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Understanding B2B E-Commerce: Explaining the Histories of B2B Initiatives

The impact of the Internet on the supply chain is one of the most important areas of research for Operations Management. A major element of the so-called ‘dot.com’ boom was the emergence of new forms of intermediary organisations (called variously “B2B exchanges”, “hubs” and “marketplaces”) through which industrial buyers and sellers could interact. This paper presents a small selection of data from two aspects of a broader investigation into the nature of B2B e-commerce. Firstly, it presents data from the analysis of 302 B2B e-marketplaces, and focuses in particular on the patterns of birth and death, and on the epistemological problems of investigating the demography of B2B. This is complemented by a brief discussion of three major industry-based B2B initiatives (Covisint, Exostar and Transora).