There are four strategic options for an e-procurement initiative in your company. Although they can be viewed as stand-alone solutions, it is important to know that they are not mutually exclusive but can complement each other.  These options are:

 

1.  Preferred Customer ⁄ Supplier Relationship

 

This option is best if you have established a preferred customer⁄supplier relationship with one or several primary customers.  You know your customer well, have built up trust over a substantial period of time, and understand and respond to his or her specific needs and requirements.  Customer input is critical to successfully implement this type of e-procurement solution.  Without your customer's input, the software is useless.

 

2.    B2B ⁄ B2C Web Shop

 

B2B e-commerce involves any commerce that takes place between businesses over the Internet, including aspects such as transactions (buying and selling), marketing, customer service, logistics, tracking services, and delivery. 

B2C e-commerce involves any commerce that takes place between businesses and consumers over the Internet, including aspects such as transactions, marketing, customer service, logistics, tracking services, and delivery.

3.  Marketplace

An Internet marketplace, or simply “marketplace”, is a site on the Internet where sellers (and buyers) can post offers.  Buyers (and sellers) can communicate their interest in these offers and finalize the business transaction virtually (without verbally talking or exchanging paper documents).  Marketplaces are created to find a larger range of suppliers⁄buyers to obtain better prices and to earn money by charging for each transaction that takes place in the marketplace.  Marketplaces can be general or industry-specific.  The decision to participate in an e-marketplace or not depends on several factors including number, type, size, and location of customers.

In the future, marketplaces will allow customers to obtain convenient, fast, and reliable information for their automated e-procurement transactions in the marketplace.  These services will include:

 

·Banks can confirm the creditworthiness of potential customers

·Logistic companies can organize and monitor transport of goods

·Law firms can advise on legal questions

·Interfaces can connect the software of participants to the marketplace

·Online training on how to use the marketplace

·News and upcoming events in the marketplace

 

4.  Automated E-Procurement

E-procurement creates a continuous, uninterrupted supply-chain process by integrating buyers and selling into one electronic chain, an integrated set of processes that create seamless, electronically-initiated and electronically-monitored exchanges of information.  These types of e-procurement systems can stretch from the planning and forecasting function of the buying company to the delivery and payment functions of the selling organization, regardless of the product or service.