In economics, an intermediary is a third party that offers intermediation services between two trading parties, typically, a supplier and a consumer, or between other intermediaries, acting as a conduit for goods or services offered by them and providing added value to the transaction Mirpur University of Science & Technology, MUST Mirpur AJ&K Department of Computer Science and Information Technology Open Book Exam (22 - 08 - 2020) Page 3 of 3 Disintermediation, also known as "cutting out the middleman", occurs when intermediaries are removed from the supply chain. The concept arose with changes in the financial services industry, with the diversion of savings from bank accounts with low interest rates to direct investment in other financial instruments (Gellman, 1996). The disintermediation phenomenon is typically assigned to several factors, among them, the supplier's internalization of activities traditionally performed by intermediaries (Sarkar et al., 2006) and the degree of market transparency which leads to the buyer's increased knowledge of supply pricing (Picot & Bortenlanger, 2006). The brief introduction of disintermediation and reintermediation is provided here. For the above definitions, you are expected to answer the following.

a) Does electronic commerce as a new distribution channel cause disintermediation or reintermediation or both? Justify your answer.

b) Take a practical example of any e-business and discuss how the disintermediation is achieved by developing an e-business. After disintermediation explain any scenario where reintermediation is applied by fulfilling the architectural requirements or making it more effective.

(C)You may Explain the process by providing the graphical representation of the processes where disintermediation and reintermediation is applied