B2B

Business to Business (B2B) trade is a potentially huge use of the Internet. The initial solutions to this via independent aggregating hubs are now being discredited as the early movers fail to generate revenue. The various alternatives of Industry Sponsored Markets (ISM), Private markets, Supply chain automation and others have their own problems particularly in the areas of content management, scalability and privacy. Almost all the thinking around this has been in terms of straight line value chains, or one to many aggregation dominated by big business. The smaller players and Small to Medium Enterprises (SME) have largely been ignored. It is now being realized that successful internet B2B systems are going to have to reflect the constantly shifting web of interconnections that characterizes business trade. This document examines some of the current problems in B2B systems and explores ways in which a P2P approach might solve them. This is summarized in a brief proposal for a business P2P system that allows trade to happen directly between partners rather than via central hub.