E-Business in B-2-B Wholesaler's Internal Supply Chain : Effects on Costs and Activities

The primary aim of the paper is to indicate the effects of e-business on the costs of supply chain activities. The empirical data have been collected through a case study in one b-2-b wholesaler company. To be able to analyse the cost effects of e-business solutions in a logistic chain, it is an imperative to conduct a cost analysis across several activities. The calculation of the total activity costs and the unit costs of activities was carried out by activity-based costing. As is quite often supposed, the results obtained indicate that the unit cost of a Web-based order entry was lower than the unit costs of other sales channels. The ratio was approximately 1:6, respectively. However, order processing entails only a small part of the order's total costs. An assessment of the total cost effects of e-business requires that the cost structure of the environment be well understood