Never mind selling flights, music or vacuum cleaners over the internet, business-to-business applications or B2B is where it's at, witness BT's link-up with VerticalNet, the US operator of industry specific trading communities.

One supplier of e-business solutions, Axon's Innovation Director Stuart Hamilton, says e-procurement will deliver major cost savings in support services. In an interview with Silicon.com Hamilton says, "It's actually about the least-sexy end of the procurement spectrum - about 30 per cent of a company's expenditure (so about 30 per cent of their turnover) is typically on stuff like office supplies, travel, consultancy, security guards. All the things that don't actually make their way into the product that gets sent out to the customer."

Hamilton suggests that the development of e-procurement will force suppliers to forge new relationships with customers and will lead to the emergence of new intermediaries. "Undoubtedly, one of the biggest challenges associated with implementing an e-procurement solution is connecting the several thousand suppliers to a particular company. Companies are emerging - some are existing organisations, others are new - to sit between the suppliers and the buyers and consolidate information about products and product availability, and provide it to individual buyers in the format they particularly want."

Axon is a UK SAP consulting partner based at Egham, Surrey. Its clients include Xerox, Cable and Wireless and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Richard Byatt