Assessing the adoption of business-to-business E-commerce: a judgemental modelling approach

Appropriate deployment of web-enabled technologies is recognised as one of the main challenges facing firms, especially within the business-to-business environment. This paper shows how judgemental modelling can help to assess facets of a firm's existing buyer-supplier relationships and the potential effects of adopting e-commerce within a firm's supply chain. The research is based on a case study of a small-medium sized privately owned multinational in a specialist segment of the food and drink packaging industry. Judgemental modelling is used to analyse data collected through interviews with the firm's customers, suppliers and employees and is supplemented by correspondence analysis. The results show the perceived impact of adopting ecommerce on buyer-supplier relationships and identify strategic aspects within the firm's value chain that can be advantageously developed. Perspectives on the importance of different attributes of the buyer-supplier relationship and the potential effects of e-commerce differ amongst players within the network, highlighting the need for careful planning when designing and introducing an electronic trading platform.