Managing business‐to‐business relationships throughout the e‐commerce procurement life cycle

E‐commerce technologies provide effective and efficient ways in which corporate buyers can gather information rapidly about available P/S (products and services), evaluate and negotiate with suppliers, implement order fulfillment over communications links, and access post‐sales services. From the supplier side, marketing, sales, and service information is also readily gathered from customers. Building and maintaining customer relationships is the key to success in e‐commerce and, unless service is maintained, customer loss may result, more than offsetting any cost efficiencies due to introducing e‐commerce technology. Since the core of e‐commerce is information and communications, support for managing customer relationships is available to those who know how to use it. Discusses how technology can be used to encourage and facilitate customer‐business relationships. Shows through a customer relationship life cycle model how the management of related procurement functions in customer companies can adjust to take advantage of these relationships.