WO2001002927A3 - Integrated business-to-business web commerce and business automation system - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention, generally speaking, provides within a self-sufficient single application a general business solution (figure 2B) for end-to-end, continuous-flow, business-to-business electronic commerce, enabling the virtual enterprise in which the entire business can be run via a web browser (figure 3). The self-sufficient single application (figure 2B) provides flexibility, affordability and business scalability. Flexibility is achieved using a unitary 'solid-state' web enabled database (figure 3) having a 'lowest-common-denominator' item record, or central item table, that serves as the fundamental building block of the system. (The level of granularity of the item record is that used in common commercial exchange--e.g., boxes, pounds, gross, hours, etc.--depending on the nature of the item. The measure may be physically measure or a measure of time, or any other appropriate measure. That is, if a good or service can be measured, then the present system may be used to deal in that good or service.) Each item record (figure 3) contains business domain-specific fields pertaining to some and preferably all of the following business domains: products (figure 3), payments (figure 3), performance (figure 3) and personnel (figure 3).