Towards a Framework for Managing the Business-to- Business e-Commerce Chain

The rapid of growth in e-Commerce/e-Business provides new opportunities and challenges for next generation Internet and telecommunication service providers. The collective global e-Commerce activities are estimated to exceed $6 trillion dollars in 2004. However, a key element in successful e-Commerce/e-Business operation is the improved integration and management of the e-Business value chains (i.e., management of business-2-customer (B2C) and business-2-business (B2B) chains. Current e-Business managed solutions, where available, tend to concentrate on only single aspects of the e-Business integration, e.g., outsourced accounting management or virtual private network (VPN) services. This is analogous to first-generation telecommunication management systems which delivered stand-alone management applications for specific management concerns, e.g., performance management and configuration management. However, e-Business