ABSTRACT
The vision of e-business is that enterprises will have access to a much broader range of trading partners to interact and collaborate with, and not only to buy and sell more efficiently. If e-business processes are integrated end-to-end across the company and with partners, suppliers, and customers, they can respond with flexibility and speed to customer demands and market opportunities. E-business supports business processes along the entire value chain: electronic purchasing and supply chain management, processing orders electronically, customer service and cooperation with partners. This chapter describes different types of business webs, such as mela (open marketplace), aggregator, integrator, associator, and distributor. It provides an overview of the applicable profit models. The chapter then presents the process of price formation involving price differentiation, linear, nonlinear, and dynamic price development. It addresses aspects related to electronic procurement, namely, sell-side and buy-side market models as also the marketplace.
