ABSTRACT
This chapter provides various research questions that address the motivations companies have in using web-based tools in customer supplier relationships; the relation among motivations, acquired materials, and typology of Internet tools adopted. It also addresses the key topic concerning the implications on customer-supplier relationships related to the Internet adoption. On the operational perspectives, higher coordination is provided by inventory levels visibility, final customer's demand signals visibility, production plans sharing, or even collaborative inventory management practices, production planning and demand forecasting. The investments are necessary to start an effective and efficient relationship and are considered as switching costs when the customer and the supplier want to terminate the alliance. Literature contributions in customer-supplier relationships attempt to find ways of managing such trade-off; most of them consider the object of the transaction or the supply market characteristics as the main driving factors in choosing the position a company should assume on the trade-off curve.
