Management of e-commerce
Question One
A) True/False
1. Purchases involving long-term contracts that usually are based on private negotiations
between sellers and buyers are called strategic sourcing.
Answer: TRUE
2.
In one-to-many and many-to-one marketplaces, if all buying is done by one company, it is a
sell-side market.
Answer: FALSE
3.
Reverse auctions are one method of electronic procurement that is very popular with public
organizations where tendering is usually mandatory.
Answer: TRUE
4.
EC based corporate are not likely to have supply chain problems if they lack a logistics
infrastructure.
Answer: FALSE
5. Customer dissatisfaction, Product delays, and lost sales can all be caused by supply chain
problems.
Answer: TRUE
B) True /False and explain your answer

The purchase of goods and services as they are needed, usually at prevailing market
prices is called desktop purchase.
Answer:
Explain:
 Social networking cannot be used to improve the brand awareness in E-Commerce.
Answer:
Explain:
1

A major characteristic of B2B e-commerce is that companies attempt to electronically
automate trading, communication, and collaboration processes in order to improve them,
which cannot be done without the Internet.
Answer:
Explain:

B2B e-commerce enables customized online e catalogs with different prices for different
customers.
Answer:
Explain:
 A vital component to enable e-commerce is called Electronic Funds Transfers.
Answer:
Explain:
C) Discuss the following: spot buying versus strategic sourcing, direct materials
versus indirect materials, and vertical markets versus horizontal markets
Spot buying is the purchase of goods and services as they are needed, usually at normal market
prices. In contrast, strategic sourcing is the purchase of goods and services involving long-term
contracts that are usually based on private negotiations. Direct materials are the materials that are
used in the creation of a product whereas indirect materials are used to support that production.
Vertical markets are concentrated in a specific industry whereas horizontal markets concentrate on a
product or service that is used across several industries.
D) What are company-centric marketplaces? Are they public or private?
Company-centric marketplaces focus on a single company’s purchasing needs or selling needs and
are generally private entities owned by that company.
2
Question Two
E) Multiple choices
1. Downstream supply chain includes _______________
A) Invoicing.
B) Quality inspections.
C) Logistics.
D) Domestic suppliers.
2. What are the two types of materials and supplies that are traded in B2B?
A) digital and physical
B) direct and indirect
C) horizontal and vertical
D) nonproduction and MRO
3. One of the major limitations of RFID technology is
A) Bandwidth.
B) Lack of accuracy.
D) Limited user interface.
4. The planning, organizing, and coordinating of all the activities relating to purchasing
goods and services needed to accomplish the organization's mission best defines
A) buy-side e-marketplace.
B) Supply chain management.
C) Procurement management.
D) Customer relationship management.
5. Companies use ________ to sell their unneeded assets for quick disposal or to dispose
of excess, obsolete, and returned products.
A) Private auctions
B) Liquidation
C) Reverse auctions
D) Forward auctions
6. Supply chain aims to ____________________
A) Providing customers with the highest quality.
B) Minimize inventory levels.
C) Maximize inventory levels.
D) Eliminate inventory levels.
7. The use of Web technologies to manage warehousing and transportation processes is
called:
A) Collaborative planning.
B) Downstream processing.
C) e-logistics.
D) e-replenishment.
8. B2B transactions that involve communication, design, planning, information sharing,
and activities beyond financial transactions among business partners is referred to as:
A) exchanges.
B) collaborative commerce.
C) trading communities.
3
D) public marketplaces.
9. A company acquisition web site that uses e-procurement methods such as reverse
auctions, negotiations, or group purchasing to overcome the manual searching of estores is referred to as ________________________.
A) desktop procurement method
B) buy-side e-marketplace
C) an intermediary
D) aggregated catalog
10. A third party e-commerce web site usually uses _________________.
A) catalog only
B) auctions only
C) aggregated catalog and auctions
11. Direct purchasing from internal marketplaces without the approval of supervisors and
without the intervention of a procurement department is known as
A) desktop procurement
B) buy-side e-marketplace
C) an intermediary
D) aggregated catalog
F) Direct translation differs from localization.
Localization is a translation that considers the culture and costumes of the local environment.
When selling the same goods in another environment.
G) what are the basic types of B2B transactions
–
–
–
–
Sell-side: one seller to many buyers.
Buy-side: one buyer from many sellers.
Exchanges: Many sellers to many buyers.
Supply chain improvements and collaborative commerce: including additional
activities such as ,communicating, sharing information for joint design
Question Three
(A) Explain the logic of desktop purchasing.
Direct purchasing from internal marketplaces without the approval of supervisors and without the
intervention of a procurement department
(B) What is meant by Reverse Auction? In what situation it can be used? .
Refer to slides
4
(C) What is the main difference between buy at the buyer’s site and buy at the seller site Eprocurement methods
The buy at the buyer’s site means that the corporate has to establish a web site to acquire goods,
material or services while buy at the seller’s site which means that the corporate has to visit the
seller’s web site to procure
Question Four
(A) Describe how RFID can be used to improve supply chains.
RFID tags can be attached to products to more carefully monitor their location for inventory
purposes.
(B) Explain how RFID works in a supplier-retailer system.
Suppliers attach RFID tags so retailers can track shipment and receiving.
(C) Briefly explain the differences between active and passive RFID tags.
Active tags include an internal power supply while passive tags do not.
(D) In what circumstances would it be better to use passive RFID tags? And in what
circumstances might it be better to use active RFID tags?
Passive tags are better in high volume settings where scanning is easy. Active tags are
better in difficult to scan locations.
(E) What are some of the major limitations of RFID technology?
Cost of implementation
Limited use by environment
Accuracy
Privacy
Lack of standards
(F) Describe RuBee and its capabilities.
RuBee is a bidirectional, on-demand, peer-to-peer radiating transceiver protocol. RuBee has
several complimentary features that include:
Use of magnetic waves
Longer battery life
Better locatiblity
Lower cost infrastructure
Question Five
(A) Identify the activities of e-SCM.
– E-procurement
5
–
–
–
–
–
E-Logistics
Supply Chain Replenishment
Supply Chain Monitoring and Control Using RFID
Inventory Management Using Wireless Devices
Collaborative Design and Product Development
(B) Define VMI and list its benefits.
Vendor-managed inventory (VMI) – The practice of retailers making suppliers responsible for
determining when to order and how much to order. Benefits include less time spent on calculations
and more accurate order quantities.
(C) List the major e-supply chain management infrastructures and enabling tools.
These include extranets, intranets, corporate portals, workflow systems, groupware and Electronic
Data Interchange (EDI)
(D) In the following diagram, what is meant by “Support Services”? Can the manufacturer
do B2B without them? Explain your answer
Support Services
(E) Describe the bullwhip effect.
The bullwhip effect is when large fluctuations in inventories along the supply chain occur, resulting
from small fluctuations in demand for finished products.
Question Six
(A) What is a corporate portal?
A corporate portal is a gateway for entering a corporate Web site, enabling communication,
collaboration and access to company information.
(B) List the types of corporate portals.
Portal types can include supplier/partner portals, customer portals, employee portals,
executive/supervisor portals and mobile portals.
6
`
(C) Discuss the relationship between c-commerce and corporate portals.
Corporate portals can be used as a method of collaborative commerce for employees, customers and
other stakeholders.
Question Seven
A) A corporate developed a web site for E-Commerce and invited group of
suppliers to access the site through an Extranet to provide the company with its
needs. Name one e-procurement method the company can use?
Reverse Auction
Tendering
Internal aggregation
Desktop purchasing
B) A corporate uses the E-Commerce web sites of its partners and suppliers
through an Extranet to purchase needs. Name one e-procurement method the
company can use?
Forward Auction
Catalog
Aggregators of Catalog
Negotiation
C) A corporate uses third-party E-Commerce web sites through internet to
purchase needs. Name one e-procurement method the company can use?
Forward Auction
Catalog
Negotiation
Bartering
D) Define B2B.
Business-to-business e-commerce refers to transactions between businesses conducted
electronically over the Internet, extranets, intranets, or private networks.
E) Summarize the benefits of B2B
Refer to slide # 11
7