Marketing E-Business - Research Paper Example

Running Head: MARKETING EBUSINESS MARKETING EBUSINESS Abstract: The research paper is dealing with 3 comprehensive questions. Till the end of the paper, the paper would get to know that Why scalability is important in building an ebusiness IT infrastructure? How can Internet-based technologies be used to automate the supply chain? The paper will also discuss strategic opportunities for eCommerce enabled supply chains and explains how the supply chain differs on a B2C site compared to a B2B site. Why is scalability important in building an e Business IT infrastructure? Scaling the e business in IT infrastructure is important because it reduces the cost and expanses to interact with the customers and suppliers. Also helps in maintaining and in management of the e business. “As your environment begins to evolve, it is important to recognize the value of horizontally scaling your platforms and applications to support increased loads and service requirements. As the concurrency and complexity of your systems grow, the greater the need becomes to support policy-based routing, application and data caches, as well as load balancing hardware and software.” (Whitepaper; August 2001) From very starting there was a need of those applications that can be use to communicate easy through another application. There are many communication linkages programs and mechanisms have been developed by the experts that are really helping in the field of e business. The concepts like shared memory, FIFO (first in first out) are known as Inter process communication. IPC help the businesses to define the communication area through which the information would pass to the applications that is using for the linkage. There are many different types of applications arte available in the market that have become so popular and using in every e business today. Such as Remote procedure call, Microsoft COM/DCOM, COBRA, and Sun Java RMI. “ ..different line of concept pertaining to client/server model and extends the model to meet e-business scalability requirements both horizontally and vertically ….. for a huge class of common problems in enterprise application integration in particular and in e business integration in general, the concept of this scalable model and its implementation will be found to be powerful, fast with ease of use and maintenance”. (Thang N Nguyen) How can Internet-based technologies be used to automate the supply chain? The new technologies are replenishing on the internet and filling the gap that was empty in the past. These technologies are really helping the e businesses to broaden their business and give horizon to them which can help in reducing the possible cost by the help of internet. The cost and difficulties in supply chain has increased because every day new products are coming and obsolescing with in a few months. There is so much variety of products is available in the market and the most of the companies are relying on outsourcing. “However an incomplete understanding of the operational impact of e-replenishment on supply chain operations and costs often hinders efforts to move forward with system improvement. This is particularly true when the technology decisions of one channel member influence the actions and performance of its partners”. (Powell Robinson et al) Automation of replenishment is the perfect procedure for the supply chain management. To manage the supply chain is a complicated and healthy procedure which includes vendor certification, requisition preparation and approval, order placement, goods receipts and etc. after all this, when the order is approved then the procedure of shipping take place. These are long and time consuming steps. But in e-replenishment the businesses can save their times by mailing catalogs, designing catalogs and other tasks related to it. “E-replenishment saves time and money by placing paper catalogs/drawings and manual activities with electronic catalogs/drawing, computer assisted requisitioning, electronic workflow management, a data transmission mechanism to route orders to the appropriate vendor in the correct format”. (Powell Robinson et al) Discuss strategic opportunities for eCommerce enabled supply chains: From last few years, the manufacturers of Wal Mart have been using Electronic Data processing (EDI) to transfer and exchange the documents related to business. The Wal Mart people want their manufacturers to use the EDI in more useful and advance manner. They decided to use EDI for sending the messages to the suppliers instead of VAN connection. Then they decided to modernized the EDI software and mange it to build a connection in order to send EDI files over the net which is called “Application Statement 2 (AS2)” Wal Mart manufacturers want to satisfy all its retailers. They want to fully facilitate their retailers and keep balance for everyone the one who wants to do the work in the old manner and the ones who want to do the work in the advance level. To handle all this AS2 application is best application to keep track on every type of retailers. “AS2 is a good decision for us to take” Boltan says. “It took customers like Wal Mart, which is our primary customer, to require it” (Ann Bednarz) The other proposal that Wal Mart suggested to the manufacturer is the data synchronization, which helps in assuring that the every application that has the data about the product is working in a proper manner and the data is not mingling with other data. “The idea behind data synchronization is to make sure every application that contain or uses product data is working with the same information, so that inaccurate data doesnot get shuffled between trading partners.” ” (Ann Bednarz) Supply Chain Differences between B2C and a B2B Site Introduction As the business has evolved and the brick & mortar companies have started to change to click & mortar companies, the world of e-commerce has enlarged. There are various businesses offering services to other businesses (B2B) and directly to the customers (B2C) as well through the internet. The trend has started to evolve more around the e-commerce and e-business sites. Every thing is available on just a click. As the feasibility for the customers and other businesses has increased due to the emergence of the e-commerce, there are also various supply chain management challenges posed to these companies. The supply chain of a brick & mortar company plays a key to its success. Similarly, the management of the supply chain of B2B and B2C sites has also become a key to the success of their companies. The supply chain management is necessary due to a number of reasons. The major reason being the maintenance and fostering of good buyer-supplier relationships. A lot of companies have failed to achieve success and resulted in a decreased performance due to the poor buyer-supplier relationships. Therefore, in the internet age, it becomes rather more important to maintain the supply chain and ensure its proper management. The supply chain of a B2B or a B2C site is all about the raw material, manufacturing, wholesaler, retailer and finally to the customer. Although assumed similar, there are a lot of differences possessed by the supply chains and the management of supply chains of the B2B and B2C e-commerce sites. The major aim of this paper is to discuss specifically these differences possessed by the B2B and B2C e-commerce sites. Supply Chain Differences between a B2B and a B2C Site The B2B sites as predicted by their names involve the transactions between two or more businesses whereas the B2C sites involve the transactions between the customers and the businesses. The supply chain operations and management of both the B2B & B2C sites should be the same as thought by many people because both involve e-commerce and e-business but there are, on fact, a lot of differences present between the supply chain of the B2B and B2C e-commerce sites. This section will discuss the specific differences that are present in the supply chains of B2B and B2C e-commerce sites. There are a number of differences present between the supply chain of a B2B and B2C e-commerce sites. These differences are due to the different nature of their operations, business processes and practices, different needs for integration and due to the management of different relationships. These differences in the supply chain of a B2B and B2C e-commerce sites is discussed in detail below: 1. Nature of Operations The nature of operation in a B2B site is based on the dealings and transactions taking place between the businesses only, therefore nature of the supply chains also consist of buying the raw materials or buying the parts or outsourcing parts to other businesses. Whereas, in a B2C site, the dealings and transactions are between the business and the customer, therefore, the supply chain of a B2C site involves selling products and services to the customers and therefore satisfying the customers. Thus, the supply chain of the B2B sites involves satisfying the needs of another business which is done through completely different supply chain processes as compared to the supply chain of the B2C sites in which the transactions are between the business and customers and its supply chain is aimed at satisfying customers rather than the businesses. Thus the difference in the operations of the B2B and B2C e-commerce sites creates a difference in their supply chains. 2. Integration Since, in a B2B site the businesses are involved, therefore there is a need for integration in the supply chain of a B2B site. The supply chain of a B2B site needs to forecast the demands of the customers in advance so that they can produce the raw material or any other parts that are demanded by the other business. It needs to keep in advance the supply of products that will be demanded in future. Thus supply chain of a B2B site requires prior forecasting and ready inventory that needs too be supplied. However, in a B2C site, there is no need for the integration of supply chain. This is because if a customer comes and buys a product today, the B2C site does not know that the customer will come again to buy or never visit the site again or buy more in future etc. Therefore, the demand cannot be forecasted in the case of B2C sites and this is the reason why these sites’ supply chain do not need integration. And this is also the reason why B2C sites do not need to have inventory stored for the fulfillment of customers’ demand. 3. Business Processes & Procedures The business processes and procedures of a B2B and B2C e-commerce sites widely differ which is also a main reason of the difference that is present in their supply chains. The procedures of buying and selling at the B2B sites are different as compared to the B2C sites. For example, in a B2C site, a customer logs in into the site and looks for the product or service to buy and buys it through just a click. But in the B2B sites, various businesses have policies and permissions assigned to other businesses on the basis of which there are permissions granted to some businesses for the buying and selling and not to others. With the proper management of the supply chains, the management of the business processes and procedures is also a factor that influences the supply chain. There is sometimes also a need to restructure the business processes for the proper management of supply chain. Thus there can be certain less number of intermediaries involved in B2B supply chain processes whereas many in B2C sites’ supply chain which results in creating a dominant difference between the supply chains of B2B and B2C e-commerce sites. 4. Relationship Management Through the supply chains of B2B sites and the supply chains of B2C site, different buyer-supplier relationships need to be managed. The supply chain also includes the relationship building and management of these relations. These are called the buyer-supplier relationships. In a B2B site, the supply chain needs to manage relationship with other businesses for the purpose of outsourcing or buying raw materials or parts. Thus the relationship with the supplier of the raw materials etc need to build and maintained. But unlike the supply chain of a B2B site, in a B2C site, the supply chain consist of relationship building and managing it with the customers. The B2B sites’ supply chain focuses on building loyal customers through the services it provides and the quality of the products and services is maintained to build loyal customers. Thus the relations which need to be managed and build by the supply chains of a B2B and B2C e-commerce sites differ largely. 5. Length of Processes The length of the processes involved in the supply chain of the B2B and B2C e-commerce sites are a major difference that exists between their supply chains. The processes involved in the supply chain of a B2B business are short in length but are carried out at large scales mostly. For example, the making of a cloth in a garment factory involves the buying of raw material and processing and making the cloth. Not much levels of supply chain are involved in the B2B sites’ supply chain. In the B2C sites’ supply chain, the length of the processes is however longer but the processes do not involve a lot of complexity. For example, if the customer needs to buy a book from a B2C site, so for bringing the book to the customer, there are certain levels of supply chain involved that are buying the book by the wholesaler from the manufacturer and then the retailer buys it from the wholesaler and finally sells it to the customer. Thus there area number of processes involved and the supply chain process takes longer as compared to the supply chain of B2B sites. Conclusion In a nutshell, the supply chain of the company plays a very important role, whether it be a brick & mortar company or a click & mortar company. The management of the supply chain is a vital aspect that needs proper attention and consideration due to the sensitivity of the processes involved in it. Although the supply chains of B2B and B2C e-commerce sites seem to be identical but they differ widely. This paper covers the specific differences that exist between the B2B and B2C e-commerce sites. These differences are due to the different nature of their supply chain operations, business processes and practices which influence and change the supply chain of these, different needs for integration in the supply chain management and due to the management of different relationships which are the buyer-supplier relationships that are a part of the supply chain management. References 1. Nagurney, A., J. Loo, J. Dong, & D. Zhang. (2002). Supply Chain Networks and Electronic Commerce: A Theoretical Perspective, Netnomics 4, 187-220. 2. Dale Neef. (2004). The Supply Chain Imperative, AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn. 3. Panos M. Pardalos, Athanasios Migdalas, George Baourakis. (2004). The Supply Chain and Finance, World Scientific. 161-163. 4. Anita Rosen. (2002). The E-Commerce Question and Answer Book: A Survival Guide For Business Managers, AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn. 5. Ganesan, S. (1994). Determinants of Long-Term Orientation in Buyer-Seller Relationships, Journal of Marketing 58, 1-19. 6. Nagurney, A., J. Cruz, K. Hancock, & F. Southworth. (2002). Dynamics of Supply Chains: A Multilevel (Logistical/Informational/Financial) Network Perspective, Environment & Planning B 29, 795-818. 7. Wilson, D. T. (1995). An Integrated Model of Buyer-Seller Relationships, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 23, 335-345. Read More