B2B Internet Trading Platforms - EDIS

The next problem is to find the right partners for online businesses, bearing in mind that B2B e-
marketplaces offer the opportunity to engage into new business relationships. Many information
services, such as Internet portals and information directories have been developed by the market,
providing businesses with various type of information which facilitate online transactions. Such
Internet portals include databases, which allow business to search for companies or e-marketplaces,
products and services, often offering advanced search functionality, e.g. a search for the supplier of
specific products. In some cases they only provide a link to the relevant web site and in other they give
more detailed information on the company itself or the e-marketplace. Such information usually
includes e.g. the name of the company, contact details, legal form, trade register and registration
number, executives, financial information, nature of the business activities, business model of the e-
marketplace etc
Other services have been developed by public authorities, such as Trader Registers 7 , which have
officially the duty to collect and update company information. In these cases, a large variety of
information is provided, ranging form standard company data e.g. identification, management, trading
activity, turnover, balance sheets and annual accounts, to more detailed economic and legal
information e.g. level of debt, payment suspension declarations, liquidation procedures, legal actions
and bankruptcies. The main advantage of such services is their reliability, as they are based on official
sources. Their disadvantage is that they are normally not free of charge.
At European level, a telematic network connecting the business registers of 13 European countries has
been implemented – the European Business Register (EBR) – with the specific task to make available
data originating from the process of business registration. Building upon this network, an online
information service will be developed to deliver authenticated, official company information about
companies with an own website, including company name, identification of the register, VAT number
etc. This “Trust and Internet Confidence Service” (EBR-TIC) responds to the legal transparency
requirements for online service providers, as defined by the EU E-commerce Directive. The objective
is to provide, by the year 2005, such “TIC profiles” for 1 million companies in Europe.
Finally, the efficiency of Internet trading platforms and their further prospects strongly depend on the
availability of commonly used standards. Clearly, standardisation issues are not confined to e-
marketplaces but have to be addressed in a more general context. Rather, e-business standards of
different kind form the foundation for electronic B2B transactions of many kinds. The more
information is exchanged between companies and the higher the degree of automation in information
exchange, the more important do standards become.
The first specific issue is that of product identification. E-business can only be conducted reliably if
each product can be identified in a unique manner. The use of different data standards by buyers and
sellers can reduce the extent to which the full benefits of e-marketplaces are realised. However, neither
the standards for data exchange, based on XML, nor for products and services (“e-catalogues”) are
generally accepted within industries and across borders. For example, on the Internet more than 160
different and mostly incompatible standards for electronic catalogues are said to be found, making it
for SMEs very difficult to decide which standards should be followed for the documentation and
classification of products and services.
The second issue to be discussed are industry-specific e-business standards. As each industry has its
own processes and problems, there is a tendency to create industry-specific standards to accommodate
these peculiarities. At first sight, it might seem to be sub-optimal if each industry invents its own set of
standards upon which B2B Internet trading platforms are based. One might be inclined to call for a set
of standards that is unique across industries and covers all products. For example, it would be essential
that industry and retail sectors work together and not to develop inconsistent solutions. The same
applies to the need to find, preferably at international level, a common base for a future ebXML
standard. On the other hand, it has to be acknowledged that the cost of implementation of a consistent
7
Greffiers du tribunal de commerce de Paris, http://www.infogreffe.fr
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