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B2B Glossary

Application Service Provider (ASP)
Online application providers allowing business customers to rent or lease the use of e-business applications, such as auctions, catalogues, etc. Application service providers develop, supply and manage applications for their customers.

Auction
Dynamic means of setting prices in real time allowing multiple buyers to bid on the same competitive footing for products from individual suppliers.

Automatic Proxy Bidder
Mechanism used to submit bids automatically.

B2A (Business-to-Administration)
Used to describe Internet transactions between a company and a public body.

B2B (Business-to-Business - Commerce between companies)
Used to describe online transactions between a company, an institution or a public entity and another company.

B2C (Business-to-Consumer)
Used to describe Internet transactions between a company and individuals or consumers.

Banner
An advert on a Web page.

Backup
The procedure for making security copies of important data on a different storage medium.

Benchmarking
A process aimed at improving company performance by identifying key business or customer relations areas, implementing best practices and adapting lessons learnt based on own experience or observation of the activity of competing companies or organisations.

Bid
To offer to buy or sell a specific quantity of an article at a given price.

Browser
A software application used to view Web pages. The most popular browsers are Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer.

Clearing Price
The price at which a bidder buys or sells an article.

Clustering
A group of independent systems working together as a single system. Clustering technology allows groups of servers to access a single series of disks hosting applications and data, enabling programs to run more reliably and improving performance.

Collaborative Commerce
Applied mainly to vertical markets, collaborative commerce helps increase the flow of information between companies and allows firms owning competing brands to merge their different sales departments.

Cookie
A text file used to store and transfer information between applications.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
CRM is the art of integrating every aspect of IT that relates to the customer in order to consolidate and enhance the company/customer relationship

Digital Certificate
Encrypted key identifying the sending computer in a secure communication.

Digital Signature
A means of signing documents electronically. Electronic signatures allow the recipient of data sent electronically to check the origin of the data and confirm that it is complete and unchanged. If deciphered by an unauthorised person, the digital signature will be altered and the recipient will know that the information has been tampered with.

Data Mining - Data mining.

Electronic Catalogue
Standardised information from various sources brought together in the form of a catalogue and allowing easy comparison of similar products and services.

Electronic Commerce
Any form of commercial transaction involving both organisations and individuals based on the processing and transmission of data electronically, including text, sound and image. EDI, B2B, B2C, B2A, etc. all fall within this concept.

E-commerce
Internationally used term for electronic commerce.

E-learning
Any type of distance learning carried out via the Internet.

E-marketplace - Electronic commerce market
Internet-based technology platforms where buyers and suppliers meet to do business in real time.

E-procurement
Electronic procurement system allowing goods/services to be found more quickly and at greatly reduced prices.

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)
EDI is a standard for computer-based information exchange. It represents an older form of electronic commerce between a buyer and its suppliers. EDI is more involved and more expensive than Internet-based commerce, accessible only to large corporations and their largest trading partners.

Encryption
Means of encoding information for security reasons using a series of mathematical rules based on a secret key, rendering the resultant information indecipherable.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
Applications used by large corporations to manage stocks and integrate primary business processes, doing away with possible organisational hurdles. An ERP system might include applications for production, orders, bills receivable, bills payable, procurement, warehousing, transport and human resources. The main developers of ERP systems are SAP, PeopleSoft, Oracle, Baan and J.D. Edwards.

Ethernet
A standardised means of communication used to connect personal computers, servers and printers.

Extranet
A private network accessible by external users via the Web, providing information such as stock lists, employee data or research. Extranets use the Internet to transmit information but a password is normally required to gain access.

Firewall
Hardware or software set up to monitor traffic between an internal network and an external network, preventing unauthorised outsiders from tampering with or accessing information on a networked computer system.

Forward Auction
Suppliers put their products and services up for auction and call on the participation of buyers.

Gateway
A hardware / software package allowing communication between incompatible protocols on different networks.

Hacker
Unauthorised individual who penetrates a computer system to gain access to or tamper with information.

Hosted Outsourcing
Complete outsourcing of a company's information technology applications and associated hardware systems to an ASP.

Hubs
Electronic platform used to co-ordinate the commerce chain and help synchronise transactions between trading partners.

Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML)
Standard Web language used to define the size, shape, colouring and placement of text, graphics, links to other pages on the Internet, etc., on a Web page.

Hyper Text Transport Protocol (HTTP)
Standard communications protocol used to connect to Web servers and transmit HTML pages to a client's browser over the Internet.

Intermediary
Integrates data and facilitates transactions by bringing together buyers and sellers. Internet-based intermediaries create multi-supplier and multi-product marketplaces.

Internet
A collection of networks and gateways using TCP/IP protocols designed for use by the general public.

Internet Service Provider (ISP)
A company that provides access for users and businesses to the Internet.

Internetworking
Sharing data and resources from one network to another.

Intranet
In-house site designed for the employees of a company or organisation. The pages on an intranet may be connected to the Internet and use the same communications protocols, but may not normally be accessed by external users.

Java
Object-oriented, platform-independent programming language. Developed by Sun Microsystems, it allows programmers to develop applications that can run on any computer or operating system.

Link
A word, expression, graphic or other item on a website which, when clicked, transfers the user directly to another Web page.

Local Area Network (LAN)
System used to connect computers and form a network, normally linked by telephone cables. A LAN connects personal computers and other electronic office equipment.

Market Maker
Electronic commerce solution which brings together buyers and suppliers in the same business sector.

Marketplace
An electronic commerce market in which buyers and sellers can do business.

Modem
A device for converting digital signals to analogue and vice versa, for data transmission over an analogue telephone line.

MRO (Maintenance, Repair, and Operating equipment)
Goods or services not allocated to a company's operations, such as office material, travel services or computers.

Network Access Point (NAP)
A location where ISPs exchange each other's traffic.

Open Architecture
Architecture compatible with the hardware or software of any manufacturer.

Outsourcing
The transfer of components or large segments of an organisation's internal IT infrastructure, staff, processes or applications to an external resource such as an Application Service Provider.

Passwords
A secret word or phrase used to validate entry to a network.

Private Market
A company's electronic commerce market used to do business with its customers and suppliers. These markets allow a company to tightly integrate its value chain and optimise collaboration with its suppliers and customers.

Protocol
A suite of conventions that allow computers to connect to each other by specifying the format, right time, sequence and error checking for data transmission.

Reengineering
The use of information technologies to increase productivity and reduce costs, achieved by examining the business goals of an organisation and then reconfiguring existing work and business processes. Reengineering is the result of the greater competitiveness brought about by market liberalisation, where consumers are increasingly more sophisticated and demanding.

Request for Quote (RFQ) - Request for quote

Request for Proposals (RFP) - Request for a proposal.

Reverse Auction
A type of auction in which buyers state their need for a given product or service and suppliers bid to satisfy that need. Unlike a traditional auction, prices can only fall.

Router
Special-purpose hardware or software package that handles the connection of two or more networks. Routers check the destination address of traffic and decide the route to send them.

Scalability
The ability to expand a computing solution to support large numbers of users without impacting performance.

Server
A network computer able to recognise and respond to requests from clients.

Smart Card
Credit card with an integrated microprocessor and memory chip used to identify financial transactions. When read, the card transfers data to and from a central computer. It can be programmed to self-destruct if an incorrect PIN is entered several times. As a financial transaction card, it can be topped up with digital money and used as a traveller's cheque.

Supply Chain Management (SCM)
Co-ordination of the processes involved in the production, transportation and distribution of products, generally with large suppliers.

Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)
A suite of network protocols that allows computers with different architectures and operating systems to communicate with other computers on the Internet.

UN/SPSC - United Nations / Standard of Products and Services Codes
The UN/SPSC coding system is an open, global standard which classifies products and services in a logical manner and aims to meet the three main needs of a company: supplier identification, cost analysis and recognition of products and services.

User Interface
The part of an application which the user sees on the screen and with which the user works, such as menus, forms and buttons.

Vertical Market
Electronic commerce market used by companies operating in the same business sector in which direct goods are bought and sold.

Warning
A message sent out to users informing them of network limits and problems.

Web (World Wide Web)
An extensive information system on the Internet that allows users to access documents locally and remotely. A Web document is known as a Web page, and enables users to jump between different pages regardless of whether these are located on the same server or on another in a different part of the world.

Windows
Operating System developed by Microsoft.

Workgroup
Two or more individuals on a LAN that share files, databases or other resources.

Workstation
Individual personal computer connected to a network.

XML (Extensible Markup Language)
Emerging Web document format, more flexible than the standard HTML format. XML describes virtually any data in a document and can be used for specific applications, allowing Web pages to function as database records.

Buyers

Suppliers

Auctions