EUROSELECT: the strategic rationale of an EDI network and its cooperative arrangements in the grocery wholesale industry

The EUROSELECT network of national offices provides the organizational framework for an EDI-based product/price catalog and ordering system. This system has become an emerging information technology infrastructure to facilitate the virtual size, which is required to gain (information) economies of scale and to operate effectively in a unifying Europe. The electronic infrastructure of EUROSELECT is operating now in 11 European countries. It is the backbone of the procurement network, which makes use of decentralized know-how and reduces grocery wholesaler´s dependency on large suppliers. It combines features of an electronic market with hierarchical control, in order to prevent the loss of intangible assets, i.e., intellectual property, especially sensitive knowledge about product classification. The network structure is analyzed in order to reconstruct the strategic rationale for EUROSELECT and its specific organizational arrangements, and to outline development trends responding to economic and environmental conditions in a unifying Europe