PERC occupies a unique position within the many e-commerce/e-business centers presently emerging, since it brings to bear a truly multidisciplinary perspective on e-commerce issues by integrating perspectives from computer science, engineering, technology, economics, agriculture, psychology and management in a unique simulation environment created at Purdue University specially for the purpose - SEAS.

SEAS mimics real life business and economic environments by creating a customizable, dynamically reconfigurable environment that resembles them. Therefore, the center uses the sophisticated capabilities of the SEAS infrastructure - unique to PERC - to tie these interdisciplinary projects into a unified whole. E-commerce is going to be a multi-trillion dollar phenomenon in the next few years. One source puts the expected volume of e-commerce transactions in 2005 at $2.3 trillion. A significant part of it will be the development of new hardware and software technologies, their testing and implementation. ICER will contribute aggressively along several dimensions by tying together leading research laboratories with leading industry associations, public and private sector entities in the state of Indiana.

One of the major aims of the center is to rapidly commercialize technologies as they emerge from the various research laboratories. The center is composed by several people with expertise in commercializing university research. There is expertise to survey markets, develop business plans, obtain funding from internationally known Venture Capital groups, and to help create startups. These skills are brought into play as part of this collaborative initiative.