SEEU Review vol. 6 Nr. 2 (pdf) - South East European University

SEEU Review Volume 6, No. 2, 2010Business-to-Business (B2B) E-commerceThe Business-to-Business (B2B) e-Commerce area is poised fortremendous growth. According to (Becker, 2008), “B2B (business-tobusiness)e-business is the sale of products or services, or informationexchange, among two or more businesses through electronic technology,usually involving the Internet, through a public or private exchange”. Or inother words, B2B is just an application of e-commerce that deals directlywith companies and the way they do business.The B2B model has become the most important and most used model ofe-commerce; it has a bigger financial impact for the new economy.Countries that are more involved and use this system more are United States,Japan, Europe, China but now days also the small countries have started tobe part of the new model of making business.SME’s tendency should be moving towards implementation of B2B e-commerce in their businesses. The problem with SME’s is that they mustplay the game of the big companies. Big Enterprises define the rules of thegame. These rules in B2B e-commerce are specified by the protocol ofcommunication and the XML document schemas that will be exchanged(Besimi, Dika, & Gerguri, 2010).According to (MacGregor & Vrazalic, 2007) main reasons why SMEshave been slow to use e-commerce are related to security, lack of resources,and incompatibility. The major barrier for SME’s to enter B2B e-commerceis the cost of implementing some of the standards specified in some of theB2B frameworks.Sometimes the implementation of these B2B standardscosts too much for the SMEs, this is why a solution of e-marketplaces exists.E-marketplaces“An independent B2B marketplace or e-marketplace is an Internetdestination where businesses from around the world can come together tobuy and sell goods and services in an auction format. The destination and theauction are controlled and managed by the independent B2B provider”(Khosrow-Pour, 2006).E-marketplaces use the B2B model in order to provide the business sectorwith most opportunities, more for the part of the supply chain. B2B105