12 Order Fulfillment Along the Supply Chain

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Web Research Services
Outsourcing EC Support Services
IT Outsourcing and Application Service Providers

Category	Description
Examples
Marketplace concentrator	Aggregates information about products and services	InternetMall, Insweb, Industrial
(aggregator)	from multiple providers. Purchasers can search,	Marketplace
	compare, shop, and sometimes complete the
	purchase transaction
Information brokers	Provide product, pricing, and availability	PartNet, Travelocity, Autobytel
(infomediaries)	information. Some facilitate transactions, but their
	main value is the information they provide
Transaction brokers	Buyers can view prices and terms, etc. but the	E*TRADE, Ameritrade
	primary business activity is to execute the
	transaction
Digital product delivery	Sells and delivers software, multimedia, and other digital products over the Internet	Most software and media vendors. Also digitaldeliveryapp.com
Content provider or	Creates revenue by providing content	Most publishers
publisher
Online service provider	Provides service and support for hardware and	CyberMedia, TuneUp.com
	software users
Specialized directories	Provide leads to a variety of B2B services	Business.com, KnowledgeStorm,
	categories	Searchedu.com

Web Research Services

A number of Web research providers help companies learn more about technologies, trends, and potential business partners and suppliers. Some of these are idc.com, zdnet.com, and forrester.com.

Coupon-Generating Sites

A number of vendors help companies generate online coupons. Q-pon.com and centsoff.com are a couple of examples.
Table 12.3 presents additional services avail- able for B2B operations.

Outsourcing EC Support Services

Most companies do not maintain in-house EC support services. Instead, they outsource many of these services.

Why Outsource EC Services?

In general, outsourcing has many benefits and only few limitations and risks. For a comprehensive list of benefits, see outsource2india.com/why_ outsource/articles/benefit_outsourcing.asp.
To show the importance of outsourcing, we will look briefly at the typical process of develop- ing and managing EC infrastructure and applica-
tions. The process includes the following major steps:

EC strategy initiation, formulation, and imple- mentation (Chapter 13)
Systems design (Chapter 14)
Building (or buying) the systems (Chapter 16)
Hosting, operating, and maintaining the EC site (Chapter 16)

IT Outsourcing and Application Service Providers

In the past many outside contractors focused on serving SMEs with few IT staff and smaller IT budgets. Today, enterprises of all sizes rely on outside contractors to service a substantial part of their EC system requirements. The list of large companies who rely on third-party vendors to run their B2C websites is extensive. Examples include sites such as eddiebauer.com, 1800flowers.com, and lenovo.com. Several types of providers offer services for creating and operating electronic webstores.

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