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Ebusiness Strategy.
| Business to business (B2B):
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Business to business (B2B) is the second area
to investigate for eBusiness opportunities. The goal of B2B is to automate Business-to-Business
transactions — for example, ordering parts needed in the manufacturing process. The key question
to ask when evaluating B2B opportunities is:
- What opportunities exist to streamline the supply chain?
An example of supply chain automation utilizing B2B follows:
The company receives the customer order from the web site and electronically approves it within its accounting system, based on pre-set business rules.
The order is electronically forwarded to the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.
At some point in time, a manufacturing forecast is created.
Based upon the forecast, inventory is checked to ensure the company has enough parts and supplies on
hand to meet the forecast. If not, an automated order of necessary parts or supplies is sent
to the appropriate suppliers. This is the actual B2B transaction. Once the parts are received,
the company builds the products, fills the orders and ships to its customers – potentially
without human intervention. Utilizing eBusiness in this area allows a company to reduce
manufacturing cycle times, reduce inventory costs, and minimize line downtime.
It is an important area for evaluation of eBusiness opportunities. B2B transactions require
suppliers and partners to have the technical infrastructure in place to enable full
automation of this process.
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