| Sumario: | Advances in computers and communications hold great promise for lowering business-to-business (B2B) transaction costs. B2B e-commerce refers to the replacement of labor services in the production of economic transactions with computer data processing and Internet communications. B2B commerce encompasses a wide range of intercompany transactions, including wholesale trade and company purchases of services, resources, technology, manufactured parts and components, and capital equipment. It also includes such financial transactions between companies as insurance, commercial credit, bonds, securities, and other financial assets. Expectations about productivity gains from B2B e-commerce are discussed under four headings: efficiencies from automation of transactions, the economic advantages of new market intermediaries, the consolidation of demand and supply through organized exchanges, and changes in the extent of vertical integration of companies.
|
|---|