Electronic Commerce: Strategies and Models for Business to Business Trading Book

In this dense work, Dr. Paul Timmers, who heads up the electronic commerce sector for the European Union's research and technology development and business pilot programme, explains the application of electronic commerce over the Internet to solve common business problems. Because so much of the Internet is new, much of the work is predictive, though Dr. Timmers grounds the issues in applications of the Internet by existing companies. The book comprises a rich mix of the theoretical along with numerous case studies. He presents four case studies from the United States--Marshall Industries, Fedex, Industry.net and Amazon.com--along with four from Europe--Citrus Belgium, Tradezone, Global Engineering Network and Infomar. Each case study focuses on the overall effect of the Internet on the business and then zeroes in on the customers, products and services, competition and the marketing strategy. From the case studies, Dr. Timmers generalises about the effect on marketing strategy: "The cases studied have in common that they are all relatively innovative in terms of product and service development. It is striking, however, that none of them appears to emphasise a large proprietary advantage in technology. Mastery of technology is critical, nevertheless". The 245-page book concludes with possible scenarios about how the Internet will affect business in the future. --Bruce McWilliamsRead More