Intelligent Multi-Party Multi-Issue Bargaining System for e-Business

Abstract

With the explosive growth of the number of transactions conducted via electronic channels, there is a pressing need for the development of intelligent support tools to improve the degree and sophistication of automation for e-Commerce. With reference to the Business-to-Business Transactions (BBT) model, negotiation is one of key steps for B2B e-Commerce. Nevertheless, classical negotiation models are ineffective for supporting multi-party multi-issue negotiations often encountered in e-Business environment. The main contribution of our innovative research project is the exploitation of Web technologies, game theory, and intelligent agent techniques for the design and development of an automated integrative negotiation mechanism to facilitate online e-Marketplace for e-Business. Our preliminary experiment shows that the proposed intelligent agent based negotiation system is more effective than human negotiators in simulated negotiation cases. Our research work opens the door to the development of intelligent tools to streamline B2B eCommerce.