Development of an e-business skillset enhancement tool (eSET) for B2B integration scenarios

In the world of e-business or business-to-business (B2B) there are a plethora of concepts and standards that one must have knowledge about and understand, before beginning the transformation path from traditional manual paper based business processes, to automated or semiautomated electronic based ones. The variety and complexity of each of these standards and concepts present a significant barrier to entry into e-business for many small companies. Approximately 20% of European companies buy and sell over the Internet with big companies buying and selling more. The challenge facing the eEurope action plan is to enable the "small to medium sized enterprises" (SMEs) to participate in e-business without over extending their resources. Aspiring e-business professionals in these small companies do not have the time or the resources needed to invest in understanding all these concepts and standards. They need to understand the concepts and standards quickly before deciding to invest their time in the area or not. We discuss the development of an e-business skillset enhancement tool (eSET) for B2B integration scenarios through the development of a working model of an e-business environment that can assist the SMEs and advanced 3rd level students in introducing them to the world of B2B. This enables them to experience the B2B environment professionals to see how their enterprise can use e-business and B2B. They can see data in the electronic environment, experience the transfer of data electronically over the Internet, view their processes modeled and simulated. They can see an e-business B2B environment processing their data using their business processes. This enables them to make an informed decision before investment in this area. The existing problem is that there is no easily accessible environment available for either students, who feed into the SMEs, or professionals to experiment and interact with.