A01 chaf6542 06 se fm indd

(a)

(b)

E-procurement

software

ERP

system

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Part 2  Strategy and applications

 Before 2000, B2B marketplaces were heralded as transforming B2B purchases; however, 

many have had difficulty in achieving sustainable business models, although we will see that 

there are examples of successful marketplaces in vertical industries such as Elemica ( 

www.

elemica.com

 ) within the chemicals industry which we referenced in  Case study   6.1   . Perhaps 

the prime example of a general digital marketplace is  Alibaba.com , which is discussed in 

 Mini case study    7.3   . 

 

it could be middleware to interface with an e‑procurement component of an ERP system. 

The e‑procurement system can access price catalogues in two ways. Choice (a) is to house 

electronic catalogues from different suppliers inside the company and firewall. This tradi‑

tional approach has the benefit that the data are housed inside the company and so can be 

readily accessed. However, electronic links beyond the firewall will be needed to update the 

catalogues, or this is sometimes achieved via delivery of a CD with the updated catalogue. 

Choice (b) is to use a