e-Factors in e-Agribusiness

The Internet offers new opportunities for small businesses to conquer new markets and to find better and cheaper suppliers. Internet-based commerce is widely perceived as the new business logic that operates in a world without boundaries; a world characterized by speed, change, interactivity and connectivity. In this global commercial environment, e-business models appear to be the central conceptual component. Information and communication technologies (ICT) are changing the way in which companies trade with their suppliers and customers. The growing complexity of the food sector drives companies to adopt more sophisticated and effective e-business solutions. If we intend to adopt an e-business solution we have to consider more “e-factors” such as technological, individual, organizational, industrial and societal aspects

Business-to-business e-commerce: an innovative tool for food chain management

A supply chain is a network of facilities and distribution options that performs the functions of procurement of materials, transformation of these materials into intermediate and finished goods, and the distribution of the final goods to customers. The management of food chains, particular of fresh produce chains, need to achieve two goals: (a) create efficient physical flows of products by minimising logistics cost, and reducing lead times (b) run an effective value chain by safeguarding mutual gains for all members of the chain, building trust between suppliers and buyers and at the same time maintaining quality for end consumers. Food chain management was always at a loss for tools to leveraging its efforts on achieving value for chain members and eventually the end-consumers. Although food industry, both in USA and Europe, has experimented with various alternative solutions to this multimillion chain management, yet more can be expected. Business-to-business e-commerce (B2B) appears to be an innovative tool that meets the high standards of the industry and the potential growth. This study examines the uses of B2B in food industry to give chain management solutions. It reviews the uses of B2B and, in particular, highlights the applications of B2B by small agribusiness in order to forge their ring in food chains. It builds upon communication in supply chain. It describes contracting as an example how B2B e-commerce can advance supply activities and reports the development of a B2B olive oil supply chain application. It concludes that B2B can be a strong leverage for food chain management to achieve its goals and produce value for the members of the chain and the end consumers

New technologies for e-commerce

Today electronic commerce (e-commerce) has changed the way of doing business, and contributes significantly to economic activity. In any case, e-commerce is not a static field but it is always evolving in order to support new and more complex real world processes. The agriculture sector is expected to undergo significant transformation as a result of new business models being adopted through ecommerce. Examples of the adoption of new technologies in agriculture are provided with a view to demonstrating the benefits that can be achieved. The first part I expound the basics of e-commerce and e-markets. After I describe potential benefits to agriculture from adoption of e-commerce. The last part I describe the ecommerce 2.0, what is a prospect evolution of e-commerce

INSTITUTIONAL ECONOMICS AND THE EMERGENCE OF E-COMMERCE IN AGRIBUSINESS

The emergence of E-commerce in the 1990s heralded the arrival of the New Economy. However, the failure of numerous dotcoms since early 2001 has led to a debate regarding the future direction of E-commerce and its potential relevance for agribusiness. This study examines the economic implications of E-commerce for agribusiness within the framework of New Institutional Economics. The New Institutional Economics implies that E-commerce has the potential to reduce direct transactions costs in agricultural markets, but that it also may add additional indirect transactions costs. Depending upon the tradeoff between these costs, an institutional innovation which reduces the transactions costs may provide the impetus for an alternative marketing channel for agricultural output. Two models of institutional change are explored. The North model of changes in the rules of the game is found to be more consistent with the advent of E-commerce than the model of technological change suggested by Schumpeter.E-commerce, marketing channels, New Institutional Economics, Schumpeter, Agribusiness, Institutional and Behavioral Economics,

An open standard for the exchange of information in the Australian timber sector

The purpose of this paper is to describe business-to-business (B2B) communication and the characteristics of an open standard for electronic communication within the Australian timber and wood products industry. Current issues, future goals and strategies for using business-to-business communication will be considered. From the perspective of the Timber industry sector, this study is important because supply chain efficiency is a key component in an organisation's strategy to gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Strong improvement in supply chain performance is possible with improved business-to-business communication which is used both for building trust and providing real time marketing data. Traditional methods such as electronic data interchange (EDI) used to facilitate B2B communication have a number of disadvantages, such as high implementation and running costs and a rigid and inflexible messaging standard. Information and communications technologies (ICT) have supported the emergence of web-based EDI which maintains the advantages of the traditional paradigm while negating the disadvantages. This has been further extended by the advent of the Semantic web which rests on the fundamental idea that web resources should be annotated with semantic markup that captures information about their meaning and facilitates meaningful machine-to-machine communication. This paper provides an ontology using OWL (Web Ontology Language) for the Australian Timber sector that can be used in conjunction with semantic web services to provide effective and cheap B2B communications

A Survey of Greek Agricultural E-Markets

The role that information technology plays in today’s business activities has led to an increase in firms using and/or deploying e-markets online. This development undoubtedly affects the agri-food sector, since a large number of agricultural firms are demonstrating or are expected to demonstrate e-commerce activities. This paper aims to provide an overview of the current status of agricultural e-markets in Greece, by presenting results from an analysis of 100 cases. Results indicate that Greek e-markets may still have a rather low degree of sophistication, but they demonstrate a strong B2B orientation, as well as an outreach for international customer bases.Internet, e-commerce, e-markets, agriculture, agri-food sector, survey, Consumer/Household Economics, Marketing,

A Descriptive Content Analysis of Trust-Building Measures in B2B Electronic Marketplaces

Because business-to-business (B2B) electronic marketplaces (e-marketplaces) facilitate transactions between buyers and sellers, they strive to foster a trustworthy trading environment with a variety of trust-building measures. However, little research has been undertaken to explore trust-building measures used in B2B e-marketplaces, or to determine to what extent these measures are applied in B2B e-marketplaces and how they are applied. Based on reviews of the scholarly, trade, and professional literature on trust in electronic commerce, we identified 11 trust-building measures used to create trust in B2B e-marketplaces. Zucker\u27s trust production theory [1986] was applied to understand how these trust-building measures will enhance participants\u27 trust in buyers and sellers in B2B e-marketplaces or in B2B e-marketplace providers. A descriptive content analysis of 100 B2B e-marketplaces was conducted to survey the current usage of the 11 trust-building measures. Many of the trust-building measures were found to be widely used in the B2B e-marketplaces. However, although they were proven to be effective in building trust-related beliefs in online business environments, several institutional-based trust-building measures, such as escrow services, insurance and third-party assurance seals, are not widely used in B2B e-marketplaces

The Digitalisation of African Agriculture Report 2018-2019

An inclusive, digitally-enabled agricultural transformation could help achieve meaningful livelihood improvements for Africa’s smallholder farmers and pastoralists. It could drive greater engagement in agriculture from women and youth and create employment opportunities along the value chain. At CTA we staked a claim on this power of digitalisation to more systematically transform agriculture early on. Digitalisation, focusing on not individual ICTs but the application of these technologies to entire value chains, is a theme that cuts across all of our work. In youth entrepreneurship, we are fostering a new breed of young ICT ‘agripreneurs’. In climate-smart agriculture multiple projects provide information that can help towards building resilience for smallholder farmers. And in women empowerment we are supporting digital platforms to drive greater inclusion for women entrepreneurs in agricultural value chains

Competing in the Digital Economy?: The Dynamics and Impacts of B2B E-commerce on the South African Manufacturing Sector

ICTs, B2B e-commerce, manufacturing sector, South Africa

A model to enhance the perceived trustworthiness of Eastern Cape essential oil producers selling through electronic marketplaces

Eastern Cape Province farmers in the natural essential oils industry are yet to fully realise the use of electronic commerce (e-commerce) platforms, such as electronic marketplaces (e-marketplaces) for business purposes. This is due to the issues that include lack of awareness, poor product quality, untrusted payment gateways and unsuccessful delivery that are associated with e-marketplaces. As a result, farmers do not trust e-marketplaces and therefore hesitate to engage in e-marketplaces for business purposes. This is further complicated by natural essential oils buyers‟ tendency of preferring face-to-face interaction with a supplier rather than online interaction as they need quality assurance. As such, this research proposes a model to enhance the perceived trustworthiness of natural essential oil producers in the Eastern Cape Province selling through e-marketplaces. The model constitutes the factors that could be considered in assisting essential oil producers to create a perception of trustworthiness to buyers in e-marketplaces. These factors were evaluated amongst five organisations involved in the production, retail or processing of essential oils using a multiple-case study methodology. The study‟s use of multiple-case study was applied within the interpretivist paradigm and five cases were considered. Interviews, document analysis and observations were used for data collection. Data analysis was done using within-case analysis followed by cross-case analysis to establish factors of trust. The essential oil producers based in the Gauteng, Kwazulu-Natal and Western Cape provinces were cases that had been successfully using e-marketplaces for a notable period of time. Accordingly, factors that contributed to the successful use of e-marketplaces informed the proposed model of this research. The model proposes that perceived trustworthiness of enterprises in e-marketplaces can be achieved through following the uncertainty reduction stages (Entry, Personal and Exit) and applying uncertainty reduction strategies (passive, active and interactive)