Extending the Definition of E-Services and Its Implications to E-Services Development

Abstract

E-services have been emerged with the progress of ICT, especially the Internet and web technologies in the last decade. Yet researchers from different disciplines use the term "e-services" often in different contexts hence defining the term differently. This paper aims at defining e-services to illustrate more explicitly the features of e-services and the role of ICT in e-service systems, based on an analysis of existing definitions of e-services in literature. Our definition captures more real world e-services and illustrates more specific features of e-services. This paper then discusses those distinguished features of e-services compared with non-electronic services, especially on the implications of the features with respect to the discovery, design, delivery and improvement of e-services and e-services systems. We believe that our definition of e-services contributes to a better understanding of e-services, and provides a basis for e-services and e-service systems development.