The European e-Business Report The European e ... - empirica

The European E-Business Report 2005
Although companies may recognise the potential of networking, the migration towards web-based
sales activities has not really taken place. Another important sector-specific reason is the difficulty of
codifying the physical characteristics of the products which are, on the other hand, of utmost
relevance. This proves to be a relevant barrier to a completely automated management of the
transactions.
In summary, at sector level, companies accounting for 17% of employment in the T&C sector stated
that e-business played a significant part in the way their company operates and about 40% said it
played some part.
2.2.3 Important topics and application areas
Integration along the value chain
Supply chains in the T&C industry tend to be complex and very fragmented. They consist of a number
of discrete activities that are increasingly organised in an integrated production network. Integration is
both horizontal and vertical, and companies tend to be specialised in activities (e.g. sewing, finishing)
or products. Specialisation and location of these activities are key variables in determining value
added and margins of end products.
Deployment of ICT can lead to relevant efficiency gains thanks to the streamlining of a company’s
functions. The prerequisite for online collaboration with external partners is the digitalisation of
information to be exchanged. To allow for automatic processing, information has to be digitalised in
structured, consistent and standardised formats. This prerequisite is particularly critical in this sector
where production is carried out through numerous exchanges among suppliers, sub-contractors and
customers.
So far, the use of ICT solutions in the sector has been limited by the scarce availability and usage of
specific description and messaging standards for data exchange, for supplier and product certification,
for measuring the various players’ performance. The widespread adoption of CAD as well as of codebased
labelling systems has not been accompanied by the adequate development of recognised
standards in the sector. Nevertheless interesting initiatives in this area have been taking place, e.g.
the TEX-SPIN – Textile Supply Chain Integrated Network (www.atc.gr/texspin) project – which has
now been followed by Tex-Weave 55 , a Standardisation Workshop dealing with Standardisation and
Interoperability in the Textile Supply Chain Integrated Networks; TEXCOM-Tools, a cooperation
project for the development of technical tools for the improvement of industrial communication in
textile and clothing industry; and MODA-ML (www.moda.ml.org) which aims to facilitate the flow of
technical and management information between the firms of the textile and clothing supply chain
thanks to the exchange of XML documents via internet.
Supply chain management systems, allowing full integration with business partners, are used in about
26% of large firms while, not surprisingly, being poorly diffused among small firms. These data
confirm, once again, that the information flow is still largely carried out in a traditional way despite the
complexity of the operations involved.
The case study of Rifil describes the experience of raw material producers which implemented a low
cost and easy-to-use ordering system addressing its SME customer base, with the goal of integrating
sales with production processes.
55
http://www.uninfo.polito.it/WS_TEX-WEAVE/
80