many users, the terms database and database management system are interchangeable. A relational database management system (RDBMS) is an extension of a DBMS and allows data to be combined from a variety of sources.
  • Database table. Each database comprises several tables.
  • Dedicated server. Server only contains content and applications for a single company.
  • Deep linking. Jakob Nielsen's term for a user arriving at a site deep within its structure.
  • Demand analysis. Assessment of the demand for e-commerce services amongst existing and potential customer segments.
  • Deployment plan. A deployment plan is a schedule which defines all the tasks that need to occur in order for changeover to occur successfully. This includes putting in place all the infrastructure such as cabling and hardware.
  • Design for analysis (DFA). The required measures from a site are considered during design to better understand the audience of a site and their decision points.
  • Destination site. Typically a retailer or manufacturer site with sales and service information. Intermediaries such as media sites may be destination sites for some.
  • Development environment. Software and hardware used to create a system.
  • Dial-up connection. Access to the Internet via phone lines using analogue modems.
  • Differential advantage. A desirable attribute of a product offering that is not currently matched by competitor offerings.
  • Digital business. How businesses apply digital technology and media to improve the competitiveness of their organisation through optimising internal processes with online and traditional channels to market and supply.
  • Digital business applications infrastructure. Applications that provide access to services and information inside and beyond an organisation.
  • Digital business infrastructure. The architecture of hardware, software, content and data used to deliver digital business services to employees, customers and partners.
  • Digital business strategy. Definition of the approach by which applications of internal and external electronic communications can support and influence business strategy.
  • Digital business transformation. Significant changes to organisational processes, structures and system implemented to improve organisational performance through increasing the use of digital media and technology platforms.
  • Digital certificates (keys). Consist of keys made up of large numbers that are used to uniquely identify individuals.
  • Digital marketing. This has a similar meaning to 'electronic marketing' – both describe the management and execution of marketing using electronic media such as the web, email, interactive TV and wireless media in conjunction with digital data about customers' characteristics and behaviour.
  • Digital marketing plan. A plan to achieve the marketing objectives of the digital business strategy.
  • Digital media channels. Online communications techniques used to achieve goals of brand awareness, familiarity and favourability and to influence purchase intent by encouraging users of digital media to visit a website to engage with the brand or product and ultimately to purchase online or offline through traditional media channels such as by phone or in-store.
  • Digital rights management (DRM). The use of different technologies to protect the distribution of digital services or content such as software, music, movies or other digital data.
  • Digital signatures. A method of identifying individuals or companies using public-key encryption.
  • Discontinuous change. Change involving a major transformation in an industry.
  • Disintermediation. The removal of intermediaries such as distributors or brokers that formerly linked a company to its customers.
  • Disruptive digital technologies. Technologies which offer opportunities for business for new products and services for customers and can transform internal business processes. Danneels (2004) defined disruptive technologies as 'a technology that changes the bases of competition by changing the performance metrics along which firms compete'. Customer needs drive customers to seek certain benefits in the products they use and form the basis for customer choices between competing products.
  • Domain name. The domain name refers to the name of the web server and it is usually selected to be the same as the name of the company, e.g. www.<company-name>.com, and the extension will indicate its type.
  • Domain name registration. The process of reserving a unique web address that can be used to refer to the company website.
  • Dot-coms. Businesses whose main trading presence is on the Internet.
  • Downstream supply chain. Transactions between an organisation and its customers and intermediaries, equivalent to sell-side e-commerce.
  • Dynamic digital business application. The application is continuously updated in response to competitive forces.
  • Dynamic pricing. Prices can be updated in real time according to the type of customer or current market conditions.
  • Dynamically created web page. A page that is created in real time, often with reference to a database query, in response to a user request.
  • Early adopter. Company or department that invests in new technologies and techniques.
  • Early mover (first mover). An early entrant into the marketplace.
  • Effectiveness. Meeting process objectives, delivering the required outputs and outcomes: 'doing the right thing'.
  • Efficiency. Minimising resources or time needed to complete a process: 'doing the thing right'.
  • Efficient consumer response (ECR). ECR is focussed on demand management aimed at creating and satisfying customer demand by optimising product assortment strategies, promotions, and new product introductions. It creates operational efficiencies and costs savings in the supply chain through reducing inventories and deliveries.
  • Electronic channel service contribution. The proportion of service-type processes that are completed using electronic channels.
  • Electronic channel strategies. Define how a company should set specific objectives and develop specific differential strategies for communicating with its customers and partners through electronic media such as the Internet, emails and wireless media.
  • Electronic commerce (e-commerce). All electronically mediated information exchanges between an organisation and its external stakeholders. See Sell-side and Buy-side e-commerce.
  • Electronic customer relationship management (e-CRM). Using digital communications technologies to maximise sales to existing customers and encourage continued usage of online services.
  • Electronic economy (e-economy). The dynamic system of interactions between a nation's citizens, businesses and government that capitalise upon online technology to achieve a social or economic good.
  • Electronic government (e-government). The use of Internet technologies to provide government services to citizens.
  • Electronic mail (email) filter. Software used to identify spam according to its characteristics such as keywords.
  • Electronic marketplace. A virtual marketplace such as the Internet in which no direct contact occurs between buyers and sellers.
  • Electronic procurement (e-procurement). The electronic integration and management of all procurement activities including purchase request, authorisation, ordering, delivery and payment between a purchaser and a supplier.
  • Electronic procurement system (EPS). An electronic system used to automate all or part of the procurement function by enabling the scanning, storage and retrieval of invoices and other documents; management of approvals; routeing of authorisation requests; interfaces to other finance systems; and matching of documents to validate transactions.
  • Emergent strategy. Strategic analysis, strategic development and strategy implementation are interrelated and are developed together.
  • Employee communications monitoring. Companies monitor staff emails and websites they access.
  • Encryption. See Asymmetric encryption and Symmetric encryption.
  • Enterprise application integration (EAI). Software used to facilitate communications between business applications including data transfer and control.
  • Enterprise resource planning applications (ERP applications). Enterprise applications used to manage information about organisational resources such as raw materials, products, staff and customers as part of delivery of a product or service.
  • Enterprise social media software. Systems used inside organisations to enable real-time collaboration between employees and other stakeholders such as customers and suppliers to support business processes such as customer service, supply chain management and new product development. Collectively these tools are sometimes referenced as Enterprise 2.0.
  • Entity. A grouping of related data, such as a customer entity. Implemented as a table.
  • Environmental scanning and analysis. The process of continuously monitoring the environment and events and responding accordingly.
  • Ethical hacker. Hacker employed legitimately to test the quality of system security.
  • Ethical standards. Practice or behaviour which is morally acceptable to society.
  • Expert review. An analysis of an existing site or prototype by an experienced usability expert who will identify deficiencies and improvements to a site based on their knowledge of web design principles and best practice.
  • Explicit knowledge. Knowledge that can be readily expressed and recorded within information systems.
  • Extended product. Additional features and benefits beyond the core product.
  • External value chain or value network. The links between an organisation and its strategic and non-strategic partners that form its external value chain.
  • Extranet. A service provided through Internet and web technology delivered by extending an intranet beyond a company to customers, suppliers and collaborators.
  • Eyetracking. A usability testing technique that provides a visual overlay of where visitors most commonly look on the screen (heatmaps) and individual or common paths (gaze trails).
  • Field. Attributes of products, such as date of birth. See Database.
  • Filtering software. Software that blocks specified content or activities.
  • Firewall. A specialised software application mounted on a server at the point where the company is connected to the Internet. Its purpose is to prevent unauthorised access into the company from outsiders.
  • First-party cookies. Served by the site you are currently using – typical for e-commerce sites.
  • Flow. Flow describes how easy it is for users of a site to move between the different pages of content of the site.
  • Forward path analysis. Reviews the combinations of clicks that occur from a page. This form of analysis is most beneficial from important pages such as the home page, product and directory pages. Use this technique to identify: messaging/navigation combinations which work best to yield the most clicks from a page.
  • Globalisation. The increase of international trading and shared social and cultural values.
  • Growth hacking. An approach to improving the commercial results from online services through structured testing and optimisation of marketing approaches.
  • Hacking. The process of gaining unauthorised access to computer systems, typically across a network.
  • Hit. Recorded for each graphic or text file requested from a web server. It is not a reliable measure for the number of people viewing a page.
  • Hosted solution. Standard software which is managed externally on the supplier's server.
  • Hosting provider. A service provider that manages the server used to host an organisation's website and its connection to the Internet backbones.
  • House list. Data about existing customers used to market products to encourage future purchase.
  • Hype cycle. A graphic representation of the maturity, adoption and business application of specific technologies.
  • Identity theft. The misappropriation of the identity of another person, without their knowledge or consent.
  • Impact assessment. An assessment of the Employee communications monitoring process in the workplace to identify improvements to minimise infringement of employee privacy.
  • Implementation. The creation of a system based on analysis and design documentation.
  • Inbound email marketing. Management of emails from customers by an organisation.
  • Inbound marketing. The consumer is proactive in actively seeking out information for their needs, and interactions with brands are attracted through content, search and social media marketing.
  • Inbound logistics. The management of material resources entering an organisation from its suppliers and other partners.
  • Incremental change. Relatively small adjustments required by an organisation in response to its business environment.
  • Information architecture. The combination of organisation, labelling and navigation schemes making up an information system.
  • Information asset register. A repository for the types, value and ownership of all information within an organisation.
  • Information asymmetry. Imperfect information sharing between members of a supply chain which increases uncertainty about demand and pricing.
  • Information organisation schemes. The structure chosen to group and categorise information.
  • Information security management system. An organisational process to protect information assets.
  • Information security policy. A definition of the organisational approaches to information security and the responsibilities of employees in protecting information.
  • Information supply chain. An information-centric view of the supply chain which addresses the organisational and technological challenges of achieving technologyenabled supply chain management efficiency and effectiveness.
  • Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). Hardware used to provide support for end-user applications is outsourced and paid for according to level of usage. The hardware infrastructure used includes servers and networks.
  • Initiation. The start-up phase of the project.
  • Intellectual property rights (IPR). Protect the intangible property created by corporations or individuals that is protected under copyright, trade secret and patent laws.
  • Interactivity. The medium enables a dialogue between company and customer.
  • Intermediary. An organisation or e-commerce site that typically brings buyers and sellers together.
  • Internet. The Internet refers to the physical network that links computers across the globe. It consists of the infrastructure of network servers and communication links between them that are used to hold and transport information between the client PCs and web servers.
  • Internet-based market research. The use of online questionnaires and focus groups to assess customer perceptions of a website or broader marketing issues.
  • Internet governance. Control of the operation and use of the Internet.
  • Internet marketing metrics. Measures that indicate the effectiveness of Internet marketing activities in meeting customer, business and marketing objectives.
  • Internet service provider (ISP). A provider enabling home or business users a connection to access the Internet. They can also host web-based applications.
  • Interruption marketing. Marketing communications that disrupt customers' activities.
  • Interstitial ads. Ads that appear between one page and the next.
  • Intranet. A private network within a single company using Internet standards to enable employees to access and share information using web publishing technology.
  • Inventory turnover. An indication of efficiency of inventory turn calculated by the cost of goods sold divided by the average inventory.
  • IPTV (Internet Protocol Television). Digital television service is delivered using Internet Protocol, typically by a broadband connection. IPTV can be streamed for real-time viewing or downloaded before playback.
  • Keyphrase (keyword phrase). The combination of words users of search engines type into a search box which form a search query.
  • Knowledge. Applying experience to problem-solving.
  • Knowledge management (KM). Techniques and tools for disseminating knowledge within an organisation.
  • Lead. See Qualified lead.
  • Lifetime value (LTV). Lifetime value is the total net benefit that a customer or group of customers will provide a company over their total relationship with the company.
  • Link anchor text. The text used to form the blue underlined hyperlink viewed in a web browser defined in the HTML source.
  • Link-building. A structured activity to include goodquality hyperlinks to your site from relevant sites with a good page rank.
  • Localisation. Tailoring of website information for individual countries or regions.
  • Location-based marketing. Location or proximitybased marketing is mobile marketing based on the GPS built into phones or based on interaction with other local digital devices.
  • Log-file analyser. A log-file analyser is a separate program such as Webtrends that is used to summarise the information on customer activity contained in a log file.
  • Logistics. See Inbound logistics and Outbound logistics.
  • Long tail concept. A frequency distribution suggesting the relative variation in popularity of items selected by consumers.
  • Machine-to-machine applications (M2M applications). Objects are uniquely identified and tagged through technologies such as RFID and made accessible through Internet-like addresses.
  • Maintenance activities. Involve measurement of an information system's effectiveness and updating to correct errors or introduce new features necessary to improve its value to the organisation.
  • Maintenance phase. Commences after the system is live.
  • Malware. Malicious software or toolbars, typically downloaded via the Internet, which acts as a 'Trojan horse' by executing other unwanted activities such as keylogging of user passwords or viruses which may collect email addresses.
  • Managed email service. Receipt and transmission of emails is managed by a third party.
  • Marketing-led site design. Site design elements are developed to achieve customer acquisition, retention and communication of marketing messages.
  • Marketing mix. Different factors that summarise the customer propositions offered by a business. Marketing mix refers to the 4 core Ps of Price, Product (including branding, Place and Promotion and the 7Ps of the extending Marketing Mix which include People, Process and Physical evidence.
  • Marketplace. See B2B electronic marketplaces, exchanges and hubs.
  • Mashups. Websites, pages or widgets that combine the content or functionality of one website or data source with another to create something offering a different type of value to web users from the separate types of content or functionality.
  • Mass customisation. The creation of tailored marketing messages or products for individual customers or groups of customers typically using technology to retain the economies of scale and the capacity of mass marketing or production.
  • Media multiplier or halo effect. The role of one media channel on influencing sale or uplift in brand metrics. Commonly applied to online display advertising, where exposure to display ads may increase clickthrough rates when the consumer is later exposed to a brand through other media, for example sponsored links or affiliate ads. It may also refer to conversion rates on a destination site through higher confidence in the brand or familiarity with the offer.
  • Media Queries. A styling approach within Cascading Style Sheets (CSS3) enabling the layout to change based on type of device at its scale.
  • Metamediaries. Third parties that provide a single point of contact and deliver a range of services between customers and suppliers.
  • Meta-tags. Text within an HTML file summarising the characteristics of the document. The most relevant to search engines are the meta-keywords tag used to list keywords relevant to the page and the content meta-tag, the description of which forms part of the listings snippet in the search results page. They are not used for ranking purposes in Google.
  • Middleware. Software used to facilitate communication between business applications including data transfer control.
  • Microformats. A simple set of formats based on XHTML for describing and exchanging information about objects including product and travel reviews, recipes and event information.
  • Microsite. A small-scale destination site reached on clickthrough which is part of the media owner's site.
  • Milestone. Key deadline to be achieved during project, usually with defined deliverable criteria.
  • Mission statement. See Vision or mission statement.
  • Mixed-mode buying. The process by which a customer changes between online and offline channels during the buying process.
  • Mobile apps. A software application that is designed for use on a mobile phone, typically downloaded from an App store. iPhone Apps are best known, but all smartphones support the use of apps which can provide users with information, entertainment or location-based services such as mapping.
  • Mobile commerce (m-commerce). Electronic transactions and communications conducted using mobile devices such as laptops, PDAs and mobile phones, and typically with a wireless connection.
  • Mobile marketing. Marketing to encourage consumer engagement when they're using mobile phones (particularly smartphones) or tablet devices.
  • MRO. Maintenance, repairs and operations of manufacturing facilities.
  • Multichannel digital business strategy (omnichannel digital business strategy). Defines how different marketing and supply chain channels should integrate and support each other to drive business efficiency and effectiveness.
  • Multichannel and omnichannel marketing. Customer communications and product distribution are supported by a combination of digital and traditional channels at different points in the buying cycle. Omnichannel references the importance of social media and mobilebased interactions in informing purchase.
  • Multichannel marketing strategy. Defines how different marketing channels should integrate and support each other in terms of their proposition development and communications based on their relative merits for the customer and the company.
  • Multiscreening. A term used to describe simultaneous use of devices such as digital TV and tablet.
  • Multi-tenancy SaaS. A single instance of a web service is used by different customers (tenants) run on a single server or load-balanced across multiple servers. Customers are effectively sharing processor, disk usage and bandwidth with other customers.
  • Narrow and deep navigation. Fewer choices, more clicks to reach required content.
  • Net neutrality. The principle of provision of equal access to different Internet services by telecommunications service providers.
  • Net promoter score. A measure of the number of advocates a company (or website) has who would recommend it compared to the number of detractors.
  • Notification. The process whereby companies register with the data protection registrar to inform about their data holdings.
  • Offline marketing communications. Traditional techniques such as print and TV advertising used to generate website traffic.
  • Online business model. A summary of how a company will generate a profit identifying its core product or service value proposition, target customers in different markets, position in the competitive online marketplace or value chain and its projections for revenue and costs.
  • Online buyer behaviour. An assessment of how consumers and business people use the Internet in combination with other communications channels when selecting and buying products and services.
  • Online customer experience. The combination of rational and emotional factors of using a company's online services that influences customers' perceptions of a brand online.
  • Online intermediaries. Websites which help connect web users with content they are seeking on destination sites. Include new online intermediaries such as search engines and shopping comparison sites and traditional brokers, directories and newspaper and magazine publishers that now have an online presence.
  • Online market ecosystem. Describes the customer behaviour or flow of online visitors between search engines, media sites, other intermediaries to an organisation and its competitors.
  • Online marketing communications. Internet-based techniques used to generate website traffic.
  • Online marketplace. Exchanges of information and commercial transactions between consumers, businesses and governments completed through different forms of online presence such as search engines, social networks, comparison sites and destination sites.
  • Online PR. Maximising favourable mentions of your company, brands, products or websites on third-party websites which are likely to be visited by your target audience.
  • Online or Internet revenue contribution (ORC). An assessment of the direct contribution of the Internet or other digital media to sales, usually expressed as a percentage of overall sales revenue.
  • Online value proposition (OVP). A statement of the benefits of online services reinforces the core proposition and differentiates from an organisation's offline offering and those of competitors.
  • Open-source software. Software that is developed collaboratively, independent of a vendor, by a community of software developers and users.
  • Opt-in. A customer proactively agrees to receive further information.
  • Opt-out. A customer declines the offer to receive further information.
  • Organisational change. Includes both incremental and discontinuous change to an organisation.
  • Outbound email marketing. Emails are sent to customers and prospects from an organisation.
  • Outbound logistics. The management of resources supplied from an organisation to its customers and intermediaries such as retailers and distributors.
  • Overlay. Typically an animated ad that moves around the page and is superimposed on the website content.
  • PaaS (Platform as a Service). Provision of software services for application design, development, data storage, testing and hosting together with messaging tools for collaboration on the development project.
  • Packaged implementation. Standard software is installed with limited configuration required.
  • Page impression (view). A more reliable measure than a hit, denoting one person viewing one page.
  • Page rank. A scale of 0 to 10 used by Google to assess the importance of websites according to the number of inbound links (link popularity).
  • Page template. A standard page layout format which is applied to each page of a website. Typically defined for different page categories (e.g. category page, product page, search page).
  • Path to purchase. The different sites, channels and devices and information sources that consumers use to inform their purchase decision for a product or service. Also known as conversion pathways on a site.
  • Pay-per-click search marketing (PPC search marketing). A company pays for text adverts to be displayed on the search engine results pages when a specific keyphrase is entered by the search users. It is so called because the marketer pays each time the hypertext link in the ad is clicked on.
  • People variable. The element of the marketing mix that involves the delivery of service to customers during interactions with customers.
  • Performance drivers. Critical success factors that govern whether objectives are achieved.
  • Performance management system. A process used to evaluate and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of an organisation and its processes.
  • Performance measurement system. The process by which metrics are defined, collected, disseminated and actioned.
  • Permission marketing. Customers agree (opt in) to be involved in an organisation's marketing activities, usually as a result of an incentive.
  • Persistent cookies. Cookies that remain on the computer after a visitor session has ended. Used to recognise returning visitors.
  • Persona. A summary of the characteristics, needs, motivations and environment of typical website users.
  • Personal data. Any information about an individual stored by companies concerning their customers or employees.
  • Personalisation. Delivering individualised content through web pages or email.
  • Persuasion marketing. Using design elements such as layout, copy and typography together with promotional messages to encourage site users to follow particular paths and specific actions rather than giving them complete choice in their navigation.
  • Phishing. Obtaining personal details online through sites and emails masquerading as legitimate businesses.
  • Physical evidence variable. The element of the marketing mix that involves the tangible expression of a product and how it is purchased and used.
  • Place variable. The element of the marketing mix that involves distributing products to customers in line with demand and minimising cost of inventory, transport and storage.
  • Podcasts. Individuals and organisations post online media (audio and video) which can be accessed in the appropriate players including the iPod, which first sparked the growth of this technique.
  • Portal. An intermediary site focussed on providing a gateway to other information on other sites, but often also providing its own content and services. Examples include search engines, ISPs and online newspapers and magazines.
  • Positioning. Influencing the customer's perception of a product within a marketplace.
  • Prescriptive strategy. The three core areas of strategic analysis, strategic development and strategy implementation are linked together sequentially.
  • Price elasticity of demand. Measure of consumer behaviour that indicates the change in demand for a product or service in response to changes in price. Price elasticity of demand is used to assess the extent to which a change in price will influence demand for a product.
  • Price variable. The element of the marketing mix that involves defining product prices and pricing models.
  • Pricing models. Describe the form of payment such as outright purchase, auction, rental, volume purchase and credit terms.
  • Primary key. The field that uniquely identifies each record in a table. See Database.
  • Primary persona. A representation of the typical website user, who is strategically important to the effectiveness of the site, but one whose needs are challenging to fulfil.
  • Privacy. The right of an individual to control the information held about them by third parties.
  • Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations Act (PECR Act). A law intended to control the distribution of email and other online communications including cookies.
  • Privacy statement. Information on a website explaining how and why an individual's data are collected, processed and stored.
  • Private B2B exchange. A manufacturer or major supplier to different manufacturers creates a portal which is used for managing all aspects of procurement.
  • Private key. See Encryption.
  • Process. Part of a system that has a clearly defined purpose or objective and clearly defined inputs and outputs.
  • Process mapping. Identification of location and responsibilities for processes within an organisation.
  • Process variable. The element of the marketing mix that involves the methods and procedures companies use to achieve all marketing functions.
  • Product variable. The element of the marketing mix that involves researching customers' needs and developing appropriate products.
  • Production or live environment. Software and hardware used to host an operational system.
  • Productivity paradox. Research results indicating a poor correlation between organisational investment in information systems and organisational performance measured by return on equity.
  • Promotion variable. The element of the marketing mix that involves communication with customers and other stakeholders to inform them about the product and the organisation.
  • Propensity modelling. A name given to the approach of evaluating customer characteristics and behaviour and then making recommendations for future products.
  • Prototype. A preliminary version of part or all of an information system reviewed by its users and business sponsors.
  • Prototyping. Prototyping is an iterative process whereby website users suggest modifications before further prototypes and the live version of the site are developed.
  • Psychographic segmentation. A breakdown of customers according to different characteristics.
  • Public key. See Encryption.
  • Pull marketing communications. The consumer is proactive in interacting with companies through actively seeking information or entertainment on company websites or social media sites through search engines, comparison intermediaries or direct navigation.
  • Pull media. The consumer is proactive in selection of the message through actively seeking out a website.
  • Pull supply chain. An emphasis on using the supply chain to deliver value to customers who are actively involved in product and service specification.
  • Punchout catalogue. A purchasing company accesses through its firewall a dynamic real-time catalogue hosted by a supplier or intermediary containing detailed product information, pricing and product images. These can be potentially integrated with their own purchasing systems.
  • Push marketing communications. Communications are broadcast from an advertiser to consumers of the message who are passive recipients or may respond by visiting a website through direct navigation or clickthrough.
  • Push media. Communications are broadcast from an advertiser to consumers of the message who are passive recipients.
  • Push supply chain. A supply chain that emphasises distribution of a product to passive customers.
  • Qualified lead. Contact information for a customer and an indication of their propensity to purchase different products.
  • Quality score. An assessment in paid search by Google AdWords (and now other search engines) of an individual ad triggered by a keyword which, in combination with the bid amount, determines the ranking of the ad relative to competitors. The primary factor is the clickthrough rate for each ad, but Quality Score also considers the match between the keyword and the occurrence of the keyword in the text, historical clickthrough rates, the engagement of the searcher when they click through to the site and the speed at which the page loads.
  • RAD – Rapid Application Development. An approach to information systems development that includes incremental development using prototypes.
  • Radio-frequency identification (RFID). Microchipbased electronic tags are used for monitoring anything they are attached to, whether inanimate (products) or animate (people).
  • Reactive change. A direct response by an organisation to a change in its environment.
  • Really Simple Syndication feeds (RSS feeds). Blog, news or other content is published by an XML standard and syndicated for other sites or read by users in RSS reader software services. Now typically shortened to 'feed', e.g. news feed or sports feed.
  • Reciprocal links. An exchange of links between two site owners.
  • Record. A collection of fields for one instance of an entity, such as Customer Smith. See Database.
  • Referrer. The source of a website visit, e.g. paid search, affiliate marketing, online advertising or recorded as 'no referrer', i.e. when a URL is typed in directly.
  • Reintermediation. The creation of new intermediaries between customers and suppliers providing services such as supplier search and product evaluation.
  • Relationship. Describes how different tables are linked. See Database.
  • Resource analysis. Review of the technological, financial and human resources of an organisation and how they are utilised in business processes.
  • Responsive design. Layout and formatting of website content is modified at the point of rendering to suit different screen resolutions and capabilities to produce a better experience to users of a range of desktop, tablet and smartphone devices using web development methods like CSS3 and image scaling.
  • Revenue models. Describe methods of generating income for an organisation.
  • Reverse path analysis. Indicates the most popular combination of pages and/or calls-to-action which lead to a page. This is particularly useful for transactional pages such as the first checkout page on a consumer site; a lead generation or contact us page on a business-to-business site; an email subscription page or a call-me back option.
  • Rich media. Digital assets such as ads are not static images, but provide animation, audio or interactivity as a game or form to be completed.
  • Risk management. Evaluating potential risks, developing strategies to reduce risks and learning about future risks.
  • ROPO. Research Online Purchase Offline.
  • Satisficing behaviour. Consumers do not behave entirely rationally in product or supplier selection. They will compare alternatives, but then may make their choice given imperfect information.
  • Scalability. The ability of an organisation or system to adapt to increasing demands being placed on it.
  • Scanning software. Identifies email or website access that breaches company guidelines or acceptable-use policies.
  • Scenario. A particular path or flow of events or activities within a use-case.
  • Scenario-based analysis. Models of the future environment are developed from different starting points.
  • Schematics. See Wireframes.
  • Scrum. Scrum is a methodology that supports agile software development based on 15–30-day sprints to implement features from a product backlog. 'Scrum' refers to a daily project status meeting during the sprint.
  • Search-engine optimisation (SEO). A structured approach used to increase the position of a company or its products in search-engine results according to selected keywords.
  • Search engines, spiders and robots. Automated tools known as 'spiders' or 'robots' index registered sites. Users use search engines by typing keywords and are presented with a list of ranked pages from the index.
  • Search marketing. Companies seek to improve their visibility in search engines for relevant search terms by increasing their presence in the search engine results pages.
  • Searching behaviours. Approaches to finding information vary from directed to undirected.
  • Secondary key. A field that is used to link tables, by linking to a primary key in another table. See Database.
  • Secure Electronic Transaction (SET). A standard for public-key encryption intended to enable secure e-commerce transactions, lead-developed by MasterCard and Visa.
  • Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). A commonly used encryption technique for scrambling data as they are passed across the Internet from a customer's web browser to a merchant's web server.
  • Segmentation. Identification of different groups within a target market in order to develop different offerings for the groups.
  • Sell-side e-commerce. E-commerce transactions between a supplier organisation and its customers.
  • Semantic web. Interrelated content including data with defined meaning, enabling better exchange of information between computers and between people and computers.
  • Sense and respond communications. Delivering timely, relevant communications to customers as part of a contact strategy based on assessment of their position in the customer life cycle and monitoring specific interactions with a company's website, emails and staff.
  • Servers. See Web servers.
  • Service level agreement. A contractual specification of service standards a contractor must meet.
  • Service-oriented architecture (SOA). A serviceoriented architecture is a collection of services that communicate with each other as part of a distributed systems architecture comprising different services.
  • Session cookies. Cookies used to manage a single visitor session.
  • Share of search. The audience share of Internet searches achieved by a particular audience in a particular market.
  • Share of wallet or share of customer. The proportion of customer expenditure in a particular category that belongs to a single customer.
  • Single-tenancy SaaS. A single instance of an application (and/or database) is maintained for all customers (tenants) who have dedicated resources of processor, disk usage and bandwidth. The single instance may be load-balanced over multiple servers for improved performance.
  • Site map. A graphical or text depiction of the relationship between different groups of content on a website.
  • Site navigation scheme. Tools provided to the user to move between different information on a website.
  • Site-visitor activity data. Information on content and services accessed by e-commerce site visitors.
  • Situation analysis. Environment analysis and review of internal processes and resources to inform strategy.
  • SMS (short message services). The formal name for text messaging.
  • Social commerce. Social commerce is a subset of e-commerce which encourages participation and interaction of customers in rating, selecting and buying products through group buying. This participation can occur on an e-commerce site or on third-party sites.
  • Social CRM. The process of managing customer-tocustomer conversations to engage existing customers, prospects and other stakeholders with a brand and so enhance customer-relationship management.
  • Social engineering. Exploiting human behaviour to gain access to computer security information from employees or individuals.
  • Social media. A category of media focussing on participation and peer-to-peer communication between individuals with sites providing the capability to develop user-generated content (UGC) and to exchange messages and comments between different users.
  • Social media marketing. Monitoring and facilitating customer–customer interaction and participation throughout the web to encourage positive engagement with a company or its brands. Interactions may occur on a company site, social networks and other third-party sites.
  • Social network. A site facilitating exchange of text, audio or video content.
  • Social network sites (SNS). A site that facilitates peer-to-peer communication within a group or between individuals through providing facilities to develop usergenerated content (UGC) and to exchange messages and comments between different users.
  • Social sign-in. Users or members of sites can sign-in with their social network accounts such as Google+, Facebook or LinkedIn through use of APIs exchanging data between different web services.
  • Soft launch. A preliminary site launch with limited promotion to provide initial feedback and testing of an e-commerce site.
  • Soft lock-in. Customers or suppliers continue to use online services because of the switching costs.
  • Software (intelligent) agents. Software programs that assist humans by automatically gathering information from the Internet or exchanging data with other agents based on parameters supplied by the user.
  • Spam. Unsolicited email (usually bulk mailed and untargeted).
  • Stage models. Used to review how advanced a company is in its use of information and communications technology (ICT) to support different processes.
  • Static web content. See Static web page.
  • Static web page. A page on the web server that is invariant.
  • Stickiness. An indication of how long a visitor stays on a site.
  • Storyboarding. The use of static drawings or screenshots of the different parts of a website to review the design concept with user groups. It can be used to develop the structure – an overall 'map' with individual pages shown separately.
  • Strategic agility. The capability to innovate and so gain competitive advantage within a marketplace by monitoring changes within an organisation's marketplace and then to efficiently evaluate alternative strategies and select, review and implement appropriate candidate strategies.
  • Strategic analysis. Collection and review of information about an organisation's internal processes and resources and external marketplace factors in order to inform strategy definition.
  • Strategic objectives. Statement and communication of an organisation's mission, vision and objectives.
  • Strategy. Definition of the future direction and actions of a company defined as approaches to achieve specific objectives. See Prescriptive and Emergent strategy.
  • Strategy definition. Formulation, review and selection of strategies to achieve strategic objectives.
  • Strategy implementation. Planning, actions and controls needed to achieve strategic goals.
  • Strategy process model. A framework for approaching strategy development.
  • Subject access request. A request by a data subject to view personal data from an organisation.
  • Supply chain management (SCM). The coordination of all supply activities of an organisation from its suppliers and partners to its customers. See Upstream and Downstream supply chain.
  • Supply chain network. The links between an organisation and all partners involved with multiple supply chains.
  • Supply chain visibility. Access to up-to-date, accurate, relevant information about a supply chain's process to different stakeholders.
  • SWOT analysis. Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
  • Symmetric encryption. Both parties to a transaction use the same key to encode and decode messages.
  • System design. Defines how an information system will operate.
  • Systems development life cycle. The sequence in which a system is created through initiation, analysis, design, implementation, build and maintenance.
  • Systems integrator. A company that organises the procurement and installation of hardware and software needed for implementation.
  • Tacit knowledge. Mainly intangible knowledge that is typically intuitive and not recorded since it is part of the human mind.
  • Tailored development. The standard solution requires major configuration or integration of different modules.
  • Talk-through. A user verbally describes his or her required actions.
  • Target marketing strategy. Evaluation and selection of appropriate segments and the development of appropriate offers.
  • Task analysis. Identification of different tasks, their sequence and how they are broken down.
  • Technology scouting. A structured approach to reviewing technology innovations akin to football scouting.
  • Test environment. Separate software and hardware used to test a system.
  • Test specification. A description of the testing process and tests to be performed.
  • Testing. Aims to identify non-conformance in the requirements specification and errors.
  • The Internet of Things. Objects are uniquely identified and tagged through technologies such as RFID and made accessible through Internet-like addresses.
  • Thin client. An end-user device (terminal) where computing requirements such as processing and storage (and so cost) are minimised.
  • Third-party cookies. Served by another site to the one you are visiting – typical for portals where an ad network will track remotely or where the web analytics software places a cookie.
  • Three-tier client–server. The first tier is the client that handles display, second is application logic and business rules, third is database storage.
  • Tipping point. Using the science of social epidemics explains principles that underpin the rapid spread of ideas, products and behaviours through a population.
  • Total cost of ownership (TCO). The sum of all cost elements of managing information systems for end-users including purchase, support and maintenance.
  • Trademark. A trademark is a unique word or phrase that distinguishes your company. The mark can be registered as plain or designed text, artwork or a combination. In theory, colours, smells and sounds can also be trademarks.
  • Traffic-building campaign. The use of online and offline promotion techniques such as banner advertising, search engine promotion and reciprocal linking to increase the audience of a site (both new and existing customers).
  • Trojan. A virus that masquerades as a bona fide application.
  • Unified Modelling Language (UML). A language used to specify, visualise and document the artefacts of an object-oriented system.
  • Unique visitors. Individual visitors to a site measured through cookies or IP addresses on an individual computer.
  • Upstream supply chain. Transactions between an organisation and its suppliers and intermediaries, equivalent to buy-side e-commerce.
  • URL (uniform or universal resource locator). A web address used to locate a web page on a web server.
  • URL strategy. A defined approach to forming URLs including the use of capitalisation, hyphenation and sub-domains for different brands and different locations. This has implications for promoting a website offline through promotional or vanity URLs, search engine optimisation and findability. A clean URL which fits many of these aims is http://www.domain.com/folder-name/document-name. Care must be taken with capitalisation since Linux servers parse capitals differently from lower-case letters.
  • Usability. An approach to website design intended to enable the completion of user tasks.
  • Usability/user testing. Representative users are observed performing representative tasks using a system.
  • Use-case. The sequence of transactions between an actor and a system that supports the activities of the actor.
  • Use-case modelling. A user-centred approach to modelling system requirements.
  • User-centred design. Design based on optimising the user experience according to all factors, including the user interface, which affect this.
  • Utility computing. IT resources and in particular software and hardware are utilised on a pay-per-use basis and are managed externally as 'managed services'.
  • Value chain. A model for analysis of how supply chain activities can add value to products and services delivered to the customer.
  • Value network. The links between an organisation and its strategic and non-strategic partners that form its external value chain.
  • Value stream. The combination of actions required to deliver value to the customer as products and services.
  • Vendor-managed inventory (VMI). Supply chain partners manage the replenishment of parts or items for sale through sharing of information on variations in demand and stocking level for goods used for manufacture or sale.
  • Vertical integration. The extent to which supply chain activities are undertaken and controlled within the organisation.
  • Viral marketing. In an online context, 'Forward to a Friend' email is used to transmit a promotional message from one person to another. 'Online word-of-mouth'.
  • Virtual integration. The majority of supply chain activities are undertaken and controlled outside the organisation by third parties.
  • Virtual organisation. An organisation which uses information and communications technology to allow it to operate without clearly defined physical boundaries between different functions. It provides customised services by outsourcing production and other functions to third parties.
  • Virtual private network (VPN). A secure, encrypted (tunnelled) connection between two points using the Internet, typically created by ISPs for organisations wanting to conduct secure Internet trading.
  • Virtual world. An electronic environment which simulates interactions between online characters known as avatars. Also known as Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games (MMORPG).
  • Virtualisation (company). The process of a company developing more of the characteristics of the virtual organisation.
  • Virtualisation (technology). The indirect provision of technology services through another resource (abstraction). Essentially one computer is using its processing and storage capacity to do the work of another.
  • Vision or mission statement. A concise summary defining the scope and broad aims of an organisation's digital channel in the future, explaining how they will contribute to the organisation and support customers and interactions with partners.
  • Voice over IP (VOIP). Voice data are transferred across the Internet – it enables phone calls to be made over the Internet.
  • Walk-through. A user executes their actions through using a system or mock-up.
  • Web 2.0 concept. Web 2.0 refers to a collection of web services which facilitate certain behaviours online such as community participation and user-generated content, rating and tagging.
  • Web 3.0 concept. Next-generation web incorporating high-speed connectivity, complex cross-community interactions, full range of digital media (text, voice, video) and an intelligent or semantic web where automated applications can access data from different online services to assist searchers perform complex tasks of supplier selection.
  • Web accessibility. An approach to website design that enables sites and web applications to be used by people with visual impairment or other disabilities such as motor impairment. Accessibility also demands that web users should be able to use websites and applications effectively regardless of the browser or access platform they use and its settings.
  • Web address. See URL (uniform or universal resource locator).
  • Web analytics. Techniques used to assess and improve the contribution of digital marketing to a business including reviewing traffic volume, referrals, clickstreams, online reach data, customer satisfaction surveys, leads and sales.
  • Web application frameworks. A standard programming framework based on reusable library functions for creating dynamic websites through a programming language.
  • Web application server. Software processes which is accessed by a standard programming interface (API) of a web application framework to serve dynamic website functionality in response to requests received from browsers. They are designed to manage multiple requests from multiple users and will provide load-balancing to support high volumes of usage.
  • Web classification. See Card sorting or web classification.
  • Web design personas. A summary of the characteristics, needs, motivations and environment of typical website users.
  • Web page. See Static web page, Dynamically created web page and Web servers.
  • Web servers. Store and present the web pages accessed by web browsers.
  • Web services. Business applications and software services are provided through Internet and web protocols with the application managed on a separate server from where it is accessed.
  • Whitelist. A compilation of trusted sources of email that is permitted to enter an inbox.
  • Widgets. A badge or button incorporated into a site or social network space by its owner, with content or services typically served from another site making widgets effectively a mini-software application or web service. Content can be updated in real time since the widget interacts with the server each time it loads.
  • Wireframes. Also known as 'schematics' – a way of illustrating the layout of an individual web page.
  • Wireless communications. Electronic transactions and communications conducted using mobile devices such as laptops and mobile phones (and fixed access platforms) with different forms of wireless connection.
  • Workflow management (WFM). Workflow management is the automation of information flows; it provides tools for processing the information according to a set of procedural rules.
  • World Wide Web (WWW). The most common technique for publishing information on the Internet. It is accessed through web browsers which display web pages of embedded graphics and HTML- or XML-encoded text.
  • Worm. A small program that self-replicates and transfers across a network from machine to machine. A form of virus.
  • Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT). A summary of today's multichannel consumer decision making for product purchase where they search, review ratings, styles, prices comments on social media before visiting a retailer.
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