Development of Communication Technology

With the development of communication technology, globalization has a growing impact on international trade. The easy availability of information has made the transaction more flexible and plentiful than before. Business to business platform (B2B) is such a platform that manages commercial information and enables quick transactions among corporations. Given the convenience the B2B platform gives to us, it gradually shows some problems with the changing of the trading methods, such as high cost of website maintenance problem and the argument about keyword retrieval. My research topic is “How can B2B platform communicate better with its users?” My hypothesis is outsourcing a good tool for B2B platform and company to deal with network problems and information technology problems and better serve users.

Firstly, this article will analyze the working principle of B2B platforms -- it will provide a detailed background knowledge to the readers. Then, the second part will introduce how to create value for customers by the analysis of customer buying behavior and customer purchase relationship ^[a][b]on B2B platform. Finally, this article will analyze the existing problems of B2B platform which have a significant influence on the development of B2B platform and have affected the customer-servicing quality. At the end, this article will give a solution that has a potential to help B2B platforms better serve customers and maintain customer relationships.

The work principle of B2B platform

B2B platform has a long history. This platform is mainly designed for the information communication of products and services among enterprises through internet. It involves information sharing among manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers, but it excludes the information sharing between enterprises and consumers which is belongs to the B2C field. On B2B platform, the transaction scale is usually large and the procurement process is complicated. In a typical transaction, a full range of stakeholders will be involved, such as lawyers and procurement agents.

With the development of the information technology, the working mode of the B2B platform has changed correspondingly, which brings new challenges to B2B operators and researchers. Firstly, the working method of the B2B platform remained the same. According to Lilien, B2B platform focuses on “small number of customers and large-unit transactions” and has “complex buying sequences” (Lilien, 2015, p544). B2B platform always follows the principle of a small number of customers and high-quality transactions, and carries out value communication and contact in the process of the operation at the same time. In this case, individual will be pronounced, that is to say, different from the purchase behavior of direct mode, a single customer needs more specific and professional service process as well as personalized purchase service. ^[c][d]Secondly, B2B value-driver has changed. Traditional B2B e-commerce is a manufacturer-centered working mode, while the value-driver of the new generation B2B e-commerce is the consumer-centered working mode (Wang, 2017). In other words, changes have taken place in the development direction. In order to better serve consumers and obtain higher quality transactions, B2B platform needs to make reasonable optimization. In this process, if B2B enterprises can achieve their virtuous cycle of upgrading, it would be a win-win situation for both the platforms and manufacturers. Thirdly, technical development helps B2B platform remain competitive in the market. The development of big data technology and the professional information identify technology will provide B2B platform a better search engine service (Wang, 2017). In the case of relatively similar information, consumers have a wealth of choices, and at the same time, the platform will face challenges on their professionalism.^[e][f]

To sum up, the B2B platform is a form of e-commerce which provides a good environment for enterprises to share information with each other. It benefits a lot from the big data technology and accurate search engine services. The new value-driver brings new challenges and opportunities for the development of B2B platform.

B2B platform value-creation progress

As mentioned above, the value-driver of B2B platforms have changed during its development. Next, this paper will introduce how does B2B platform exchange information and create value in the process of new transactions. There are three main models of buying in the transaction process on B2B platform. These three different modes of an acquisition are important in guiding the value creation of B2B platform. Depending on the role played by the buying participants, the process of value creation can create a virtuous circle in different industries. To play the part of the B2B platform in value creation, it is not enough to operate through the platform, and professional knowledge of the B2B platform is required.

The value creation of B2B platform focuses on value driving and responding to demands. In different purchase relationships, the platform can produce different value creation processes to play its role in business transactions. First, the different nature of purchase will lead to different transaction relationships and transaction models. There are three major B2B buying models, routinized exchange relationships, transactional buying operations, and organic buying relationships (Lilien, 2015, p549). The main difference among these three trading models is that they have different buying relationships and thus have different value creation processes. Routinized exchange relationships are more focused on strategic partners, such as long-term effective strategic cooperation between enterprises. In such a transaction process, the B2B platform is an information builder who can help companies to establish purchase relationships through information mining. Transactional buying operations are related to transactional cooperation, such as accounting firms, etc. Therefore, B2B platform is a platform to promote cooperation and competition and to help merchants of both sides to achieve incremental benefits. Different from the above two, organic buying relationships tend to have a wide range of choices and multiple purchase elements are taken into account. Therefore, the B2B platform will become an open and integrated platform on which various transactions will be concluded through the network effect. B2B platforms play different roles in different business models, reflecting their flexibility. In the process of value creation, different merchants play different positions, making them the facilitators of B2B platform value creation. According to Wang, the new B2B platform has four characters: value driver, value digger, value supplier and value provider (2017). In the process of value creation, consumers, i.e., enterprise needs, are value drivers, industry experts and community members are valued diggers, new generation B2B platforms are assessed providers, and value suppliers are other companies that can respond to enterprise needs. B2B platform connects to three other factors to build new value-creating processes. At the same time, the new generation of the B2B platform can create transaction activities flexibly through network data to achieve value. At last, B2B platforms embody the uniqueness of value creation. This means that in the process of B2B platform transaction, merchants need to pay more attention to individual characteristics and cannot use unified standards to deal with similar merchants. Due to the large single transaction volume of the B2B platform, practitioners are required to have the professional industrial knowledge to deal with different merchants. In the process of value creation, it is no longer appropriated to classify the market by region（Wiersema, 2013, p477）. The fair promotes the professional upgrading of B2B platforms. In this process, value creation is more efficient and stable.
In conclusion, through different purchase methods, the value creation way of the B2B platform is very simple to adapt to the personalized needs of customers. Itis not only able to create better value, but also beneficial to solve the existing problems In the B2B field by professional upgrading the system