Basic tools of the electronic economy include: Automatic Data Capture (ADC) as well as electronic document and data exchange. These tools have been used for many years, and international standardization organizations such as ISO, CEN, as well as national and industry organizations, have developed a series of standards for open and closed environments. However, only the development of the electronic economy has led to the necessity of their integration and interoperability. These standards relate to the following issues:
– identification of entities in the electronic economy
– identification of objects in the electronic economy
– standard data representation, electronic form of commercial documents and others.
In the electronic economy, it is recommended to use so-called location codes for the identification of business entities. The need for location codes was born out of the first electronic data interchange applications. Depending on the type, these codes can be used to identify an entire company, its branches, departments within the company, or even physical locations such as a warehouse gate.
The objects of the electronic economy can be both trade items that are subject to pricing and invoicing, as well as logistic units used for transport, and service resources and relationships.
In ADC systems, many technologies are used to ensure automatic information collection for various applications. From the perspective of production and distribution, and thus supply chain management, bar codes are currently most commonly used, while radio frequency identification systems, known as RFID, are predicted to have the greatest future.
Currently, two methods of electronic exchange of business information and documents function in the electronic economy: via traditional EDI and via the Internet.
The first XML message schemas compliant with World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards were developed in cooperation with UCC and EAN International, with the participation of the world’s largest companies, maintaining a conversion strategy that allows enterprises to protect their investments made in electronic data interchange – EDI.
New XML schemas published in July 2001 combine the global business language – the EAN.UCC system – with the Internet to enable B2B transactions. The set of standard XML messages is based on transaction schemas common to all industrial sectors and includes the following messages: Item, Party, Purchase Order, Despatch Advice, Invoice, Charges, and Payments.
Observed trends in current applications in the area of the electronic economy clearly indicate the key importance of standardization. One example is the integration of electronic catalogs.
According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the future of the electronic economy will belong to global IT networks, in which detailed data on all products offered on the global market will be stored.
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