B2B Integration : A Practical Guide to Collaborative E-commerce

410 B2B Integration — A Practical Guide to Collaborative E-commerce
14.1. Introduction
B2B integration opens a world of opportunities for effective and
successful supply chain management which coordinates and integrates
all activities, internal and external, into a seamless process. The internal
activities pertain to various departments within an organization and
external activities relate to trading partners, such as vendors, carriers
and third-party companies. A company that is able to automate all
activities through B2Bi is in a position to deliver products with low
operational costs and high profitability and would stand the market
competition and flourish.
B2Bi helps businesses effectively Web-enable all processes of supply
chain management and allows tight integration with processes of
customers, suppliers and marketplaces.
14.2. Fundamentals of Supply Chain Management
In this section we will go over some of the fundamentals of SCM. SCM
is a subject in itself, thus it is not possible to cover each section
in-depth. Our goal is to provide differentiation between a B2Bi-enabled
and a legacy supply chain.
14.2.1. A few definitions of SCM
There are numerous definitions of SCM. Here are a few of them:
• SCM is the process of maximizing a company's internal practices
and its interaction with suppliers and customers, in order to bring
products into market more efficiently.
• SCM is a business strategy to strengthen the shareholder and customer
value by optimizing the flow of products, services and related
information from point of origin (source) to the end user.
• SCM enfolds processes of creating and fulfilling the demand for
goods and services.
• SCM is a set of business processes that covers a trading partner
community engaged in a common goal of gratifying the end customer.