Abstract
To compete effectively in the e-business world, an organization must structurally transform its internal foundation. This structural change requires an organization to develop an innovative e-business strategy, focusing on speed to market and breakthrough execution. Despite the recognition and care that in recent years has been dedicated to e-business, there remains a need for continuing research efforts that seek to better understand constraints on the evolution of an organization to a state that can take advantage of e-business possibilities. There is a special need for this when considering small and medium enterprises, or businesses in developing countries. To minimize risk exposure from e-business initiatives, it is imperative for an organization to identify potential constraints on e-business evolution. In this setting, we develop a research model that involves e-business constraints and e-business maturity. We classify the constraints into the categories of environment constraints, organizational constraints, and technological constraints. Our results indicate that there are constraints that can be more or less problematic, depending on the stage of maturity. The results are also quite different in large organizations versus Small and Medium Enterprises.

Abstract
It is well recognized that e-business supports all parts of an organization's value chain, and offer valuable competitive advantages to firms. It is imperative for an organization to identify potential constraints to e-business in order to minimize the risk derived from its e-business initiative. Hence, in this paper, we explore a range of constraints that the literature suggests influences e-business evolution, so that organizations could be better equipped in anticipating any difficulties while in progress through their e-business initiatives. Thirteen hypotheses were formulated and tested. Questionnaires were applied to investigate the research problem. It was administered to 1000 managing directors of the biggest (according to the amount of business) Portuguese enterprises. Results suggest that organizational constraints are more critical, such as, conflict with traditional trading partners, conflict with traditional business and e-business initiatives, reengineering business processes and resistance to change, among other.

Abstract
Large grocery stores are nowadays used by millions of people for the acquisition of an enlarging number of products. Product acquisition represents a complex process that comprises lime spent in corridors, product location and checkout queues. On the other hand, it is becoming increasingly difficult for retailers to keep their clients loyal and to predict their needs due to the influence of competition and the lack of tools that discriminate consumption patterns. In this article it is presented the proposal of an architecture and solution of an innovative system for the acquisition of products in grocery stores (IntelligentCart). The IntelligentCart explores enlarging mobile technologies and automatic identification technologies (such as RFID) as a way to improve the quality of services provided by retailers and to augment the consumer value thus allowing to save time and money.

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