Framework of Blockchain-Supported E-Commerce Platform for Small and Medium Enterprises

Abstract

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) play an important role in promoting the national economy and providing employment opportunities. E-commerce platforms may facilitate transactions between these enterprises. However, transactions on the e-commerce platform are non-face-to-face, strongly virtual, and variable, resulting in SMEs often facing moral hazards and opportunistic behaviors. Blockchain is a distributed ledger consisting of an encryption algorithm, consensus mechanism, and smart contracts, having the characteristics of authenticity, security, transparency, and unforgeability. Thus, the problems faced by SMEs can be resolved by combining e-commerce platforms and blockchain technology. In this study, we first provide a conceptual framework for blockchain-supported e-commerce platforms for SMEs. Second, based on this conceptual framework, we build a total business architecture. Finally, we propose three key applications to illustrate how the platform facilitates SMEs in solving financing and trading problems. This study provides significant guidance for the operation and management of blockchain-supported e-commerce platforms for these enterprises.

A Review of Blockchain’s Role in E-Commerce Transactions: Open Challenges, and Future Research Directions

“…There are three different types of blockchains: consortium (also called federated) blockchains, private blockchains, and public blockchains [23]. The choice of blockchain type depends on the specific requirements of the use case.…”

Filling the SME credit gap: a systematic review of blockchain-based SME finance literature

“…Blockchain can leverage alternative data sources for lending and increase data financing. Jiang and Chen (2021) demonstrate, within the framework for SMEs' blockchain-based e-commerce platforms, that the authenticity, transparency and immutability of trading and logistical data can serve as a source of data financing for SMEs. Data finance differs from collateral financing in that loan providers are not required to provide collateral to prove their capacity to repay.…”

“…The reviewed articles encompass a diverse range of geographical contexts, shedding light on the global interest in understanding the implications of blockchain technology for SMEs. The investigation spans various regions, including India (Kaur et al ., 2022; Paliwal et al ., 2020; Sahoo and Thakur, 2023), Ghana (Asante Boakye et al ., 2022, 2023), Saudi Arabia (Alshareef and Tunio, 2022), China (Chen et al ., 2021; Sun et al ., 2021a, b), Qatar (Dahdal et al ., 2020) and Russia (Christian et al ., 2020), and examines sectors as varied as housing (Utkarsh et al ., 2022), trade finance (Dahdal et al ., 2020; Truby et al ., 2022), livestock export (Miller et al ., 2023), e-commerce (Jiang and Chen, 2021; Li et al ., 2020) and automotive retail (Chen et al ., 2020). This diverse representation underscores the ubiquity of the exploration into blockchain's potential impact on SMEs across different nations and industries.…”

Critical View of Business Architecture: Current and Future State

“…It is a conceptual structure with sufficient details regarding the specification of each process for it appropriate implementation in enterprise architecture. Zachman, TOGAF, RAMI are some of the examples of frameworks [15,16].…”

“…Based on the 75 papers reviewed, a decent number of documents, approximately 25%, recognize TOGAF as a Framework to be used when designing an enterprise architecture [7,8,24,34,42,45,53,60,64,66,68,72,73,78,79,81,87,91] While the Zachman Framework is only proposed by one document [55], Other authors suggest processes for specific applications without reference to frameworks such as TOGAF or Zachman. [15,65,74,80,82].…”