B2B and B2C Supply Chains
With the popularity of the Internet has come a metamorphosis for brick-and-mortar businesses. They have seen the necessity to move business opportunities to the Web. Customer purchases of products and services over the internet have greatly increased. Also, businesses have seen a benefit in handling "paperwork" electronically and are shifting to an electronic based supply chain. This paper will explain what Business to Business and Business to Customer means, as well as show the supply chains differ.
Supply Chain
A supply chain is, essentially, all parts of the process that bring a product or service from the business (or seller) to its intended end-destination point. In this technology age, the supply chain management had moved towards IT-based managing and many of the steps in the supply chain can now be done electronically. This saves the company time, money, and reduces human error and oversight.
Business to Business
Business to Business (B2B) means that a "business sells products or services to other businesses" (Schneider, 2004). The article in Network World "The Art of Balancing E-Commerce Processes", by Ann Bednarz gives an example of B2B eCommerce. The article explains how Wal-Mart is forcing its suppliers to upgrade their eCommerce infrastructures. The company spotlighted, Murray, Inc, was already using Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) to do electronic exchanges of purchase orders, invoices, etc (Bednarz, Feb. 7, 2005). Wal-Mart is now demanding of its business partners the transfer to AS2, which operates over a higher internet protocol-usually HTTPS or S-MIME. The article continues on to explain how the IT is evolving and adapting to become more secure and streamlined for all involved.
Working on a B2B ...