The role of e-marketplaces in relationship-based supply
chains: a survey
Along with the Internet boom came high expectations for the role of e-marketplaces and their potential to enhance supply chain efficiency.
(1) From 1998 to 2000, business-to-business (B2B)
e-commerce was heralded as the next major innovation
in business, and analysts projected that trillions
of dollars would flow through B2B exchanges by 2004.
Legions of exchanges sprang up virtually overnight,
supported by a new industry of e-business software
vendors providing tools for everything from dynamic
pricing to collaborative commerce. This brief but
meteoric rise came to a sudden halt by the end of
2000. In the two-month period following the peak,
many e-marketplaces failed or merged. Firms reevaluated
their e-business strategies and reduced their investments
in B2B activities. Investors lost confidence in B2B-related
stocks. Within a year, Ariba and Commerce One, two
key B2B e-commerce solution providers, lost over 95
percent of their market value. Their stock prices
never recovered.
(2)
Early attention to e-marketplaces focused on their potential to lower the costs of doing business. An interesting study of transaction costs by Garciano and Kaplan
(3) suggested that the transaction cost savings alone from B2B exchanges could be a substantial portion of the total cost of production and order fulfillment. By lowering search costs and making it easier to match buyers and sellers, e-marketplaces raised the possibility that firms could conduct large volumes of their B2B transactions using dynamic channels such as auctions and exchanges. Later, e-marketplaces sought to provide value by offering services to facilitate collaboration and information-sharing, rather than just online commerce. Proposed services included collaborative design and systems to facilitate the sharing of supply chain information such as forecasts and inventory levels. The e-marketplaces also sought to improve supply chain efficiency by automating business processes such as procurement, order management, and fulfillment. Beall et. al
(4) provided evidence for the success of electronic
reverse auctions along those dimensions.
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The role of e-marketplaces in relationship-based supply
chains: a survey
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