Service Oriented Business to Business e-Commerce: A Case Study of Cogwheel Incorporated

Abstract

The concept of eCommerce has evolved over the years from a conventional “buy and sell” model where internet is merely a virtual market place; to a more robust, explicitly defined and seamless integration of businesses. The emerging eCommerce places emphasis on value creation; buyers have value for their money and are willing to pay for services, sellers equally derive values from income, information and knowledge available from processed data.

This write-up, proposes a business to business (B2B) eCommerce system model to Cogwheel Incorporated; a manufacturing company that produces cogwheel. Cogwheel is a key component of car gearbox. The company intends to reduce administrative cost to almost zero through B2B. This paper considers the dynamics involved in implementing B2B with modern service oriented architecture.

1.0 Introduction

Imagine the world without internet. Sounds ridiculous! Sounds unimaginable! Can we then say that internet is the mother of all inventions? Yes. As arguable as it sounds, the advent of internet has redefined and still redefining many aspects of human endeavors, most obvious is what we call information mobility – the mechanisms surrounding the way information is being transported from one point to another and its interpretation in context and content. This information revolution has recorded great impact on business, it has changed the way and manner businesses operate irrespective of the industry. Now we can talk about e-commerce, e-business, e-service, XML, ontology, meta-language, ebXML, value chain and so on, these are emerging technologies that are shaping the online market place.

Business to Business (B2B) eCommerce framework describes the business transactions that take place between two or more companies, The consumers and supplies in these trades are always business entities rather individuals.[2] The fundamental challenge of this framework is how to move ‘ knowledge’ from one system to another; essentially, it borders on effective and efficient communication between independent and mutually exclusive systems. This communication could be achieved through ‘ services’ - a service is basically a re-useable component that is capable of changing business data from one form to another, it describes how data is accessed [6].

Similar to many software development principles, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) abstracts the complexities involved in data manipulation (physical and logical mapping) by presenting to the user what he want and how it want it. According to Eri Thomas, service orientation provides a governing approach to automate business logic as distributed systems[3].

2.0 Problem description: Cogwheel and the business space

As shown in figure 2.0a; Cogwheel is an important component of a gear box, and the gear box is a car subsystem, it is a major component in car manufacturing.

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Figure 2.0a: Cogwheel in Car Context.

Cogwheel incorporated is a cogwheel manufacturing company; it directly transacts business with Gearbox manufacturing companies. It is good to note that different cars have different gear specifications; for example gear box for the Honda may not work for Hyundai, therefore Cogwheel incorporated’s B2B platform should have the capacity to interface with as many brands of gearbox manufacturers as possible.

Figure 2.0b shows cogwheel business sphere as it relates with core business partners.

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