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[8] 2002 e-business-strategies-for-virtual-organizations

[8] 2002 e-business-strategies-for-virtual-organizations

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e-Business Strategies <strong>for</strong> Virtual Organizations<br />

Manufacturers need broad product lines to be competitive and<br />

meet a wide variety of buyer preferences. Yet you can’t stay in<br />

<strong>business</strong> by offering all products in unlimited quantity all the<br />

time. You have to develop complex <strong>strategies</strong> <strong>for</strong> guestimating<br />

which portions of the product line will sell over a given<br />

production horizon. All that translates into stockouts and<br />

backorders or, conversely, excess inventory <strong>for</strong> the supplier.<br />

As a result, buyers want to reduce their risk of getting a<br />

backorder or stockout. They would like to see detailed in<strong>for</strong>mation<br />

about inventory and production capacity (available to<br />

promise, capable to promise). Instead of ordering and waiting<br />

<strong>for</strong> order status in<strong>for</strong>mation, buyers would like real-time<br />

availability in<strong>for</strong>mation and the ability to reserve products by<br />

serial and bin number.<br />

10.3.4 Exchanges present and future<br />

To date, exchanges have at best served as a rough and ready<br />

communications mechanism <strong>for</strong> shipment status. Typically,<br />

exchanges send the order to the supplier and leave the<br />

fulfilment and settling process to the trading partners working<br />

offline. Most exchanges cannot verify inventory be<strong>for</strong>e the order<br />

because they cannot see the supplier’s back-end systems. And,<br />

of course, if suppliers post product listings on multiple<br />

exchanges without real-time inventory availability, they will end<br />

up selling products they haven’t produced, and compound the<br />

problems of backorders and stockouts.<br />

However, more advanced order management systems will<br />

accommodate the dynamic nature of web channels. All this isn’t<br />

simple and won’t happen overnight. Yes, companies have<br />

invested in supply chain software <strong>for</strong> years, but most of this has<br />

been inward looking and designed <strong>for</strong> internal planning and<br />

scheduling only. Today the Internet presents a plat<strong>for</strong>m <strong>for</strong><br />

interenterprise optimization and planning with some exciting<br />

opportunities. Over the past two years hundreds of e-hubs have<br />

begun operations and their processes are evolving rapidly.<br />

10.4 Customer orientation<br />

210<br />

The Internet and e-<strong>business</strong> technologies that are enabling our<br />

new organizational <strong>for</strong>ms are radically changing the relationship<br />

between supplier and customer. Customer relationship<br />

handling is seen to be a strong asset as it brings the benefits of<br />

improved service, choice, and convenience to the customer and

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