Electronic commerce: supporting collaborative buyer-supplier relations?

This paper examines the influence of electronic commerce technologies in enabling companies to pursue more collaborative relations with their suppliers. Companies are now pursuing more intensive and interactive relationships with their suppliers collaborating in areas such as new product development and joint cost analysis. This paper illustrates how electronic commerce is supporting more collaborative relations by describing a number of the key areas of collaboration where electronic commerce is having a considerable impact. It is shown how electronic commerce is radically reshaping traditional supply chain structures in many industries and reducing the costs of closely integrating buyers and suppliers. However, it is argued that electronic commerce has yet to achieve its full potential in creating a seamless integrated network of partners in the supply chain. It is argued that a culture change is required in order to establish real partnerships between buyers and suppliers in which information can be exchanged on a regular basis in an environment of trust. Also, there are significant problems associated with incompatibility of systems between trading partners.