About e4books
The e4books project was initiated by Book Industry Communication (BIC) early in 2004 with the aim of increasing
the use of e-commerce in the book industry supply chain. Simon Edwards, a business systems consultant well-known
and experienced in the book trade, was commissioned to research the obstacles which stand in the way of greater
e-commerce adoption and propose ways in which these can be overcome. His report made wide-ranging recommendations
which have now set the agenda for the project as it goes forward and can be
downloaded here.
Chief among these recommendations is the proposal that the industry should work towards 1 May 2008 as its E-day,
the date by which all trading partners should be capable of exchanging basic electronic messages with their
trading partners. The required functionality is defined by the e4books research project as:
For booksellers:
- accessing up-to-date product information
- ordering and processing of order acknowledgements and delivery notes
- processing electronic invoices/credit notes
- returns management
For publishers and distributors:
- supplying product information and updates
- handling incoming electronic orders from various sources and systems
- generating electronic order acknowledgements
- generating electronic invoices and credit notes
- handling electronic returns requests
The project is overseen by a steering committee chaired by Roger Woodham, formerly Commercial
Director of Macmillan Distribution and past Chair of BIC, and comprising representatives of
the PA, BA, IPG and individual publishers, booksellers and service providers. The project has
been generously funded by the PA, BA/Batch.co.uk, Nielsen BookNet, PubEasy, VISTA International
and Waterstone's Booksellers, as well as by BIC itself.
Comments and suggestions about the project are welcomed.
Please contact Peter Kilborn on peter@bic.org.uk
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