Collaboration modeling framework and trading portal for agricultural Products

Abstract

In Sri Lanka, the agricultural sector is the main source of livelihood of the rural population, which accounts for 70% ofthe total population. Although, the agricultural supply chain of Sri Lanka is full ofimperfections and hence inefficient. Meanwhile, several studies observed that the clear majority of small and mediumsized enterprises in Sri Lanka accept the importance of information and communication technology and e-commerce in their businesses. By considering these facts, we recognized the necessity of using e-commerce applications in agriculture sector in Sri Lanka. In this research we proposed trading portal environment to complete planning, identification and negotiation phases of an ISO open-edi business transaction in four agricultural product categories namely, vegetables, fish, spices and fruits for small and medium enterprises in Sri Lanka. Small scale software has been developed to facilitate businesses to present their business capabilities, orders and demands to world with zero or minimum intervention of intermediaries. In addition, the system enables automatic partner matching by exact matches, counter offers and collective offers. After the selection of business partner by his business profile, uploaded trade lead or partner matching results, seller or buyer has ability to negotiate with that potential business partner through the system. Finally, we demonstrated the connection between e-commerce system design concepts and our trading portal according to ISO/IEC 15944-1 conceptual business transaction events, UMM requirements meta-models and REA ontology.