Determinants of Business-to-Business (B2B) Website Use by a Buyer-Supplier Dyad: Case of an Automotive Component Manufacturing Co.

This article is based on one of the manufacturers of automotive components in India referred to as Avanti Enterprises (AvE). It describes the implementation of a Business-to-Business (B2B) website by AvE for its suppliers and highlights the factors that led to use of this website, by one particular supplier. As an example, this supplier is referred to as Bhusan Industries (BHI). The case is based on a dyad of primary organization (AvE) and the user organization (BHI) to discuss the level of use of a B2B website by the dyad and describes the factors related to the primary hosting organization and the user organization that determines use. The article aims to: understand why a website is used; to describe the website features and how they are used; describe the primary organization characteristics; how and why those characteristics influence the website use; to describe the user organization characteristics; and how and why they influence the website use. Sources of data include company documentation, interviews, industry databases, secondary case studies relevant to the framework and company websites.