E-Commerce Organization applications

Changing business Environment

§The traditional business environment is changing rapidly

§Many companies are looking outside and within to shape business strategies

§These activities include private electronic connections to customers ,suppliers ,distributors ,industry groups etc

§The I-superhighway will expand this trend so that it allow business to exchange information

See in fig.

E-Commerce and the retail Industry

§Conditions are changing in the “new economy” with respect to the retail industry

§Consumers are demanding lower prices, better quality, a large selection of in-season goods.

§Retailers  are filling their order by slashing back-office costs, reducing profit margins, reducing cycle times. buying more wisely and making huge investments in technology

§Retailers are in the immediate line of fire and were first to bear the brunt of cost cutting

Marketing and E-Commerce

§E-commerce is forcing companies to rethink the existing ways of doing target marketing and even event marketing.

§Interactive marketing is in electronic markets via interactive multimedia catalogs

§Users find moving images more appealing than still image and listening more appealing than reading text on a screen

§Consumer information services are a new type of catalog business

Inventory Management and Organizational Applications

§With borders opening up and companies facing stiff global competition

§Adaptation would include moving to computerized, “paperless” operations to reduce

§Once targeted business process is inventory management, solutions for these processes go by different names

§In manufacturing industry they’re known as just-in-time inventory systems, in the retail as quick response programs, and in transportation industry as consignment tracking systems

Just-in-Time (JIT) Manufacturing

§It is viewed as an integrated management system consisting of a number of different management practices dependent on the characteristics of specific plants

§The first principle is elimination of all waste (time ,materials ,labour & equipment)

§The following management practices are focused factory, reduced set-up times, group technology, total productive maintenance, multifunction employees, uniform workloads, IT purchasing  bank an total quality control & quality circles

Quick Response Retailing (QR)

§It is a version of JIT purchasing tailored for retailing

§To reduce the risk of being of out of stock, retailers are implementing QR systems

§It provides for a flexible response to product ordering and lowers costly inventory levels

§QR retailing focuses on market responsiveness while maintaining low levels of stocks

§It creates a closed loop consisting of retailer, vendor, & consumer chain,& as consumers make purchases the vendor orders new deliveries from the retailer through its computer network

Supply Chain Management

§QR and JIT address only part of the overall picture

§Supply Chain Management (SCM) is also called “extending”, which means integrating the internal and external partners on the supply and process chains to get raw materials to the manufacturer and finished products to the consumer

§It includes following functions

§Supplier management: The goal is to reduce the number of suppliers and get them to partners

§Inventory management: The goal is to shorten the order-ship-bill cycle. When a majority of partners are electronically linked, information faxed or mailed

§Distribution management: The goal is to move documents (accurate data) related to shipping

§Channel management: The goal is to quickly disseminate information about changing operational conditions ( technical , product and pricing information) to trading partners

§Payment management: The goal is to link company and the suppliers and distributors so that payments can be sent and received electronically

§Financial management: The goal is to enable global companies to manage their money in various foreign exchange accounts

§Sales force productivity: The goal is to improve the communication flow of information among the sales, customer & production functions

In sum, the supply chain management process increasingly depends on electronic markets

  

Work group Collaboration Applications:

§A internet work  that enables easy and inexpensive connection of various organizational segments

§It is to improve communications and information sharing and to gather and analyze competitive data in real-time

§Videoconferencing, document sharing and multimedia e-mail, are expected to reduce travel and encourage telecommuting

Improves the distribution channel for documents and records to suppliers, collaborators and distributors