E-Marketplaces for Raffles Hotel - Case Study Example

As far as business-to-business dealings are concerned, the available e-marketplace for Raffles is hospitalitybex.com which is directed at the hospitality and service industry and was developed together with several strategic partners to offer a solution to making the procurement process efficient. It also enables organizations that are in the hospitality and service industry cut costs in the supply chain by getting rid of any inefficiency (Turban, King, & Lang, 2009).

In its e-marketplaces, Raffles takes advantage of the fundamental qualities of the luxurious Raffles Hotel products to engage with the audience that is available online while having a defined and constructed navigation system that has developed a corporate portal. Founded on the strategies that are specific to individual hotels, the audience that is targeted, and the product mix, the navigation of the website reflects a hierarchical structure. Each of the sections stands for an order of authority that assists in laying out the organization of the website while moving the users of these websites with ease in the direction of a set of services that include the reservation process. Raffles has also come up with electronic catalogs as well as having e-procurement that utilizes reverse auctions as mechanisms that assist it in being successful.

Raffles can continue taking advantage of the increased market efficiencies by making sure that it expedites and enhances the functions that it is associated with while making sure that is greatly reducing the costs that are linked to reducing the associated costs. Raffles can further improve the search engines; e-auction and payment gateways that it deals with so that it can further enhance the success of its e-marketplace.

The business models that are utilized by Raffles and associated with supply chains include integrated make-to-stock as well as continuous replenishment. The integrated ma-to-stock is a model that allows the tracking of the demand of the customer to ensure the production process can be able to restock the inventory of the finished goods while in the continuous replenishment model, the inventory is replenished the moment it goes below a particular level (Turban, King, & Lang, 2009). This needs cooperation and communication with the suppliers as well as the intermediaries and there is always a need to plan replenishment distributor channels.

Raffles normally deal with several transactions as far as their marketplace is concerned that cover both business-to-business dealings as well as business-to-customer dealings. These transactions include reservations that are made by its customers through the portal that it has been able to create as well as an online store that deals with Raffles products. It also conducts procurements through the websites and these have been considerably improved as well as product sourcing, making negotiations, payment, and reporting.