Midterm Question #1
Research 1 company that makes use of E-commerce. Describe the nature of this company in 1-2 paragraphs.Identify then, how does this company use e-commerce to achieve strategic advantage. Describe the benefits derived from this strategy

.Raytheon Company

Raytheon: A History of Global Technology Leadership

Two former college roommates Laurence K. Marshall and Vannevar Bush, along with scientist Charles G. Smith, founded Raytheon Company in Cambridge, Mass., as the American Appliance Company in 1922.

Throughout its more than 80-year history, Raytheon Company has been a leader in developing defense technologies and in converting those technologies for use in commercial markets. From its early days as a maker of radio tubes, its adaptation of World War II radar technology to invent microwave cooking, and its development of the first guided missile, Raytheon has successfully built upon its pioneering tradition to become a global technology leader.

Raytheon: Aspiring to be the most admired defense and aerospace systems supplier through world-class people and technology

Raytheon is a technology leader specializing in defense, homeland security, and other government markets throughout the world. With a history of innovation spanning more than 80 years, Raytheon provides state-of-the-art electronics, mission systems integration, and other capabilities in the areas of sensing; effects; command, control, communications and intelligence systems, as well as a broad range of mission support services.

Electronic commerce tools and technologies are essential in the development of world class electronic processes within Raytheon Company. Raytheon encourages the use of electronic trading partner relationships throughout the entire Business-to-Business (B2B) environment. Suppliers and other Trading Partners are encouraged to work with Raytheon to build an electronic commerce relationship.

Electronic commerce is comprised of these same parts, with Raytheon Company

• The business transaction is constructed and processed by a business software application.
• The data format is standardized, or translated into a common format, between sender and receiver, so all data can be accurately identified by both partners' business software applications.
• The data is transported electronically from the sending application to the receiving application, without any further manual processing.
• There are significant benefits to both parties, in speed, accuracy of data and lower operations cost or cash transactions.

How Does Electronic Commerce Work at Raytheon Company?

The data portion
After a business case is established for doing electronic commerce with a trading partner, the process starts with a Trading Partner Agreement (TPA) between Raytheon and the trading partner. We agree upon the documents to be exchanged, the data format to be used, the method of transportation, and the timing of the information exchange. The TPA addresses document content only to the extent of the data elements that must be transmitted within a document to be transmitted between the parties (e.g., ship-to address is a required field). It does not address the business content (e.g., ship-to-address must contain fully-spelled out street names). The trading partner and Raytheon may also have other agreements that cover this business content. A TPA does not alter or affect these other agreements in any way.

Raytheon’s corporate Electronic Commerce (ES&S Integration Services) team will make the necessary preparations on the Raytheon side to process the documents without human intervention. The Raytheon ES&S Integration Services team works with the Raytheon application personnel to create electronic business document(s), such as a purchase order or an invoice, for a business application. Document data is passed from the business application to the corporate electronic commerce processing center. From there, the document data will be converted into the agreed electronic format and distributed to the trading partner. Electronic documents submitted by the trading partner will be converted from the agreed electronic format into the application system’s required format and distributed to the business application for processing.

The communications portion
When Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is used, Raytheon Company will route the electronic documents to another party (the Value Added Network or VAN) through which the trading partner will obtain the documents. After retrieving the document, the trading partner's electronic commerce software or service will convert the data from the standard format into the format needed by their own application.

For non-EDI data formats communication methods in use include File Transfer Protocol (FTP) . Encryption of the data and/or the entire transmission is commonly utilized with this form of communications.

The key to efficient electronic commerce is to input the pertinent business data only once. Electronic commerce software does the rest of the work. Data is transferred from our business application to our trading partner's application with no manual intervention steps to slow the process. oine of the benifits there is easy business transaction, and gather more information.