Interoperation support for electronic business

ELECTRONIC BUSINESS E-commerce is not simply about business transactions that run over the Internet, but is fundamentally about the flow of information. Nowadays the boundaries of organizations are more fluid than they used to be. Supply-chain management forces companies to streamline the ways they manufacture, distribute, and sell products and ultimately will improve the way organizations conduct business. The supply-chain cycle begins with a customer's order. The manufacturer passes the order through the usual intra-enterprise activities, for example, sales, marketing, manufacturing, distribution, purchasing, and fiscal accounting. Usually the manufacturer turns to outside support from suppliers, utilities, transportation, and other providers of goods and services that are needed to make the product. The information exchange pertains to such matters as requests for quote, bids, purchase orders, order confirmations , shipping documents, invoices and payment information. In this way multiple enterprises within a shared market segment collabora-tively plan, implement, and manage the flow of goods, services, and information along the value system in a way that increases customer-perceived value and optimizes the efficiency of the chain [3]. Company value chains are transformed into integrated value systems if they are designed to act as an " extended enterprise, " creating and enhancing customer-perceived value by means of cross-enterprise collaboration. Value-chain integration means that an enterprise's business systems can no longer be confined to internal processes, programs, and data repositories, rather they Integrated value chains that consist of business alliance partners compete as single entities for customers.