Electronic Commerce (EC) and Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) Relationship

Commerce

Involves: Buyer(s)

Supplier(s)

Payment(s)

Distribution

Commerce transactions can be:

Consumer to Business

Consumer to Bank

Business to Business

Business to Bank

Commerce transactions that are enabled by some electronic means (telegraph, telephone, Telex, or fax, or terminal/host or client/server computer applications) are called Electronic Commerce.

Client/Server applications can operate on local area, wide area, private, Internet, or intranet networks, or combinations of these.

Electronic Data Interchange are transactions that take place between two computer applications without human intervention, even though a human might initiate the transaction.

The more that:

1) manual processes reengineered and automated, and 2) resultant computer applications are integrated into the commerce value chain through methods such as activity-based costing (ABC), the larger the role of EDI in EC. Both of these technical capabilities are justified via Business Process Reengineering (BPR).

Commerce

Business

Transactions

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This diagram illustrates the capability known as Electronic Commerce in relation to the capability known as Electronic Data Interchange.

EC uses the information infrastructure between organizations to enable EDI for commercial purposes.