Standardisation for Electronic Markets

Until not so long ago, electronic business was typically characterised by one-to-one relations—a customer doing business with a vendor. A big vendor would have business relations with a large number of customers, but these were all still individual one-to-one relations. This classic B2B environment may be characterised by longstanding relations, quite frequently between a powerful customer and smaller suppliers. Here, the distribution of benefits was typically fairly uneven, with the big players reaping most of the benefits. Moreover, they would typically require their business partners to use a specific technology, which would suit their needs, but in many cases would be unsuitable for the small suppliers. As a result, there was not such a big need for standardised systems, because the standards were (implicitly) set by the big players for their respective networks anyway. This situation is about to change with the proliferation of electronic marketplaces, each of which is characterised by a many-to-many relation (see Figure 1). This relation, in turn, is made up of a number of one-to-one relations, supplier—marketplace on the one hand and buyer—marketplace on the other. One of the major consequences of this shift is the increased anonymity of buyers and sellers, who no longer do business directly, but through a mediator—the marketplace. Thus, the provision of adequate means to achieve the necessary level of trust is becoming crucial. Obviously, this needs to be supported by the marketplace.