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E-Commerce and E-Business

This operation is used to send appropriately packaged EDI, Extensible Markup Language (XML),
or other business data.

4. Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) or Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS): HTTP server
is the most commonly available of all communication servers. Just like FTP, HTTP server is
inexpensive but the major advantage of the HTTP server is that, the HTTP protocol directly sends
to or receives files from a destination application. Because of this direct process, it is possible to
have the destination application run a process immediately once a file is received. This process is
used to acknowledge the received files.

HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the WWW.

5. EDIINT AS2: It is sophisticated and a more complicated version of HTTP. It is an Internet based
communication protocol which allows sending business data such as purchase orders, invoices,
and delivery notes over the Internet regardless of the data format EDI or XML. Since, the
transmission of business data using VAN is very costly and the pricing model is very confusing, a
company can reduce their ongoing expenses with VANs by utilizing the AS2 solution in the B2B
strategy.

SEEBURGER is the first worldwide B2B integration solution provider. It provides
the marketplace with an affordable, unlimited usage of AS2module.

4.2.5 EDI Maturity
EDI development follows a fairly standard pattern which is represented as a six stage maturity model.
1. Discovery Stage: An organization can choose to adopt EDI to gain competitive advantage or to
solve an administrative problem. Most of the organizations adopt it in the form of a request from a
significant organization that converts its trade transaction to EDI.

2. Introductory Stage: An organization setting out on the EDI path normally begins with a pilot
scheme. Initiators of EDI trading networks select one or two trading partners to do the pilot
transaction. Organizations which are not into EDI trading by choice but are forced into EDI
trading by an insistent partner starts electronic trading in a similar way. This stage requires
investments and does not result in any cost saving or efficiency gain.
3. Integration Stage: In this stage, the EDI software is interfaced with the business application so that
EDI messages are transferred electronically and automatically between the two systems. The work
involved in this stage is variable but is also expensive. This stage is very essential for the large
users of EDI.

4. Operational Stage: A significant number of trading partners and/or commonly used trade
transactions are converted to EDI. The conversion of the major part of the trade cycle, both in
volume of trading partners and in numbers of message types is known as the operational stage.
5. Strategic Stage: In this stage savings are made by replacing the paper documents with their
electronic equivalents. Real opportunities arise in this stage by making changes to established
business practices. These opportunities can only arise by making significant changes in the
operational stage and the implementation of these changes are done in the strategic stage.

Just In Time (JIT) manufactures now supply products quickly by replacing the
paper documents with their electronic equivalent.

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