What do you call the act of grouping logical related and sequential activities and transactions in which businesses engage in?

    Electronic Commerce and Electronic Business

• To many people, the term “electronic commerce” means shopping on the part of the Internet called the World Wide Web (the Web). However, electronic commerce (or e-commerce) also includes many other activities, such as businesses trading with other businesses and internal processes that companies use to support their buying, selling, hiring, planning, and other activities. Some people use the term electronic business (or e-business) when they are talking about electronic commerce in this broader sense. For example, IBM defines electronic business as “the transformation of key business processes through the use of Internet technologies.” Most people use the terms “electronic commerce” and “electronic business” interchangeably.
• Companies that operate only online are often called dot-com or pure dot-com businesses to distinguish them from companies that operate in physical locations (solely or together with online operations).

• The five general electronic commerce categories are business-to-consumer, business-to-business, business processes consumer-to-consumer, and business-to-government.
• The three categories that are most commonly used are:Consumer shopping on the Web, often called business-to-consumer (or B2C); Transactions conducted between businesses on the Web, often called business-to-business (or B2B); Transactions and business processes in which companies, governments, and other organizations use Internet technologies to support selling and purchasing activities.
• To understand these categories better, consider a company that manufactures stereo speakers. The company might sell its finished product to consumers on the Web, which would be B2C electronic commerce. It might also purchase the materials it uses to make the speakers from other companies on the Web, which would be B2B electronic commerce. Businesses often have entire departments devoted to negotiating purchase transactions with their suppliers. These departments are usually named supply management or procurement. Thus, B2B electronic commerce is sometimes called e-procurement.
• The Elements of e-Commerce:

• The large oval in Figure 1-1 that represents the business processes that support selling and purchasing activities is the largest element of electronic commerce. This section provides some background and explains how business processes are built from their component parts, activities, and transactions.
• For a much longer time—centuries, in fact—business owners have kept records of how well their businesses are performing. The formal practice of accounting, or recording transactions, dates back to the 1400s. A transaction is an exchange of value, such as a purchase, a sale, or the conversion of raw materials into a finished product. By recording transactions, accountants help business owners keep score and measure how well they are doing. All transactions involve at least one activity, and some transactions involve many activities. Not all activities result in measurable (and therefore recordable) transactions. Thus, a transaction always has one or more activities associated with it, but an activity might not be related to a transaction.
• The group of logical, related, and sequential activities and transactions in which businesses engage are often collectively referred to as business processes. Transferring funds, placing orders, sending invoices, and shipping goods to customers are all types of activities or transactions.
• One important way that the Web is helping people work more effectively is by enabling employees of many different kinds of companies to work at home or other locations (such as while traveling). In this arrangement, called telecommuting or telework, the employee logs in to the company network through the Internet instead of traveling to an office.
• A summary of the Five (5) categories of e-Commerce: