The Emergence of Service-commerce - The blur Group Case

Università degli Studi di Roma "Tor Vergata"
School of Economics
Master of Science
in
BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
Thesis in General Management
“The Emergence of Service-commerce:
The blur Group Case”
Supervisor
Professor Corrado Cerruti
Student
Roberto Alessandrelli
Academic Year 2013/2014

3
“The consumer electronics revolution will drive the business shift. Companies are working
on ‘Smart Services’, introducing S-commerce, Machine Intelligence and automation to the
business services industries.
After all, you buy everything else online so why not business services?”
Philip Letts, CEO & Founder of blur Group
To my parents,
Who have always supported me with love,
enthusiasm
and willpower.
Ai miei genitori,
Che mi hanno da sempre sostenuto con tutto l’amore,
l’entusiasmo
e la forza possibili.

1
Index
Introduction...................................................................................................................................2
1. Theoretical Background – The Evolution of B2B E-commerce .................................................5
a. B2B ( Business-to-Business ) ...........................................................................................5
b. The main difference between B2B and B2C.....................................................................7
c. B2B (Business-to-Business) marketing strategies ............................................................9
d. The Advantages and Disadvantages of B2B commerce..................................................16
1.1 The Evolution of B2B E-commerce ................................................................................19
a. E-commerce: What it is?...............................................................................................20
b. Advantages and Disadvantages of E-commerce ...........................................................25
c. As a business – How to manage the E-commerce activity?............................................28
d. How to build B2B E-commerce......................................................................................31
e. Timeline of the E-commerce’s development.................................................................34
f. The Business Applications related to E-commerce ........................................................37
2. The Emergence of Service-commerce...................................................................................45
a. What is S-commerce (Service-commerce)?...................................................................48
b. Service-commerce and the Future of Cloud Computing ................................................50
c. The Process of S-commerce .........................................................................................54
d. The S-commerce Model................................................................................................55
e. Timeline for the S-commerce’s development................................................................58
f. S-commerce main Contributors ....................................................................................61
g. The S-commerce market...............................................................................................64
h. Trade restrictions..........................................................................................................66
i. Benefits of S-commerce...............................................................................................67
j. The relationship between a B2B company and S-commerce .........................................73
2.1 My Internship at blur Group – How I learned to be Disruptive, Driven & Different ........76
3. What is blur Group and why it is changing the way to do business online? ...........................83
a. Understanding blur Group and its functions..................................................................93
b. How is blur Group different to other Service-commerce Delivery Platforms?................99
Conclusions................................................................................................................................100
References.................................................................................................................................103

2
Introduction
A growing number of cases demonstrate that the business services industry is in crisis.
Overcrowding in the long tail of services procurement and delivery is suffocating
innovation and the ability for businesses to adapt quickly enough to market changes.
Buyers and sellers of such day-to-day services are equally frustrated. Procurement of
the long tail of services is called ‘tail spend’1
. It refers to businesses and professional
services that fall below the radar of large, multi-year, outsourced services but an
increasingly fragmented industry represent the majority of services bought worldwide
by business – small, medium and large.
The challenge is that buyers of business services are struggling to source and procure
effectively from the mass of small and medium service providers and the large service
providers can no longer deliver such bite size projects cost effectively.
Service-commerce based platforms, like blur Group’s Global Services Exchange2
,
could be the solution. They connect small, medium and large size service providers
across the range of services to small, medium and large buyers with tail spend
challenges. Buyers can outsource the long tail of their day-to-day service projects to a
platform that not only supports the sourcing and procurement of such services at scale
and with consistent delivery and reporting but also manages the project, its
deliverables, billing and payment flows.
The objective of this work is to try to draw a picture of this new business model, the
Service-commerce, going in particular to investigate the presence and the use of
Service-commerce principles in the B2B e-commerce world.
I decided to realize this thesis for understanding the operation and process of the S-
commerce - taking into account very significant and of great relevance themes, such
as: Cloud Computing, Outsourcing and Crowdsourcing among B2B e-commerce
businesses.
1
http://www.accenture.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/PDF/Accenture-Getting-Grip-Tail-Spend.pdf
2
http://www.blurgroup.com/

3
Structure of the thesis:
The thesis is developed into three chapters:
1. In the first chapter, I discuss about the process of how B2B e-commerce
changed over time: from the classical and physical transaction activities –
between businesses – to the innovative digital-system marketplaces that
involve a new type of exchange ventures of products and business services
between sellers and buyers all over the world. The purpose of the first
chapter is to help the reader to better understand the recent evolution of the
B2B e-commerce pattern that saw the rise of the cloud computing,
crowdsourcing and outsourcing – coupled with increased consumer
spending online – the main reason to adopt a new scalable business model:
The S-commerce (Service-commerce).
2. The second chapter is about the emergence of this new business model
(Service-commerce) among small, medium and large businesses that want
to sell to or buy from other small, medium and large businesses all over the
world.
In this chapter, I discuss not only about the reasons that are pushing
companies to adopt S-commerce, but also about the process and the benefits
(especially for online-based B2Bs) of this innovative business model. I
collected enough information about Service-commerce through researches
online and, above all, doing an Internship and talking to the responsible
managers of one of the main contributors of Service-commerce: blur Group.
Moreover, as part of this chapter, the reader is enabled to view the report of
my Internship experience at blur Group through which it’s possible to learn
the process of my personal and professional growth that allowed me to
become driven, disruptive and different in handling business issues related
to the general management of the company.

4
3. The last chapter, is all about blur Group and how its approach to the S-
commerce model is changing the way to do business online. To examine
this case study, I considered several features of the company, such as:
 What it is and why blur Group has been founded;
 How blur Group works for buyers and sellers of business services;
 Why blur Group is different from other marketplaces;
The objective of the third chapter is to answer to the main questions of the
thesis:
 Will the Service-commerce business model improve the way to do
business online?
 How will Service-commerce model the future enterprises?

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1. Theoretical Background – The Evolution of B2B E-commerce
In this chapter, we will take a look at the process of how B2B E-commerce
changed over time: from the classical and physical transaction activities to the
innovative digital-system marketplaces that involve a new type of exchange
ventures of products and business services between sellers and buyers all over the
world.
The purpose of this chapter is to help the reader to better understand the recent
evolution of the B2B E-commerce pattern that saw the ascent of the cloud and
crowdsourcing – connected with an increasing number of consumers spending
online – the main reason to adopt a new scalable business model.
At the end of this chapter, as a result, the reader will be ready and keen to discover
the unprecedented type of industry known as Service-commerce (S-commerce),
and the benefits related to it.
Before starting this interesting topic about the evolution of B2B E-commerce, I
would suggest the reader to understand first what B2B is, in order to have a better
view of the evolution of this business model.
a. B2B ( Business-to-Business )
B2B defines commercial negotiations among companies, such as a producer and a
vendor, or between a retailer and a wholesaler. To be more precise, it indicates
transactions between two business owners where one of them buys and the other
one sells. Hence, in B2B landscape, products or services are not sold to end users.
In effect, buyers acquire a very large quantity of products or services to satisfy the
consumers’ needs.
Comparing terms are B2C (Business-to-Consumer) and B2G (Business-to-
Government).

6
The term B2C refers to transactions between a company and end-users, like you
and me. For example a B2C can be your local store which sells products or
services to local customers (end-users).
B2G, instead, is a derivative of B2B marketing and refers to the transactions
between businesses of marketing products and services to various government
levels – including federal, state and local – through integrated marketing
communications techniques such as strategic public relations, marketing
communication (marcom), web-based communications, branding and advertising.
After this brief introduction of the B2B function, let’s focus on the differences
between B2B and B2C.
First of all, the overall volume of B2B transactions is higher than the volume of
B2C’s ones3 4 5
.
The main reason for this is that in the supply chain there are many B2B
transactions that involve sub-components or raw materials, and only one B2C
negotiation of a finished product or service to the end-consumer. For example, on
one hand, an automobile manufacturer makes several B2B transactions such as
buying tires, glass for widescreens, and rubber hoses for its vehicles. The final
transaction, a finished vehicle sold to the customer is a single B2C transaction.
On the other hand, an example that involves services, instead, is a hairdresser who
purchases several hairdressing accessories and hair products to provide the final
service to the end-user.
3
Sandhusen, Richard (2008). Marketing. Happauge, N.Y: Barron’s Educational Series. p. 520.
4
Shelly, Gary (2011). Systems analysis and design. Boston, MA: Course Technology, Cengage Learning. p. 10.
5
Garbade, Michael (2011). Differences in Venture Capital Financing of U.S., UK, German and French
Information Technology Start-ups – A Comparative Empirical Research of the Investment Process on the
Venture Capital Firm Level. Munchen: GRIN Verlag GmbH. p. 31.

7
b. The main difference between B2B and B2C
As we saw above, the difference among Business-to-Business and Business-to-
Customer is that the buyer of a product or a business service is different.
In regards to B2B, the buyer is a business entity. In regards to B2C, the buyer is
the end-user.
For these reasons, the B2B or B2C communications, transactions and sales
administration are supported by different business systems, especially, in the
purchase and the payment process.
In B2B and B2C, the process to purchase something online is totally different and
the following list shows the key differences between them:
 In B2C the buyer of a product or a service is an individual. In B2B the
customer is represented by an organization that consists of people and
each of the individuals could have different preferences for any product
or service. Moreover, each person could have different reasons for
buying or not buying a particular product or service.
 The B2B environment consists of more people committed in the
decision-making process. So, the decision-making process in the B2B
business world may takes more time than in B2C.
 Statistic say that businesses / companies look for long-term
relationships, because any other practice with a different product or
service will influence the entire business. That is why, brand loyalty in
the Business-to-Business is much higher than in the Business-to-
Consumer market.
 Consumer products and services are less expensive than the Business-
to-Business goods. For this reason, the B2B selling process comprises
higher costs. For example, the buyer must be encountered several times,
and the buyer usually ask for samples of products or services. This kind
of judgment is done by buyers, in order to let them be sure to estimate
the risk of not buying the right product or service.

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For what concerns the payment process, many differences have been found out
between B2B and B2C:
 In Business-to-Business, people who buy products or services will be
charged the same as other buyers.
 In Business-to-Business, prices may be different client by client. For
example, if you set up a broad order or ask for special transaction
conditions, you will pay different prices to other clients.
The payment structure also is different:
 In B2C negotiations, the process considers that the buyer selects the
products or services and then pay for them using specific payment
systems such as credit or debit cards, cash or checks.
 In B2B negotiations, the mechanism is more complicated. The buyer
selects a product or a service, orders and set up the delivery through an
agreed logistic channel. Basically, the buyer pays after the time of the
order. The payment is done afterwards the selection and the delivery of
products or services. In other words, the buyers will receive an invoice
at the time of the order through which they will settle agreed payment
terms.
What regards to the selling process, as Jesse David states in his blog6
, we can say
that main differences between a B2B and a B2C are in relation to:
 Sales Cycle: It is said that B2C sales cycles are shorter than the B2B’s
ones.
One the B2B side, let’s say that companies interested in purchasing
services or goods did not only have researched the right B2B company,
but have also made researches about the most relevant competitors.
 Sales Tactics: In B2B you must seek for a rational response from your
customers, differently to the B2C which seeks for an emotional
response.
6
http://www.ringdna.com/blog/b2c-vs-b2b-sales-strategies-5-critical-differences

9
 Sales Training: B2B requires a training period much longer than the
training period for a seller working in a B2C company.
If we get focused a bit more on the differences between B2B and B2C we can
easily realize that the B2B marketing also requires different strategies than B2C’s
business tactics.
There are clear differences that can impact the effectiveness of marketing efforts,
especially for small-medium businesses. Small-medium businesses aiming at
target business customers need to understand these differences and how they can
develop strategies and tactics that will result in maximum success.
c. B2B (Business-to-Business) marketing strategies
The following is a list of the main marketing strategies that a small-medium
business marketer – fully involved in the B2B activity – must keep in mind to get
success:
 Collaboration:
In the B2B landscape, collaboration is fundamental. Business marketers
who can identify customer needs and provide solutions to those needs in
a win-win relationship will find their marketing efforts to be most
successful.
Very important point is that, business needs are wider and more
complex than consumer needs and the players involved in a business
decision are greater7
. For this reason, collaboration plays a fundamental
role.
Understanding business needs requires understanding a multitude of
needs that impact many parts of the organization.
So, a solution is often the one that looks at the businesses targeting other
businesses by focusing on a specific industry where they have expertise.
This tactic often allows businesses to achieve a great success.
7
Grensing-Pophal, Lin (2005) Marketing with the end in mind: How to plan and implement successful
marketing programs. ABC, SPHR.

10
 Managing and Maintaining Lists:
Although lists are important for any marketer, in the B2B landscape
they can become more challenging to maintain as many changes occur
within the business environment. The solution is recognizing the
decision-maker within an organization, whether it is the CEO, the CFO,
the marketing manager or some combination of all these. Hence,
managing and maintaining accurate lists, which include details on the
preferences of each of the contacts within the business, can help to
provide success for small-medium businesses hoping to succeed in B2B
marketing.
 Communication:
In the business community, communication rules. Although this is also
true in Business-to-Consumer (B2C) marketing, in the business world
the environment can be misleadingly small. As relationships are built
within industries and information is shared between professionals at
various companies about the sellers they work with - whom they prefer
and whom they would recommend - maximising the value of
communication by building strong relationships can help small-medium
businesses achieve B2B marketing success.
From a study promulgated by BIGresearch8
, more that 80% of owners
of small-business classified communication as either “very important”
or “important” in effecting their acquisition choices. The 90% of the
owners of small-business answered that they searched for advice from
others before buying “regularly” or “occasionally”.
Today, every type of business is facing the reality of the digital marketing
planning, as the majority of the transaction activities are carried out through
platforms online.
Let’s have a look at the main structured approach a B2B company should adopt in
order to get the competitive advantage in the digital market.
8
T. Gordon, Kim (2003), “Entrepreneur”, Three Marketing Tactics to Use Right Now, http://goo.gl/lJFtNA

11
One of the most effective and persuasive approaches, is the one based on the
“inbound marketing”, that includes: Content, SEO, PPC, landing page creation,
email marketing linked to a CRM marketing automation, and social media
marketing9
.
Here is a good 7 steps methodology - introduced by Dave Chaffey from
SmartInsights10
- to define a B2B digital marketing plan that focuses on the
integrated inbound marketing:
1) Step 1 – Develop a B2B strategy
51% of businesses don’t have a strategy11
. Developing a strategy will offer
serious competitive advantage, to get started:
 Clear target audience: Only 51% of marketers align content company
characteristics.
 Prioritise: Develop a detailed SWOT analysis of your marketing so far.
 Get buy-in: Develop a business case using sales funnel and LTV
models.
 Plan: Use frameworks like RACE, the 5Ss or 5Ps to structure your
thinking.
9
http://www.digitalmarketinglab.it/dm/b2b-digital-marketing-planning-in-7-mosse/
10
http://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-strategy/digital-strategy-development/creating-a-b2b-
marketing-plan-infographic/
11
www.ana.net/content/show/id/556

12
Table 1 – Organisational goals for content marketing
Source: www.contentmarketinginstitute.com
2) Step 2 – Effective websites
Create a customer-centric website which you can use to test, look after,
learn and refine your approaches:
 Use B2B personas, review intent-satisfaction with a feedback tool:
http://bit.ly/smartfeedback .
 Review lead generation devices, on average marketers use 8 different
content marketing tactics to achieve their goals.
 Optimise customer journeys.
 Get the sell-inform-entertain balance right.
 Setup Google Analytics Goals, Funnels and event tracking.
The Key questions, normally, a B2B company should take into account for a B2B
site are:
 Is the site credible enough?
 Is the site trustworthy?
 Is the company, a professional company?
 Is the company stable?
46%
45%
37%
36%
27%
26%
21%
20%
16%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%
Using a multichannel messaging strategy
Improving though leadership
Segmenting the delivery of content
Incorporating social media
Testing and optimising value proposition
Testing the timing and delivery of content
Establishing buyer personas
Sponsoring third-party content
Allowing audience to select communication…
Organisational Goals For Content Marketing

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 Does this site make me feel welcome and comfortable?
 Am I in the right place?
 Does this site answer my questions and does it support me?
 Is this a company I could do business with?
Table 2 – Technologies B2Bs Invested in
Source: www.oracle.com
3) Step 3: Search Marketing
Search volumes are lower in B2B, but using long tail strategies can help you
tightly target.
30% of B2B marketers spend NO time on SEO each week while 55% spend
NO time on Pay-per-click12
.
Don’t miss out on the potential of search marketing for B2B:
 Group target key-phrases by decision maker.
 Define key brand messages for SERPs.
 Use PR and outreach to build quality backlines.
 Set geographic target and use localised meta data for international
marketing.
12
http://bit.ly/Pw4wR4
46%
45%
37%
36%
27%
26%
21%
20%
16%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%
Allowing audience to select communication…
In What Techonolgies Have B2Bs Invested in the last 12 months?

14
4) Step 4: Content and Inbound marketing
A B2B company needs to create a content marketing machine that helps
your audience learn and work smarter.
 Make the business case.
 Define your Nuclear and Primary fuel.
 Create a blog as your content hub.
 Reach out to target the right influencers.
5) Step 5: Social Media for B2B Marketing
 Create and curate useful, shareable content.
 Interact using the social media platforms that work best for you.
 Use all the relevant features in LinkedIn.
 Use Assisted conversion in Google Analytics to show what works.
6) Step 6: Lead Generation and E-CRM
 Use prominent calls-to-action across the site.
 Use landing pages to maximize your inbound campaigns.
 Use welcome emails and profiles to build a relationship.
 Use “sense and respond” to qualify and follow-up.

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Table 3 – Tactics to Create Engaging Content
Source: http://bit.ly/Tpl1S5
7) Step 7: Analytics and Improvement
 Setup Goals and Funnels with value assigned.
 Use forward and reverse path analysis to show most effective content.
 Setup event tracking to see which calls-to-action and content work best.
 Use Content Experiments to increase conversion on Key pages.
At the end of this presentation of the key issues that a B2B often faces at each step
of an inbound and content marketing planning, I would like to show you the 8
relevant goals for every B2B business:
 Contact us forms
 Quick enquiry forms
 Call-back requests
 Site registration forms
 PDF downloads
 Product video views
 Trial/Demo requests
 Webinar/Event signup
46%
45%
37%
36%
27%
26%
21%
20%
16%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%
Allowing audience to select communication preferences
Top Tactics for Creating Engaging Lead Nurturing Content

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Moving forward, I propose to start talking about an additional topic that looks at
the advantages and disadvantages of B2B commerce, so that the reader could have,
hopefully, a better knowledge about this global well-established business.
d. The Advantages and Disadvantages of B2B commerce
First and foremost, the main goal to determine the advantages or disadvantages of
B2B is understanding the concept of supply chain. From the University of Central
Arkansas’ point of view, the supply chain is the continuity from the customer’s
need to the sale of finished products and all the bodies involved in the process of
getting it from the seller to the customer. Where your business is suitable in the
supply chain regulates the advantages or disadvantages of a specific market
segment. In other words, in order to understand where your business is suitable,
you absolutely need to realize which benefits you can get from your business
activity.
According to Andreas Kopatz, Senior Expert Business Development – Intershop,
the main advantages related to a B2B commerce are13
:
 Additional and constant economic revenue
 Simpler selling procedures
 Lower operating costs – cost reduction through long-term loyalty
 Better communication between businesses
 Clear structure and collaborative shopping
 Facilitated matching between supply and demand
 Higher transaction value through business purchases
 The enlargement convenience
 A greater brand awareness through more channels
 The personal and yet serious design of B2B Shops
13
http://www.ecommerce-manager.com/en/item/7-advantages-of-b2b-commerce-and-why-it-makes-
sense-to-sell-to-businesses

17
In regards to the disadvantages related to a B2B commerce, Eric Dontigney –
Demand Media – states that in B2B there are14
:
 Several difficulties in entering the market
 Limited market
 Long purchase decision time
 Heavy dependence on customers
 Prices and offers not editable in the short-term
 Inverted power structure
On the one hand, when you decide to sell, the advantage of a B2B model, is that
you are negotiating with a specific market that is looking for products, or services
they need to keep the business going on. There are many products and services that
are, by nature, more fitting for a B2B negotiation. For example, end users do not
have interest for large-scale business machines, raw materials or raw commodities.
On the other hand, when you decide to sell, the disadvantage of a B2B model, is
that the market is much smaller, compared to the general one, where you can also
sell to end users.
Here is a more detailed list of conditions that determine advantages and
disadvantages for B2B companies:
 Enrolment offices:
For companies, hiring people represents one of the biggest costs they
generally face. So, some of those companies ask for B2B companies
that provide employees for a specific time of period. For instance, a
temporary agency, and consulting agencies and outsourcing firms are
B2B sellers. Sometimes, B2B companies are more efficient than
companies that has employees who are involved in many different areas,
as the B2B company performs efficiently one single service.
The advantage for a B2B company is that an organization usually
cannot afford to enrol a full-time contract worker, so a B2C company
definitely cannot compete in this market.
14
http://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/disadvantages-b2b-25507.html

18
 The relationship with clients:
As B2B companies have less clients than B2C companies, it is easier for
them to keep track of their clients and to keep them happy. The B2B
agencies have to think only of a few large customers’ preferences. Thus,
for the B2B company, it is possible to commit a single sales
representative to each customer, in order to determine the right selling
process according to what they want, specifically. The advantage, in this
case, is represented by the opportunity - for a B2B company - to reduce
the risk of providing a product or a service that is not worthy to be
purchased by the customer.
 Earnings origins:
The disadvantage of running a B2B company is that, the more large
orders the current customers set up, the more income the B2B company
earns. For example, when a single auto manufacturer buys all the auto
parts from a parts seller, the latter earns a lot of money. If the auto
manufacturer decides to run another business activity, the parts seller
may straggle acquire another customer. Instead, when a customer
decides to not buy products at a supermarket, this doesn’t affect the
supermarket. That’s why, in this case, running a B2C activity is better
than running a B2B one.
 Dealings power:
Business-to-Business companies have a less bargaining power over their
customers than Business-to-Business companies. Why? Because, the
party knows the B2B company depends on its business, and it might ask
for an aggressive price reduction or other financing terms. In B2C, this
does not happen, as the customers have to accept the tag price and the
financing terms assigned to each product they decide to purchase.
 Marketing expenses:
On the one hand, Business-to-Business companies have the opportunity
to save money on advertising and marketing activities. On the other
hand, Business-to-Customer companies spend a lot of money in several
marketing channels, because they need to communicate and attract a

19
large number of customers. The positive aspect for a B2B company is
that, it has to communicate and influence only a few members involved
in the decision-making of the client company, and its representatives
can contact these people directly.
1.1 The Evolution of B2B E-commerce
Today, businesses are get used to try foreseeing the future, and one of the most
popular questions they generally ask is: “what’s going to happen after?”.
Apparently, companies want to run their business with a clear overview of the
trends that will affect the industry they belong to and their strategic positioning.
Indeed, companies want to know that they might achieve competitive advantages
through stronger and more efficient technology strategies.
Predicting the future is an inexact science. So, one good way to help looking ahead
is to explore the past.
By looking at where we have been, we can start to see what direction we are
heading, and show and, I’d say, suggest a new way to improve B2B roadmaps to
the future.
Before the entry of the digital economy - trades, exchanges, commercial
transactions and communications - were tangible and nothing could be really
considered globally integrated.
Given the digital economy’s changes that effected the whole economy, traditional
companies and the ones involved in the B2B commerce, started to actively assess
how to react to those changes15 16 17
.
Corporations, banks and governments tried to make themselves more innovative
and they started to use digital tools to improve their traditional business18
.
But, what about the B2B companies?
15
Internet matters: Essay in digital transformation | McKinsey & Company. McKinsey.com (2013-03-13).
Retrieved on 2013-07-23.
16
Welcome to Telefonica Digital. Blog.digital.telefonica.com (2013-07-15). Retrieved on 2013-07-23.
17
Economy is better off with digital disruption. Smh.com.au (2013-07-23). Retrieved on 2013-07-23
18
Retail banks to tackle “digital disruption” in 2013. CCR Magazine (2012-11-21). Retrieved on 2013-07-23.

20
Let’s take a look at the evolution of the digital market technologies adopted by
these firms in the last 30 years.
The most significant predecessors to today’s digital market technologies are the
systems that evolved from the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Material
Requirements Planning (MRP) systems that began to be a force in the 1980s.
These systems are intended to produce one view of an enterprise. By integrating
various discrete financial and operations activities within a firm, companies are
able to make better decisions and run more efficiently.
At a high level, ERP systems are tightly integrated transaction management
systems that unite general ledger, purchasing, accounts receivable, inventory, and
other related functions.
Two functions of ERP gave rise to the next wave of B2B E-commerce: Order
entry and purchasing.
While the earliest E-commerce websites and EDI (Electronic Data Interchange)
systems were not always integrated with ERP systems, most later became
integrated in order to extend the functionality and reach of ERP systems.
The next question, that everybody of us should ask to understand the process of the
B2B commerce’s evolution, is: What exactly is what we call E-commerce?
a. E-commerce: What it is?
I have been fortunate enough to attend an e-learning lecture online about the E-
commerce - hold by http://alison.com/ - and, the following, is what I learnt from it.
Products or services can be traded online through computer networks, like Internet.
The process of buying or selling products and/or services online is known as
Electronic commerce or E-commerce or eCommerce. Business practises have been
ideologically revolutionised by the E-commerce. Indeed, the organisational
performances has improved, in a wider sense, because of an increased use of
computer networks among businesses. Incremented profitability, greater market
shares, high quality customer service, and faster products /services delivery are

21
some of the organizational performance gains possible with electronic
commerce19
.
However, e-commerce involves a process that is more than ordering goods from an
online catalogue. It regards all aspects of an organization’s electronic interactions
with its stakeholders, the people who determine the future of the organization.
Thus, electronic commerce includes activities such as establishing a Web page to
support investor relations or communicating electronically with college students
who are potential employees20
.
In brief, electronic commerce involves the use of information technology to
enhance communications and transactions with all of an organization’s
stakeholders21
.
Such stakeholders include customers, suppliers, government regulators, financial
institutions, manager, employees, and the public at large.
Electronic commerce draws on technologies such as:
 Mobile commerce:
By definition22
, mobile commerce – also known as m-commerce -
means, the use of wireless handheld devices such as cellular phones and
laptops to conduct commercial transactions online.
Mobile commerce transactions continue s to grow, and the term includes
the purchase and sale of a wide range of goods and services, online
banking, bill payment, information delivery and so on.
The phrase “mobile commerce” was originally coined in 1997 by Kevin
Duffey at the launch of the Global Mobile Commerce Forum, to mean
“the delivery of electronic commerce capabilities directly into the
consumer’s hand, anywhere, via wireless technology”.
19
http://alison.com/topic/learn/4338/44839/module-1-e-commerce-an-introduction/introduction-to-e-
commerce
20
commerce
21
commerce
22
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/mobile-commerce.asp

22
 Electronic funds transfer:
Electronic funds transfer, known also as EFT, is the electronic
exchange, transfer of money from one account to another, either within
a single financial institution or across multiple institutions, through
computer-based systems23
.
 Supply chain management:
The process according to which conventional business functions and
tactics - within an organisation and between the organisation and the
supply chain - are strategically and systematically coordinated, for
improving the performance of the company and the relationships with
the supply chain in the long-term, is called “Supply chain management”
or simply SCM24
.
It has also been defined as “the design, planning, execution, control, and
monitoring of supply chain activities with the objective of creating net
value, building a competitive infrastructure, leveraging worldwide
logistics, synchronizing supply with demand and measuring
performance globally25
”.
 Internet marketing:
Companies use Internet to communicate and promote marketing
messages to consumers when selling online. This kind of process is
known as Internet marketing, also called online marketing, online
advertising or Internet advertising. It includes several marketing
materials such as email marketing, search engine marketing (SEM),
social media marketing, many types of display advertising (including
web banner advertising), and mobile advertising. Like other advertising
media, Internet marketing frequently involves both a publisher, who
integrates advertisements into its online content, and an advertiser, who
23
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_funds_transfer
24
Mentzer, John T., William DeWitt, James S. Keebler, Soonhoong Min, Nancy W. Nix, Carlo D. Smith, &Zach
G. Zacharia (2001): Defining Supply Chain Management. Journal of Business Logistics, Vol 22, No. 2, pp. 1-
25.
25
“supply chain management (SCM)”. APICS Dictionary. Retrieved 19 June 2013.

23
provides the advertisements to be displayed on the publisher’s content.
Advertising agencies and other participants are included in the Internet
marketing process. They help with generating and placing the ad copy
and ad server who technologically delivers the advert and tracks
statistics. Then, there might be advertising affiliates, who do
independent promotional work for the advertising agency.
 Online transaction processing:
The process that helps with managing transaction applications is called
“Online transaction processing”, or OLTP.
The term might generate ambiguity, as it can be considered as a
database transaction or commercial transactions26
.
The online transaction processing can be also used for referring to the
process of a responsive-system for the users. For example, a responsive
system application is represented by the ATM for a bank.
This kind of applications are high throughput and insert or update-
intensive in database management as they are used by hundreds of users
at the same time. The key goals of OLTP applications are speed, full
availability, recoverability and concurrency27
.
OLTP, furthermore, is beneficial for businesses in terms of zero paper
and time waste and in terms of a more accurate foreseeable revenues
and costs.
However, like many modern online information technology solutions,
some systems require offline maintenance, which further affects the
cost-benefit analysis of online transaction processing system.
26
Transaction Processing Performance Council website: http://www.tpc.org/
27
Application and System Performance Characteristics -
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/A87860_01/doc/server.817/a76992/ch3_eval.htm#2680

24
 Electronic Data Interchange:
EDI is an electronic communication method that provides standards for
exchanging data via any electronic means. It means that different
companies in different countries can electronically exchange data
whether they use the same standards. These standards are available for
many industries and regions. EDI revolutionised the remote data
transactions as it can be done without human intervention.
 Inventory management software:
IMS is a computer-based system for tracking inventory levels, orders,
sales and deliveries28
.
This software is generally used by manufacturing companies, as it
allows them to avoid product overstock and to better organize inventory
data.
Last but not least, E-commerce draws on technologies such as automated data
collection systems.
Modern electronic commerce typically uses the World Wide Web for at least one
part of the transaction’s life cycle, although it may also use other technologies
such as e-mail.
28
Lesonsky, Rieva (1998). Tracking Inventory. Entrepreneur Magazine.

25
b. Advantages and Disadvantages of E-commerce
As I did for the B2B commerce, I would like, now, to talk about the advantages
and disadvantages of Ecommerce. This innovative approach provides many ways
for businesses to communicate and run business. However, conducting business in
this way presents a number of advantages and disadvantages.
E-commerce advantages29
:
 Business conducting
E-commerce technology schemes operates every hour and every day.
Customers and suppliers can keep doing business electronically with the
advantage to not leave open their physical storefronts.
 Global marketplaces access
Every individuals and organizations, today, can access Internet and they can
do business with any business or individual who is connected to the World
Wide Web. Basically, E-commerce allows businesses to sell and market
their products or services locally and globally. The advantage is that Internet
makes users closer to each other, even if they are located in two different
countries.
 No time wasting
Communications via the Internet is faster and instantaneous.
 Greater market spaces
Today, marketplaces are bigger than years ago, as the Internet allows
businesses to run their activities online. In other words, organizations can do
business in a market globally-oriented. Today, businesses face the
international competition due to the greater market spaces they operate in.
 Costs reduction
E-commerce, obviously, is the best way to purchase something (products or
services).
The Internet simplifies the way to ‘shop around’ for products and services
that may be cheaper or even more effective than businesses might otherwise
29
Posted by Business Education: http://goo.gl/XPCfwd

26
settle for. Through some online research, it is possible identify original
manufactures for some products or service providers - thereby avoiding
agencies or wholesalers and achieving a lower price.
 Independent computer platforms
Since computers have the ability to allow customers to communicate via the
Internet independent of operating systems and hardware, the customers are,
thus, limited anymore.
 More developed efficient applications
Technology applications can be developed and distributed in several
efficient ways, no matter of technology platforms of business partners
and/or customers. Applications can be updated even without a manual
installation. In fact, technology Internet-related applications can be
implemented automatically through the deployment of software.
 Customer self-service and customer outsourcing
The benefit is that E-commerce permits people to interact with businesses at
any time, and these interactions are, basically, fostered by customers
providing data for the negotiations. It means that costs that may need to be
spent by the company’s employees are moved to customers in an effective
way; we can refer this approach as ‘customer outsourcing’.
Moving forward, I would suggest the reader to keep an eye on the disadvantages
related to the E-commerce.
E-commerce disadvantages:
 Delivery time spending
E-commerce is often used to buy goods or business services that are not
available locally from businesses all over the world. In regards to physical
goods, it must be said that, as they need to be delivered, it will take time and
costs money.

27
 Delivery uncertainty
Let’s say that E-commerce purchases are made on trust. This is because, on
one hand, not having had physical access to the product, a purchase is made
on an expectation of what that product is and its condition. On the other
hand, because supplying businesses can be conducted across the world, it
can be uncertain whether or not they are legitimate businesses and are not
just going to take your money. Last but not least, even if the item is sent, it
is easy to start wondering whether or not it will ever arrive.
 Perishable goods
Because goods need to be delivered from the supplier to the purchasing
business or end user, it is not possible to order perishable goods, as the
delivery period might last days.
 Limited information
The Internet is an effective conduit for visual and auditory information.
However, it does not allow full scope for our senses. There are many ways
in which the Internet does not convey the richness of experiences of the
world. This lack of sensory information means that people are often much
more comfortable buying via the internet generic goods, rather than unique
or complex things.
 Returning goods
The uncertainties surrounding the initial payment and delivery of goods can
be exacerbated in this process.
 Privacy, security, payment, identity, contract
Many issues arise – privacy of information, security of that information and
payment details, whether or not payment details will be misused, identity
theft, contract, and, whether we have one or not, what laws and legal
jurisdiction apply.
 Unexpected services
E-commerce is not suitable for dealing with the new or unexpected.
Basically, E-commerce is an effective means only for managing transactions
of known and established services.

28
 Personal services
Although some human interaction can be facilitated via the Internet, E-
commerce cannot provide the richness of interaction provided by personal
service. For that reason, businesses use E-commerce typically involving
strategies for gaining and applying customer feedback. It helps to anticipate
and meet changing online customer needs and preferences.
 Transactions scalability
E-commerce is often conducted using credit cards for payments, and as a
result very small and very large transactions tend not to be conducted
online. The size of transactions is also impacted by the economics of
transporting physical goods.
c. As a business – How to manage the E-commerce activity?
Organizations have to take into account that, whether they decide to have an
Internet presence, they need to know how big their presence should be.
The two key factors that have to be considered by organizations, in this case are
the following30
:
First, how many existing or potential customers are likely to be internet users?
If a significant proportion of a firm’s customers are Internet users, and the search
costs for the product or service are reasonably high, then an organization should
have a presence. Otherwise, it is missing an opportunity to inform and interact
with its customers31
.
The Web is an extremely convenient source of information for many customers.
If a firm doesn’t have a Web site, the risk is that potential customers, who are Web
beware, will flow to competitors who have, instead, a Web presence.
Second, what is the information intensity of a company’s products and services?
30
commerce
31
commerce

29
An information-intense product or service is one that requires considerable
information to describe it completely32
.
Now, if we combine the 2 key parameters – number of customers on the Web and
product information intensity – a straightforward model can be provided for
determining which companies should be using the Internet.
Table 4 - Which firms should be using the Internet
Information content of products
Low High
High
Office Supplies Industrial Products
Number of customers with Web
access
Food and Beverages
Consumer
Electronics
Low
Source: http://goo.gl/OUdwBx
Organizations falling in the top right quadrant are prime candidates because many
of their customers have Internet access and their products have high information
content.
Firms in the other quadrants, particularly the low-low quadrant, have less need to
invest in a Web site.
Along with other environmental challenges, organizations face 3 critical strategic
challenges33
:
32
commerce

30
 Demand risk
 Innovation risk
 Inefficiency risk
The Internet, and especially the Web, can be a device for reducing these risks.
Demand risk:
Demand risk means that a big number of customers do not want to buy a
company’s product or service. Globalization and deregulation make the demand
risk one of the most issues companies face every day.
Several ways exist to beat demand risk such as flexibility, adaptability, and
innovation34
.
Innovation risk:
In developed economies, products and services are oversupplied, and customers
make a more sophisticated purchasing decision. The main reason behind this is due
to an imitation process among organizations.
Companies have to provide customers with innovative and different goods, but at
the same time they have to make sure to not imitate competitors, otherwise, this
imitation activity will inevitably bring to an oversupply of goods.
Inefficiency risk:
Asking feedback from customers and provide them with FAQs is the best way to
reduce communication costs.
33
commerce
34
commerce

31
d. How to build B2B E-commerce
The rapid growth of Internet based E-commerce at the turn of the last century is
totally confusing. During the last one decade, this market space has grown in
several directions. First, it saw the emergence of portals and search engines.
However, in due course more and more organisations began to provide to the
Business-to-Customer (B2C) market. In the last two years, a significant growth in
the Business-to-Business (B2B) segment occurred. As several organisations began
to operate in the Internet market space, they innovated unique propositions to
create value in the process. There were either not found or difficult to replicate in
the traditional brick and mortar operation.
The reader needs to understand that these unique propositions are then put in a
unified framework. The framework is collectively referred to as “Business
Models”. An Internet based business has several dimensions:
 The technology aspect primarily comprising of telecommunication,
networking and other infrastructure issues.
 The software domain that includes programming languages, web page
design, customer interface and transactions management, security and
privacy management, and large scale data mining.
 The management aspect that deals with the business strategies for value
creation, growth and customer development and retention.
 The statutory and legal dimension that address various cyber laws
dealing with security, crimes etc. and government policies for nurturing
the Internet based E-commerce.
Normally, the companies often face two main problems when they think about
selling online:
 Selling directly to the end users jumping or involving the commercial
distribution and, thus, building an E-commerce for the end users.
We are basically talking about an E-commerce B2C.

32
 Selling to the distribution network, building an E-commerce B2B and
transforming or modifying the agents & representatives’ selling
network to consultants or anything else.
In B2B, the purchaser is often an already client of the company. The B2B could be
the means through which the selling points are restocked, but it could be also the
principal selling means of the company for the trading.
The client is a professional operator who needs a quote, before the order.
Normally, a quote needs an approval process with a flexible validity period.
In the E-commerce B2B, instead, the purchaser is often a company and not always
an individual. The client, in this case, might need a formal quote and so she must
issue a purchasing order. Furthermore, the E-commerce’s system has to manage a
very long approval process. As a result, every E-commerce B2B platform must be
strictly integrated to accounting, inventory and to a system that looks after the
evasion of purchase orders.
To make sure the systems work properly an E-commerce B2B must have a strong
CRM that supports the selling activities.
It is said that an E-commerce B2B is for those clients who already know what they
want – they are professional. For this reason, they don’t need specific purchasing
experiences online.
As a result, B2Bs made themselves like a paper brochure’s extension online with
inefficient results: bad photos, absent descriptions and poor technical sheets.
The questions I will try to answer is at the moment: How to buy or sell business
services online in a better way? What B2Bs E-commerce need to improve their
business online?
I would like to stress the fact that B2Bs, currently, are facing serious problems of
appearance and trustfulness with their clients, and for this reason they need
something innovative that radically changes their current situation.
Before answering to the questions, it is important to know what are the challenges
faced by those B2B businesses selling business services and not physical products.

33
Challenge 1: You are the product
When you sell a service, you are the product. So, you are selling your time with
the promise of a particular result.
Challenge 2: Your time is limited
Unlike selling products that can be stored and shipped on demand, you can provide
as many services as your time allows.
Challenge 3: Meet your clients’ unique needs
When you sell services, you must prove your ability to deliver measurable results,
while emphasizing flexibility to meet your clients’ unique needs.
Challenge 4: Target global audiences
Someone located in another country might need your business services. The
challenge is that a service-based business must rely on global clients.
According to what the Entrepreneur, Derek Gehl35
, stated on his blog published in
2011, the strategies that must be adopted by business service providers to win
these challenges, are the following:
Strategy 1: Establish your credibility
When you are selling a service, as I said above, you are the product. So,
establishing your credibility is critical to closing the sale. You need to not only
establish the benefits of the service you are offering but also establish the value of
you providing the service.
There are different ways you can establish your credibility. First, you should
include a professional picture of yourself. Next, you need to include a list of your
credentials and / or references. You will also need to provide evidence that other
clients have been satisfied with your services, but it must be customized to the
client you are currently serving. So, you need to be customer focused in different
ways with different clients. A great way to establish your credibility is, for
example, testimonials. Moreover, an online portfolio of your previous works might
be another good option.
Strategy 2: Be specific
35
http://www.businessinsider.com/11-tips-for-creating-an-impressive-website-for-your-service-based-
business-2011-4?op=1&IR=T

34
It is very important to be specific about what you are exactly offering. In which
way?
The best way to do it is to provide an explanation of what you are offering more or
less than other similar service providers. So, basically, you need to be very specific
about what makes you different from your competitors, what you are specialized
in, and what kind of guarantee you offer to that client. As I said, each client must
be provided with a customized evidence of your service offering.
Strategy 3: Be flexible
Demonstrate your flexibility. Again, clients will not only want to see proof that
you have delivered great results for other clients, they will want to know that you
are prepared to customize your service to meet their own unique needs.
Strategy 4: Be accessible
Don’t forget to make it easy for clients who want to pay for your services to
contact you.
Strategy 5: Get listed
Get your site listed in local search directories and, why not also in global search
portals such as, Yahoo!, Google, AOL, and MSN.
Strategy 6: Use professional services websites for networking
Create a network and get listed with professional services websites. If you want
local traffic, start to make personal connections with other local business owners.
Take advantage of sites, professional service marketplaces like eLance.com,
FreeLance.com, Daylo.com, and now blurGroup.com, depending on the type of
service you offer.
Strategy 7: Get as many referrals as you can
It is important to encourage referrals and repeat customers. Don’t be afraid to
remind previous customers that you are ready to sell services again, and don’t be
afraid to ask for referrals and feedback for your provided services.
e. Timeline of the E-commerce’s development
I would like, now, to provide a short timeline breakdown of how E-commerce has
developed over the years.

35
The technology innovations that have been introduced to the world, represents one
reason by which the E-commerce has evolved.
Those new technologies pushed business owners to quickly change their way to do
business and to move online.
It is time to see and think how this online activity improved and innovated the
industry of doing business online up the current days. Here is the list of dates that
characterized the development of E-commerce:
 The history of E-commerce initiated in 1960’s when the EDI (Electronic
Data Interchange) allowed companies to do negotiations online.
 In 1979, Michael Aldrich invented a new concept of online shopping,
known as “teleshopping”, which revolutionized the way businesses
carried their activities36
.
 In 1981, Thomson Holidays submitted the first version of online
electronic transaction between B2Bs using digital technology. It is the
first B2B online shopping system to be installed37
.
 One year later, in 1982, France Telecom invented Minitel, considered
nowadays as the most successful pre-World Wide Web online service.
 In 1984, Format ASC X 12 provided a very useful channel to conduct
electronic activities.
 One of the most important event that influenced the development of E-
commerce was the opportunity that Nissan UK provided to its customers
in 1985 to sell and finance cars online with credit checking from
dealers’ lots.
 In 1987, Swreg gave out a great and innovative chance to software
developers to sell online.
 1989, was an important year for all those customers who wanted to buy
groceries online, as Peapod brought its store online.
36
Tkacs, Ewaryst; Kapczynsji, Adrian (2009). Internet – Technical Development and Applications. Springer
pp. 255. Retrieved 28 March 2011. “The first pilot system was installing in Tesco in the UK (first
demonstrated in 1979 by Michael Aldrich).
37
Palmer C. (1988). Using IT for competitive advantage at Thomson Holidays, Long range Planning, Vol 21
No. 6 pp. 26-29. Institute of Strategic Studies Journal, London-Pergamon Press (now Elsevier. B.V.)

36
 In 1990, Tim Berners-Lee created the first official WWW server and
browser, using a NeXT computer38
.
 Maybe E-commerce needed less restrictions to get completely allowed
as a permitted commercial tool. So, in 1991, the NSF (National Science
Foundation) lifted restrictions on the commercial use of the NET,
clearing the way for E-commerce.
 In 1992, J.H. Snider and Terra Ziporyn published a book that
revolutionized the E-commerce. It was about how to use new
technologies to improve the way users shop online.
 In 1994 a huge number of events occurred:
 Netscape unveiled SSL encryption that made transaction secure.
 Yahoo was born.
 The shopping online started to involve third-party payment services
for processing online credit card.
 The first online bank opened.
 In 1995, Amazon started to sell online. Then, AuctionWeb launched a
site that we know as eBay. In the same year, Verisign started to develop
digital IDs.
 In 1999, Zappos introduced the first online shoes store. Furthermore,
Global Sports launched an outsourced E-commerce platform. Last but
not least, in 1995, was the time of the Victoria’s Secret’s debut.
 The new millennium was particularly important for the evolution of the
E-commerce, as in 2001 Amazon launched a mobile commerce site. In
2002, eBay acquired Paypal and, in 2003, Apple launched its iTunes
store.
 In 2005, a very surprising event happened: The first internet retailer
conference and exhibition have been hosted. The 2005 saw the launch of
YouTube.
 In 2007, the m-Commerce – a subcategory of E-commerce – appeared
thanks to the introduction of the Apple’s iPhone to the market.
38
Tim Berners-Lee (2012): WorldWideWeb, the first Web client.

37
 Magento E-commerce solution have been launched by Varien in 2008.
 In 2010, the first Magento mobile have been released into the market
and it allowed business owners to create downloading apps. In the same
year, people started to talk seriously about E-commerce and this
permitted businesses to develop their activities online.
 In 2011 eBay acquired also GSI Commerce.
 2013 and 2014 have been fundamental dates for the development of
doing business online. For example, in 2013, the online holiday sales
reached $46.6 billion39
. In 2014 Alibaba Group achieved the largest
Initial public offering ever.
f. The Business Applications related to E-commerce
Today, approximately all the organizations use Internet to run and improve their
business treatment and negotiations. In other words, they make use of E-
commerce.
As I said, E-commerce is the business activity that sees the Internet as the main
entity to do business and create a bigger network. The four main sectors of
business where the E-commerce can be perfectly applied are the following:40
:
 Manufacturing Industry;
 Wholesale Industry;
 Retail Industry;
 Service Industry;
Let’s take into account the applications of E-commerce related to the
Manufacturing Industry.
Manufacturing is the process of gathering and then transforming raw materials into
finished, qualitative goods or products for the end-user or consumer. Basically, E-
commerce is applied to the supply-chain management process and it helps in
39
2013 Holiday Season U.S. Desktop E-Commerce Spending Reaches Record $46.5 Billion, Up 10 Percent vs.
Year Ago. 7 January 2014. Retrieved 27 August 2014.
40
http://paiva25.hubpages.com/hub/e-commerce-business-application

38
lowering the costs and permits a better quality and higher efficiency by automating
most of the supply chain process.
Now, let’s have a look at how E-commerce affects the Wholesale industry:
 E-commerce reduces operating costs, allows the access to more
appropriate and precise information – without delays – and quick
feedback. E-commerce, thus, helps in increasing the quality and the
efficiency of the decision-making process;
 E-commerce enables businesses doing a faster and less expensive global
marketing;
 E-commerce helps in achieving the competitive advantage held by other
wholesalers located in different countries;
 An additional example of E-commerce application in the wholesale
sector is based on the offer of a broad and large range of data,
intermediaries and business service providers.
Retailing regards the process of selling goods and / or services to the consumers
for their personal consumption and use. The role of E-commerce in retailing is a
complex topic to understand, but I will try to explain it in a very simple way.
Retailing became a stimulating industry in the last 2 years, as many organisations
started to provide their products in the online business world, through the entity
well known as the Internet. For example, people can now visit online stores,
choose what they want from the offered catalogues of products, pay for them and
get what they selected by a delivery service. Notably, all of it is possible just
sitting at your computer, without going out and purchasing from the store in the
city centre.
What are the benefits for businesses?
Principally, companies don’t need to acquire stores. Furthermore, businesses can
drastically lower employment costs and can provide their products to a larger
audience.

39
Moving forward, let’s talk about the E-commerce applications in the Service
industry.
The service industry represents one of the most important categories of an evolved
economy. Basically, the service industry comprises the accessory of all those kind
of services involving distribution services and the sales of goods and / or business
services to end-users.
The service sector also encompasses other components of the economy such as
education, banking, insurance and more.
My research allows us to identify the service sector, not only as an industry
principally focused on services between people, but also as an industry involving
services between businesses.
What are the main issues featuring the service industry?
Services are not tangible and, for this reason, businesses may straggle letting
customers understand the benefits they can get by acquiring a service. In order to
let the customer understanding the benefits of acquiring a specific service, the
organisation has to offer a good quality providing process.
The difference between the service industry and manufacturing industry is that, in
the first one, offering a good quality providing services process is the only way to
attract customers. In the manufacturing industry, instead, special technologies can
be used to do it.
So, what is the role of E-commerce in the service industry?
E-commerce helps all the organisations involved in the service industry in
bettering and developing the speed of transactions. It lowers management costs,
augments efficiency and grows competitiveness.
As mentioned above, E-commerce helps services providers gaining a competitive
edge by offering strategies and tactics for cost leadership, customer satisfaction,
differentiation, and diversification.

40
To be more detailed, the most popular applications related to E-commerce are:
 Electronic document creation in supply-chain management
Document automation or document assembly, is the design of systems
and workflows that assist in the creation of electronic documents.
 National and international payment structures
 Management of enterprise content
 Collective / Group buying
It offers services and / or products at very low prices only if there is a
minimum number of buyers that makes a purchase.
 Artificial supporting
The artificial supporting is represented by an online assistant that is a
managed by artificial intelligence. The online assistant provides
customer services or other forms of assistance on a Web site.
 Newsgroups
A newsgroup is a depository usually within a system, for messages
posted from many users in different places or locations. This kind of
system, known as Usenet, is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion
system.
 Online shopping and order tracking
 Online banking
 Software servicing
A software servicing is an online office / productivity suite offered by
Websites in the form of software as a service.
 Shopping cart software
A section of the E-commerce software is the shopping cart software, that
permits users to choose and select specific items to purchase. You might
know it as the shopping ‘basket’.
 Teleconferences
Teleconferences are, basically, interchanges and mass expressions of
information among many people and machines far away from one
another but linked by a telecommunications system.

41
 Electronic tickets – Online booking
 Social networking
 Instant messaging
Instant messaging is a kind of online exchange of messages which offers
real-time text transmission over the Internet.
 Auctions online
 Video on Demand
The evolution of the global economy brought many businesses that provide
services to think more digitally – however many of them may not have the capital,
or the time, to adopt an E-commerce function in-house. So, in order to overcome
this problem and to capitalise on the opportunities made available by B2B E-
commerce, businesses have increasingly relied on third-party supports from
external service providers and moved to the Cloud.
The main reasons why service providers should move to the Cloud are the
following:
1. More Flexible
Being more flexible enables businesses to quickly meet business demands41
.
The Cloud, hence, allows a business to be able to access its own
information at any time, form anywhere, using just a connection.
2. More up to date
The server hardware updates will be done automatically by the Cloud
vendor, ensuring everything is completely up to date and cutting edge.
3. Less Power Costs
The Cloud vendor will charge the user less for energy costs in the same way
a utility company works For example, through the Cloud you can achieve
economies of scale.
4. Less Management Costs
Moving to the Cloud allows the user to not pay out as much for expensive,
experienced IT people for a start. The cost of employing great IT people
41
http://www.informationweek.com/cloud/software-as-a-service/time-to-think-about-cloud-
computing/d/d-id/1073198

42
will usually be even more than the cost of setting up your software and
hardware.
5. Less Capital Costs
With Cloud services – normally based on a pay – as – you – go method,
there is no need for the upfront capital expenditure that you would have to
finance if you were to run your own serves and specialist departments.
6. More Predictable Budgets (crowdsprawl)
Cloud is beneficial especially for start-up, as Cloud computing is faster to
deploy than creating your own infrastructure, teams, departments, and
software updates. As a result, project start-up costs will be lower, and the
ongoing operational costs will be more foreseeable, acquiring the advantage
to have also a steadier ROI.
7. More Secure Data, More Free Time
5 years ago, UK-based organisations were used to spend many time
managing data security alone42
. Nowadays, suppliers of cloud computing
help companies in managing the server and security data conservation.
Organisations, now, have more resources and more time to spend for
different tasks.
8. Top Class Competitiveness
Small-medium businesses are enabled to use large enterprise technologies,
thanks to the Cloud. The Cloud enables SMEs to act faster than big
enterprises too, creating a more agile and innovative marketplace, and
making sure that great ideas aren’t limited by old technology or cost
restrictions.
9. Uninhibited Growth
The Cloud let businesses to grow up, as it makes mergers and acquisition
smoother and faster, especially at the initial transition period.
Today, everything, the majority of the business world is digital and the future will
see more and more centralized, cloud based businesses, technology structures and
42
http://www.webroot.co.uk/En_GB/about-press-room-press-releases-cloud-mobile-web-security-
190411.html

43
styles. Embracing this innovation will provide increasing benefits as it will
become the global norm.
Since we are already witnessing a profound transformation of the B2B E-
commerce, we will see much of businesses moving online in a very short period of
time. Moreover, we will assist at the fastest way ever of how the B2B E-commerce
landscape will change its shapes.
It is important to say that, Global market researchers, such as Forrester Consulting,
surveyed a big number of companies across North America, EMEA and Asia
Pacific, with the conclusion that this remarkable transformation already started and
it is going to be really fast, pushing a lot of businesses to move into the cloud, to
use crowd sourcing only for their daily activities, and to adopt an E-commerce
approach.
What we see today among B2B E-commerce companies is just the beginning of
what is to come.
Those companies, indeed, are going to adopt a different approach that looks at the
service-sourcing as the solution to get more benefits and competitive advantages.
So, what are the reasons for this online service-sourcing-solution revolution? Why,
specifically, are businesses choosing to rebel against the restraints of traditional
service procurement?
First of all, they are innovative. Basically, companies that go away from traditional
way of procuring business service are innovative. And as the technology changes
are very fast, the need for businesses to implement an innovative approach to
business will become imperative.
For example, global analysts, such as Gartner, have recently foreseen that, in 2015,
organizations will increasingly be looking to adopt cloud-based platforms as a
solution to source business services from external service-providers – particularly
enterprise organization.

44
Another main reason is represented by the need, for organizations, to upscale. The
business boom of the 1950s – when access to credit was a company’s primary
scale-enabler – is a distant memory confined to history textbooks. Baptised by the
media as the ‘credit crunch’, the global recession has made it almost impossible
for start-ups and small-to-medium size business to implement a scalable business
model.
Online service-sourcing platforms, that implement the Service-commerce patterns,
provide the solution for implementing a scalable business model; the same solution
that credit once provided almost 70 years ago.
But not only can businesses upscale by implementing a scalable business model,
they can do so without increasing the number of permanent members of staff. For
any organization, regardless of size, it simply isn’t sustainable to open up a full-
time, in-house position when requirements for said role may be sporadic.
Moving forward, not all businesses that utilize B2B E-commerce platforms will do
so with scalability being at the forefront of their decision-making process. Some
businesses will simply turn to platforms online, that adopted a Service-commerce
model, to source an Expert to provide a service that they don’t accommodate in-
house.
Now for one of the key drivers for procuring business services online – to save
resources. Particularly time and money. The Guardian recently reported43
that the
top five time wasters in business include: Business Meetings, Procurement and
Paperwork. Currently, the Service-commerce platforms online, eradicate these
things. Basically, through these platforms, organizations don’t need for endless
face-to-face meetings and pesky paperwork. As a procurement, these platforms
streamline that process, too. And if it is money the resource to save, platforms like
these, are the right place to go. Global building material supplier, CEMX, recently
announced it will outsourcing its IT process to IBM44
for a 10-year period. During
the lifecycle of this contract, CEMEX estimate the company will save $1 billion.
43
http://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/2014/jul/01/save-time-business-time-wasters
44
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/38513.wss

45
Spurred on by the negative impact the global recession had on millions of
businesses worldwide, many organizations have begun to think of smarter, more
streamlined ways of operating their business. Ruthlessly reducing waste and
operating at maximum efficiency by focusing on where core value is created are
now high on the agendas of global enterprises.
For the reasons above, in the next chapter I will talk about the Service Commerce,
since it is at the forefront of the innovation (cloud computing and crowd sourcing),
bringing together the power of the Cloud and the Crowd to create the future of
buying and selling business services online.
Crowdsourcing works on the premise that, if you brief a global talent pool, idea
generation will be superior. A study conducted by Massolution45
– a leader in
crowdsourcing research – found that 50% of all crowd workers have a bachelor
degree.
Thousands of businesses all over the world have already turned to the crowd in the
cloud to fulfil business service needs. After all, we buy everything else online, so
why not business services?
2. The Emergence of Service-commerce
Before introducing Service-Commerce, let’s have a read of what is pushing
companies to use E-commerce applications to buy or sell business services online.
I would say that is a natural progression: at the beginning people bought any kind
of products online, then the same people started to buy services. After a while,
these type of consumers brought these services buying usages into workplaces. As
a result, also companies decided to buy and sell business services online.
In fact, today, shopping online is well and truly open for people and any kind and
sized-business.
Why?
Because it is fast, fair, scalable, easy, and provides more choice46
.
45
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/enterprise-crowdsourcing-market-achieves-over-214500322.html
46
http://www.blurgroup.com/blogs/group/shop-at-blur/

46
First of all, shifting to online takes your needs directly to the solution. That is why
buying services online is fast. Then, it is fair, because there is bias and no
preferred vendors. Service providers are invisible until they have pitched or bid
their proposals.
Buying services online is also scalable, because if you need an immediate solution
among different proposals from different suppliers in different countries, all you
have to do is a mouse click: choosing between the smallest requirement to the
largest outsourcing.
As I mentioned before, buying services online is very easy. It is a process that
allows you, as an online services buyer, to deal with suppliers who have the
expertise, the availability and are ready to deliver.
The most important reason that is going to push businesses to buy and / or sell
services online is the consumer experience that E-commerce brought when
Amazon, for example, opened its first store. Online, you have the largest supplier
list you have ever seen that guarantees the highest choice among service providers
ever.
Platforms, such as the blur Group’s one, provide you the opportunity to find ever
type of services you need. Thus, you don’t need to find those services in a physical
place and they are not limited in how they deliver if you decide to buy services
online.
What basically service platforms do is not selling services themselves, but they
provide the architecture to provide businesses with the ability to source the
services they need form a wide variety of suppliers. For a product-based example,
imagine trying to source, contact and bid with all the sellers that might have the
item you covet on eBay by yourself, without the platform of eBay to organise and
facilitate by bringing them all together on your screen. The task would be hard and
a pain in the neck.
Historically service platforms have tended to operate in specific sectors,
particularly the telecommunications sector. Typically they use highly developed

47
technologies and advanced IT capabilities to create a network of service providers
and supplier47
.
There are benefits for both the enterprises and their service providers from using a
service-commerce platform. For instance, by an enterprise point of view, a variety
of service providers that can be accessed and filtered in one place, is a great
benefit. Choice means fairness, competition and quality.
You can ensure the best value service is being sourced for your business.
Furthermore, services have been pre-approved, ensuring a guaranteed quality of
work. Another benefit is represented by the fact that, the service-commerce
platforms help businesses to expand and improve their product and distribution
quickly and cost effectively. Projects or ongoing service can even be managed
with greater ease, efficiency and clarity. Service-commerce platforms help reduce
money and time wasted on unsuitable service providers. Discovering you have
chosen the wrong provider can take months, and cost dearly.
For service providers, the main benefits that they can gain from Service-commerce
platforms are: Access to opportunities that would not otherwise be available to
them; They reduce time wasted by filtering irrelevant projects; They provide a
managed project approval process with clients, thereby reducing administrative
work; Supply clear briefs set to the standard of the service-commerce platform48
.
Now, since we know the main positive reasons that brought businesses to move
along with the tide of buying and selling services online, it seems a good time to
talk proper about the Service-commerce.
47
http://www.blurgroup.com/blogs/group/what-is-a-service-delivery-platform/
48
http://www.blurgroup.com/blogs/group/what-is-a-service-delivery-platform/

48
a. What is S-commerce (Service-commerce)?
Service-commerce, commonly known as S-commerce, is a type of industry where
the buying and selling of services between businesses is conducted over electronic
system such as the Internet and other computer networks49
.
S-commerce enables businesses to procure, or offer, any kind of service in the
same transferable and genuine way that a consumer shops online. In short, S-
commerce provides similar foundations for the B2B market that E-commerce
continues to provide for the B2C market.
Any kind of business, regardless of sector, location or size, can use S-commerce
and it permits businesses, service providers and service buyers saving up to 25%
because the efficiency and auction process are combined. S-commerce, as a result,
also increases flexibility and makes businesses stronger and faster50
.
Service-commerce is the result of the recent evolution in digital shopping models,
as I reported in the previous chapter. The rise of the cloud and crowdsourcing,
coupled with increased consumer spending online, meant that the conditions were
right for a B2B commerce model.
In 2013 KPMG defined future success criteria for outsourcing as:
“For the first time, there will be a function with a remit and the expertise to
optimise service delivery for any business function. This latest evolutionary phase
of sourcing strategy is now function and process-by-process at service delivery
solutions. In addition, whatever is next on the sourcing horizon, the ‘umbrella’
enterprise services function will prove to be a valuable asset, well positioned to
assess and integrate future sourcing-led-benefits and capabilities into their
organizations51
”.
49
http://www.blurgroup.com/blogs/group/s-commerce/
50
http://www.blurgroup.com/blogs/group/s-commerce/
51
https://www.kpmg.com/CH/en/Library/Articles-Publications/Documents/Advisory/pub-20121022-2013-
strategic-visions-sourcing-market-en.pdf

49
The core of S-commerce is this changing point of view, indeed. It presents the
switch from outsourcing any kind of functions towards just outsourcing a project
for your business.
Moreover, modern companies might find S-commerce totally fit to them, as
Service-commerce is adopting the main functionalities of E-commerce and
bringing them to the business world.
Service-commerce provides frictionless, end-to-end project discovery, purchasing,
management, collaboration, reporting, payment and reviews for organizations. To
compete in the service-commerce space, vendors must offer:
 A community of vetted service providers
 A business-to-business marketplace
 Commerce capabilities
 Transactional software
The service-commerce market was born out of a corporate need to move business
services industries, and all their constituents and core processes, to an online
model.
Service-commerce is not to be confused with social-commerce, which is often
incorrectly referred to as “s-commerce”.
Social commerce52
is a subgroup of the electronic-commerce (E-commerce) that
encompasses many communication channels such as social media, online media
for supporting social interaction, and user contribution.
In other words, the social commerce purpose is to use social networks in the E-
commerce’s context negotiations.
5252
Social Commerce Defined. Socialcommercetoday.com. Retrieved on 2013-01-10.

50
Now, let’s get back to the service-commerce, as it is the main subject of this
chapter.
Services commonly procured or provided through the s-commerce model include:
 Graphic design
 Marketing
 Market research
 Lead generation
 Public relations
 Advertising
 Copywriting
 SEO
 PPC
 Video production
 Art & Illustration
 Web site development
 Mobile app development
 Cloud computing
 Commercial law
 Financial planning
 Accounting
 HR
b. Service-commerce and the Future of Cloud Computing
Today, the reality is that everything is moving to online53
.
For example, the number of businesses that is adopting cloud is increasing
drastically. Furthermore, the cloud is not considered as an IT decision anymore.
Therefore, is being thought a business decision to enable company functions.
In particular, in order to keep the competitive position and move their advantage
further, for example, brick & mortar businesses consider the cloud computing
revolution as a good way to boost their technology without crashing their budgets.
Those kind of companies have a lot of opportunities when adopting cloud
computing. For example, they can both create private clouds for their own
database and purchase clouds from cloud infrastructures providers. Furthermore,
they can shift their data to public clouds managed by cloud technicians used - at
the same time - by many other companies54
. In other words, businesses can choose
53
http://abovethelaw.com/?sponsored_content=discovering-the-internet-of-things-measuring-impact-on-
tomorrows-litigation-compliance-strategies
54
http://insights.wired.com/profiles/blogs/sunnier-days-ahead-for-retailers-that-use-cloud-
computing#axzz3QhIbL6AL

51
between managing their cloud infrastructure in-house and having their cloud
infrastructure managed by cloud specialists on a daily base.
Moving forward, as E-commerce, social networking and mobile usages are getting
more and more popular, traditional businesses have to figure out the benefits of
cloud computing, in order to provide a better in-store experience, maximize every
sale and increase efficiency. If they don’t get these benefits, the main risk for them
is falling behind their competitors55
.
Let’s have a look at the five reasons why more and more businesses are adopting
the cloud computing and fortifying their technology infrastructures.
1. Cloud computing provides more insights and a better clarity. For example,
businesses use cloud computing to make their analytics efforts less difficult.
2. Cloud computing provides the opportunity to collaborate cross-functionally
in a more easy way.
3. Cloud computing supports a large variety of business needs.
4. Cloud computing allows businesses to develop quickly their new product
and / or services.
5. Cloud computing supports the business growth. In fact, the business growth
of a company adopting cloud computing, can be seen in the increased
efficiency and realized benefits across that company.
For example 25% of businesses saw a reduction in IT costs56
; 55% saw an
increase in efficiency57
; 49% saw improvement in employee mobility58
.
Moreover, Onyeka Nchege, the CIO of Coca-Coa Bottling Company
Consolidated, during the keynote of Cloud World Forum in London, noted five
more important reasons businesses can move into cloud: ownership, collaboration,
feedback, adaptability and execution59
.
55
http://insights.wired.com/profiles/blogs/sunnier-days-ahead-for-retailers-that-use-cloud-
computing#axzz3QhIbL6AL
56
http://s3.amazonaws.com/magazine.good.is/assets/517625/original/open-uri20140701-27923-1du4i16
57
58
59
http://www.cloudcomputing-news.net/news/2014/jun/17/coca-cola-how-move-100-year-old-brick-and-
mortar-firm-cloud-cloudwf/

52
Statistics show surprising and interesting circumstances in the cloud adoption
landscape we should think about60
:
 The 70% of business’ owners tell us that the money they have saved by
adopting the cloud computing, have been invested back into their business.
 The same business’ owners say that the larger their company grows up, the
more they will include their email in their private database.
 In terms of percentage, the companies with a number of employees lower
than 20, are 20% more likely to have adopted the cloud computing than
companies with more employees - let’s say, for example, 500 employees.
In fact, as Luis Aguilar Mateo stated in his blog61
, small and medium
companies are more likely to adopt cloud computing. The cloud computing
model is very popular principally among start-ups, because making big up-
front investments and defining big operational terms, usually is not
recommended. Therefore, these companies need high scalability in order to
quickly adapt to demand changes.
On a second step, we find governments, companies in the financial sector
and telecommunications companies that are adopting cloud computing the
quickest.
An interesting Infographic shows here the benefits reported by cloud adopters, in
terms of percentages62
:
 51% reduces time spent IT;
 50% requires fewer internal IT resources;
 94% produces security benefits;
 75% improves service availability;
 96% creates less worry about outages.
60
http://www.rackspace.com/blog/infographic-the-state-of-smb-cloud-adoption-in-2014/
61
http://thoughtsoncloud.com/2011/12/which-businesses-are-adopting-cloud-computing-first/
62
http://ddf912383141a8d7bbe4-e053e711fc85de3290f121ef0f0e3a1f.r87.cf1.rackcdn.com/state-of-
cloud-adoption-infographic.png

53
Now, let’s take a look at time and money savings by the same cloud adopters of
above:
 50% of those businesses seek for new opportunities as they saved time
managing data security using cloud computing;
 70% of those businesses invest money saved as an outcome of moving to
the cloud back in their activity;
 36% have improved customer service after adopting cloud.
Statistics proved that, in 2014, 90% of businesses have slightly used cloud
computing63
. But, there is still a 10% of businesses mainly based on Dry Services
that are not considering and implementing a digital strategy and that don’t trust in
cloud computing so they don’t use it. When we talk about Dry Businesses we talk
– mainly – about Human Resources, Legal, Finance and Accounting.
In a socially-dominated cloud world – those businesses, are becoming the
exception, as opposed to the norm64
.
The main fear Dry Businesses have when thinking of moving their business to the
cloud is the lack of face-to-face. But the fact is that they have never realized about
the advantages of moving to online. The advantages are wide such as security,
disaster recovery, real-time and automatic software updates, live data, increased
collaboration, work from anywhere, flexibility, reliability, competitiveness and
more control65
.
For traditional firms moving online, the secret is the implementation. As I
mentioned above, moving to online increases flexibility, access to more advanced
solutions or lower costs. But making the transition is not something easy, but it is,
if you have the right tools and follow step by step the implementation process.
63
http://www.rackspace.com/blog/infographic-the-state-of-smb-cloud-adoption-in-2014/
64
http://www.blurgroup.com/blogs/group/the-evolution-of-business-using-expert-sourcing/
65
http://www.salesforce.com/uk/socialsuccess/cloud-computing/why-move-to-cloud-10-benefits-cloud-
computing.jsp

54
Generally, the right tools to use when the business decides to move to online are:
video conferencing, IT infrastructure, dynamic applications, flexible data
processing centre, service platforms, phone systems, and staff training.
Service-commerce based companies, such as blur Group, are mainly cloud
computing based and have customers and service providers on their platforms to
buy or sell legal, human resources, accounting and many other services.
c. The Process of S-commerce
For S-commerce the main supporter is the technology, because the whole process
of selling and buying services happens online. So, for both the seller and buyer
there is more freedom and easier access, as all they need is a device or a computer
and, above all, an Internet connection.
The procurement process is handled entirely by the back-end functionality, taking
those projects that have been briefed first, through a proposals request, and then
developing several lists of suppliers, to finally sign off.
Currently, the online and offline service market size is more than $2tn, with
accounting and legal composing the largest areas of business, originating together
nearly half of the total amount.
Unfortunately, not all types of services are suited to the service-commerce model,
so the estimated admissible market for service-commerce should be over $1tn.
In the s-commerce market, the actual leader is blur Group, who have already
developed its own s-commerce platform, the Global Services Exchange. The
Global Services Exchange presently covers eight different service areas, including
marketing, technology, design, media, art, legal, accounting, and human resources
that has been added only in 2015.

55
d. The S-commerce Model
Three main factors make s-commerce possible:
 Crowdsourcing
 Cloud Computing
 Consumer Confidence (online)
Crowdsourcing
Crowdsourcing is the process whereby an individual, or organization, obtains work
or funding from a crowd of people. In essence, crowdsourcing involves
outsourcing or procuring business services over the Internet.
Basically, crowdsourcing regards the procedure used to obtain those ideas,
services or content that you need, by asking for people who will help you
achieving your objectives. Generally, the most popular community where to find
potential contributors is the online community, as there are a few traditional
suppliers or employees that will help66
. Crowdsourcing is an amalgamation of 2
terms ‘crowd’ and ‘outsourcing’ – the 2 fundamental elements needed to make the
‘crowdsourcing’ model viable67
.
The theory behind crowdsourcing is simple. By targeting a large collective of
people (a crowd) to complete business-related tasks, the variety of expertise and
skills will result in yielding a higher quality of content and idea generation will be
superior.
Crowdsourcing is often utilised for innovation, problem solving or increasing
efficiency within an organization. Crowdsourcing also allows for a company to
gain a deeper insight into their customers: what they like, what they don’t like and
what they desire68
.
The common thinking of crowdsourcing considers this concept as the relocation of
low-skills work to chipper places but, a research carried out by Massolution found
66
Crowdsourcing – Definition and More. Merriam-Webster.com. August 31,2012. Retrieved 2014-02-03.
67
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowdsourcing
68
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-is-crowdsourcing/

56
that over 59% of all crowd members – involved in crowdsourcing – reside in
Canada & Europe. In addition, over 49% of them is graduated69
.
Other key results include that crowd workers at least once a month get fully
involved in some crowdsourcing activities, and that over 76% of all of them has a
full-time job70
.
These data represent a very important factor for the development of S-commerce
model, as the rise of crowdsourcing leads directly the development of service-
commerce.
The top 15 crowdsourcing influencers include71
:
 Philip Letts (blur Group’s CEO and founder)
 Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia’s founder)
 Darren Westlake (Crowdcube’s CEO and co-founder)
 Samir Desai (Funding Circle’s CEO and co-founder)
 Mark Shuttleworth (Canonical Ltd’s founder)
 Jeff Lynn (Seedrs’ CEO)
 Roland Harwood (100%Open’s head)
 Jouko Ahvenainen (Grow VC’s chairman)
 Peter Baeck (digital, social/public swrvices innovator and leading
crowdfunding researcher at Nesta)
 Bruno Pellegrini (Userfarm’s founder)
 Maya Bogle (Talenthouse’s co-founder and MD)
 Simon Hill ( Wazoku’s co-founder and MD)
 Nick Bennett (Starcount’s Strategic Creative Director and Managing
Partner)
 Klaus Woeste (Director, Management Consulting and leads KPMG’s
CrowdConnection tool)
 Simon Dixon (BankToTheFuture.com’s founder)
69
70
71
http://crowdsourcingweek.com/top-crowdsourcing-experts-uk/

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