Here, both the
Sections involved in e-commerce
transactions are business firms, and,
hence the name B2B, i.e., business-to-
business. Creation of utilities or
delivering value requires a business to
Deal with a number of other business
firms which may be suppliers or vendors
of diverse inputs; or else they may be
a part of the channel through which
a firm distributes its products to
the consumers. For example, the
manufacture of an automobile requires
assembly of a large number of
components which in turn are being
manufactured elsewhere — within the
vicinity of the automobile factory or even
overseas. To reduce dependence on a
single supplier, the automobile factory
has to cultivate more than one vendor
for each of the components. A network
of computers is used for placing orders,
monitoring production and delivery of
components, and making payments.
Likewise, a firm may strengthen and
improve its distribution system by
exercising a real time (as it happens)
control over its stock-in-transit as well
as that with different middlemen in
different locations. For example, each
consignment of goods from a warehouse
and the stock-at-hand can be monitored
and replenishments and reinforcements
can be set in motion as and
when needed. Or else, a customer’s
specifications may be routed through
the dealers to the factory and fed
into the manufacturing system for
customised production. Use of
e-commerce expedites the movement of
the information and documents; and of
late, money transfers as well.
Historically, the term e-commerce
originally meant facilitation of B2B
transactions using Electronic Data
Interchange (EDI) technology to send
and receive commercial documents like
purchase orders or invoices.