B2B Integration : A Practical Guide to Collaborative E-commerce

32 B2B Integration — A Practical Guide to Collaborative E-commerce
are facing the challenge to provide these employees with access to
corporate computing resources. The access cannot be limited to basic
features, such as e-mails, but needs to be a complete hookup into
applications that enable them to be productive anytime, anywhere.
Companies have to design and implement solutions that extend Internet,
intranet and extranet applications wirelessly to handheld devices, based
on the Palm and Windows CE platforms, as well as Internet-enabled
phones.
Integration of these mobile devices with a company's internal and
trading partners' applications is now becoming an integral part of
B2Bi.
2.2.11. Software agents
The B2B e-commerce environment is both information and process
rich. In the current environment, there are a lot of manual processes,
such as information gathering and catalog management. Agent technology
is very relevant in such an environment, as it is useful where a
personalized, continuously running semi-autonomous behavior is desired.
Most of the work of information gathering and process management
tasks can be delegated to agents.
However, decisions in which the agent can possibly make a suboptimal
choice, such as which stock to buy and approving a big
contract, cannot be left to the software agent as the consequences of
missed opportunities or unfavorable decisions can be severe.
2.3. Benefits of B2B Integration
Following are several tangible and intangible benefits of B2Bi, which
directly affect a company's bottom line:
2.3.1. Dynamic business relationships
B2B integration enables dynamic business relationships and processes
that respond flexibly and quickly to new business models and changing