This is particu-larly important in the context of high-technology innovations where the question of the precedence of technology voice or customer voice remains a contested issue.. Our m
Trang 1what customers expect; (2) not knowing the right
service design and standards; (3) not delivering
to standards; and (4) not matching performance
to standards (Zeithaml & Bitner, 2003) While
these approaches are insightful, they do not
fully address the problems that B2C technology
innovations pose to sellers as well as buyers We
DUJXHWKDWLQSDUW%&¿UPVIDLOHGEHFDXVHWKH\
failed to perceive correctly the nature and scope
of their innovation, and this eventually led to the
problems of matching consumer expectations as
the context of innovation changed This is
particu-larly important in the context of high-technology
innovations where the question of the precedence
of technology voice or customer voice remains
a contested issue We extend the current
discus-sion on innovations, combine high-technology
product development literature, and present a new
framework to show an additional dimension of
GLI¿FXOW\UHJDUGLQJSHUFHSWXDOSUREOHPVFUHDWHG
by the nature and scope of the innovation itself
Our model explores the problem of concordance
and discordance between buyers and sellers about
the innovation in different innovative contexts
Our model adds texture and substance to the
theory of diffusion and service quality model in
the context of technology innovation
Viewing the Initial B2C Wave
as Innovation
As a global concept, B2C represents a major
inno-vation in the way marketing is done It offers goods
and services to consumers through the Internet It
reduces search costs It is convenient, quick, easily
accessible, and less expensive In this sense it is a
³QHZVHUYLFHLQQRYDWLRQ´IRUFRQVXPHUVDVZHOODV
WKHZRUOG:KHQ¿UPVRIIHUWUDGLWLRQDOSURGXFWV
such as books, CDs, groceries, and toys via the
Internet, they are not merely marketing known
products to known customers They are offering
instead fast, highly competitive, interactive, and
technologically facilitated means of
informa-tion access and transacinforma-tion Using such means,
consumers are able to shop, make comparisons, and receive door-to-door service at a reasonably ORZSULFH7KHIDLOXUHRI%&¿UPVFDQWKXVEH construed as a failure of an entirely new class of Internet-mediated service, not just a failure of the SDUWLFXODU¿UPVLQYROYHG&RQFHSWXDOO\WKHUHIRUH the B2C debacle needs to be seen as a failure of
a new service product
Putting this observation into the overall context
of innovation research, however, it is evident that this experience is not unique Failure rates of new products generally continue to be as high as 95% (Brown & Eisenhardt, 1995) When viewed as
a major innovation in marketing methods, B2C systems are equally susceptible to such punishing rates of failure
Newness of Innovative Solutions and Needs Addressed by
Innovations
In the 1980s, Hewlett-Packard (HP) found that successful innovators had a deep understanding
of user needs HP also found that the primary FDXVH RI GLI¿FXOWLHV LQ WKH PDUNHWSODFH ZDV D failure to understand user needs, and the clarity reached in understanding user needs was the key determinant of new product success (Leonard-Barton, Wilson, & Doyle, 1995) But the process RI¿JXULQJRXWQHHGVLQYDULHGPDUNHWFRQWH[WVLV GLI¿FXOW7KHGLI¿FXOWLHVDUHFRPSRXQGHGZKHQ markets are new
New products entering existing markets ad-dress known needs In such cases, satisfaction JDSV ZLWK H[LVWLQJ SURGXFWV FDQ EH LGHQWL¿HG with relative ease and incorporated in the new product But in new markets, customer needs are uncertain, and the needs and products co-evolve, giving rise to four need-solution contexts (as elaborated later in Table 2) These are respectively
an improved solution for a known need, a new solution for a known need, a new solution for an anticipated need, and an evolving solution for
an uncertain need (Leonard-Barton, Wilson, &
Trang 2Concordant and Discordant
Perceptions of Innovations
What should drive new product development:
technology or customers? Views of innovators
and customers regarding the nature of product
³EUHDNWKURXJKV´ PD\ QRW EH FRQFRUGDQW 6XFK
mismatch in innovator-customer perceptions
could lead to failure of innovations (Rangan &
Bartus, 1995)
Breakthroughs usually employ new
technol-ogy, create new markets, and represent
concep-tual change Conversely Increments represent a
continuation of existing products or practices
)XUWKHUPRUHVXSSOLHUVDQGFXVWRPHUV¿QGLWHDV\
to understand increments (Rangan & Bartus,
1995), while breakthroughs — requiring
technol-ogy and applications development — are driven
by technologists (and may be less readily
under-stood by customers) Hence increments tend to
evolve from the demands of customers, and the
customer’s voice (rather than the technologist’s
voice) guides incremental innovations
Additionally performance at a price, rather
than performance per se, usually becomes a
de-sign criterion for incremental innovations Hence
when one side thinks a particular innovation is
a breakthrough while the other thinks it is an
increment, we have the potential for discordance Clearly failures are more likely in such discordant settings
In the initial B2C wave, there were many pos-sibilities for discordance:
/DUJH¿UPVWUHDWHG%&H[WHQVLRQVOLJKWO\
as mere increments, but their customers did not
technol-ogy and thought they had breakthroughs on hand Conversely customers felt they were buying regular products (clothes, detergents, books, CDs, toys) The only difference was that these were being presented through a different channel
Understanding of the B2C e-commerce success
vs failure phenomenon increases substantially when we integrate concordance in buyer/seller perceptions with the need-solution context (Table 2) If innovations are to succeed, not only must the perceptions of sellers and buyers of innova-tions match, but innovators must also recognize WKHLQKHUHQWXQFHUWDLQW\LQ¿QGLQJVROXWLRQVIRU customer needs in situations where contexts change
T e ch n olo gy C o ntin u um B uy er/S eller c o nc ur that the
in n ov atio n c ateg ory is :
B uy er/S eller dis a gre e ab o ut newne s s
NE E D-S O L UT IO N
C O NT E X T BR E A K T H R O UG H IN C R E ME N T A L MIS MA T C H
In cre m e n ta l S o lu tio n /
K n o w n N e e d FALS E DAW N
C ON COR D A NT
IN NOV A T IONS
DIS C OR D A NT
IN NOV AT ION
In n o v a tiv e S o lu tio n /
K n o w n N e e d
MINOR
BR E A K T H R O UG H
UN D E R E S T IMAT E D
IN NOV AT ION
DIS C OR D A NT
IN NOV AT ION
In n o v a tiv e S o lu tio n /
A n tic ip a te d N e e d
C ON COR D A NT
IN NOV A T IONS
UN R E C O GNIZE D
PR OMIS E
DIS C OR D A NT
IN NOV AT ION
In cre m e n ta l (E vo lvin g )
S o lu tio n /U n c e rta in N e e d
P E R ILOU S
OP T IMIS M
C A UT IOU S
OP T IMIS M
DIS C OR D A NT
IN NOV AT ION
Table 2 Concordant and discordant states of innovations/markets
Source: Authors’ integration of ideas from Leonard-Barton, Wilson, and Doyle (1995) and Rangan and Bartus (1995)
Trang 3Integrative Innovation Theory
Framework
Table 2 is thus constructed using four dimensions:
(1) customer need (known to uncertain); (2) nature
of solution (improved to evolving); (3) the scope
of innovation (incremental to breakthrough);
and (4) buyer-seller agreement (concordance to
discordance) These four dimensions on which
the framework is constructed give rise to 16
cells Table 2 shows only 12 cells because the
right-hand column (where buyer/sellers disagree
about newness) shows only four cells instead of
eight cells To save space, unlike the left column,
we have not bifurcated the rightmost column
into breakthrough and increment columns Also,
each of the eight cells in this right column has a
³GLVFRUGDQW´HQWU\7KXVORRNLQJDW7DEOHDVD
whole, we see that in the buyer/seller agreement
column, there are only two concordant situations:
one under breakthrough and the other under
increment The remaining six cells are false
perceptions, overly optimistic assessments, or
overly pessimistic assessments These cases are
unlikely to lead to success In the buyer/seller
disagreement column on the right, all eight cells
(only four of which are shown) show discordance
with high chance of failure
The three right-hand columns of Table 2
char-acterize the level of concordance or discordance
of the buyer and the seller about the perceived
newness of the innovation The left-hand column
UHÀHFWVDNLQGRIWHFKQRORJ\FRQWLQXXPUDQJLQJ
from the relative comfort of
low-tech/known-need to the opposite extreme of
high-tech/high-uncertainty
Concordant innovations occur when needs
are known, and both sellers and buyers agree
the solution is incremental (and therefore
un-derstandable and quickly adopted) and chances
of success are high But when one party thinks
it is a breakthrough while the other thinks it
is an incremental solution, we have discordant
expectations with greater chances of failure
In rare cases, there may be the possibility of a
³IDOVH GDZQ´ ZKHQ DQ LQFUHPHQWDO LQQRYDWLRQ
is misperceived as a breakthrough by both sides and there is concordance — where failure occurs after a bubble of enthusiasm
When needs are unknown, both parties must think it is a breakthrough, otherwise perceptions will be discordant and success will be unlikely 7KHUHLVDOVRWKHUDUHSRVVLELOLW\RI³XQUHFRJQL]HG promise,” when sellers and buyers both see only LQFUHPHQWDOEHQH¿WVLQDWUXO\LQQRYDWLYHVROX-tion, which may remain under-promoted and under-appreciated As Table 2 shows, for each solution/need pair, there are concordant and discordant conditions However, it is proposed here that the concordant condition is more likely
to lead to success, while the discordant condition will most likely lead to failure
It should be noted that the framework pre-sented here will behave differently in different market conditions faced by buyers and sellers Competitive conditions will make the problem
of new services and goods marketing certainly more complicated We are, however, addressing
a central issue in high-technology products and services development literature, which argues that — for success of innovations — concordance between buyers and sellers is essential How that concordance is to be created depends on the need/solution context of the innovation It should
be further noted that the framework in Table 2 also suggests that if all cells were equally likely, concordance is possible in only two out of 16 pos-sibilities, or about 12% of the time Discordance is likely 88% of the time It is not surprising therefore WR¿QGWKDWPRVWLQQRYDWLRQVIDLO:KHQZHVHH WKH¿UVWZDYHRI%&HFRPPHUFHLQWKLVOLJKW
as a service innovation, we can explain the high failure incidence of this wave Understanding such failure then will help managers to conceive and plan the development of their innovations better In the next section we examine published evidence to validate the various dimensions of this model
Trang 4Evidence of B2C Innovation
Discordance
There is evidence of considerable discordance in
B2C settings In early 2000, Josh Harris, founder
of the streaming-media company Pseudo.com,
declared with certitude on the CBS television show
³0LQXWHV´WKDWKHZDVWKHUHWRSXWFRPSDQLHV
like CBS out of business (Useem, 2000) At the
WLPHWKH,QWHUQHWZDVVHHQDVD³GLVUXSWLYH´RU
³EUHDNWKURXJK´WHFKQRORJ\WKDWZRXOGIDYRUQHZ
entrants and send old-line brick-and-mortar
com-panies scurrying for cover Pseudo.com of course
no longer exists, but streaming media are being
used extensively on the Internet along with other
media In hindsight, the discordance inherent in
such views is obvious
Many established merchants perceived B2C
as breakthrough innovation and deliberately
FUHDWHG ³SXUH SOD\´ LH SXUHO\ ,QWHUQHWEDVHG
commerce) divisions, insulated from the parent
Examples include Borders.com and Grainger.com
Subsequent learning has often apparently changed
WKHVHSHUFHSWLRQV)RUH[DPSOHDIWHUWKH¿UVWÀXVK
of enthusiasm, WW Grainger, a Chicago-based
warehousing company, later reabsorbed Grainger
com According to Grainger’s president, it became
obvious that the Internet unit needed greater
interdependence with the originating company
(Useem, 2000)
Michael Dell was far more insightful He
created an independent online division within
WKH¿UP6FRWW(FNHUWWKH&(2RIWKH,QWHUQHW
company, used highly creative strategy to get the
RUJDQL]DWLRQDVDZKROHWRDGRSWWKHÀHGJOLQJXQLW
once it became a success, and integrated the
divi-sion in their existing business groups and made it
DSDUWRIWKHODUJHU¿UP +DUYDUG%XVLQHVV6FKRRO
Publishing, 1998) Dell clearly saw B2C as a new
JURZWKRSSRUWXQLW\IRUKLV¿UPEXWRQO\DVDQ
extension of existing Dell-Direct business and
not a breakthrough
In direct contrast to Dell, many B2C
start-ups mostly assumed they were breakthroughs
and spent enormous capital on acquiring new customers and upgrading technologies Some estimate that customer acquisition costs of online
¿UPVZHUHIRXUWLPHVDVKLJKDVWKRVHRIRIIOLQH companies (Useem, 2000) Agarwal, Arjona, and Lemmens (2001) also found that companies spent three to four times the amount a customer spent at the Web site to acquire a new customer The presumption here was that customers, once acquired, will soon learn the wonders of the breakthrough technology and eventually will spend enough money at the Web site to justify the acquisition costs Customers were probably looking for price and good delivery experience Discordance in perception set the stage for gaps
in expectations to arise, leading to dissatisfaction ZLWKWKH¿UPV
Boo.com is the prototypical breakthrough-en-amored B2C startup It got entangled in creating the best aesthetic Web site possible, but failed to incorporate the basic desire of customers to view and compare fashion products quickly in order to make the buying decision Launched with a blaze
of publicity, it burned through $135 million even before it went public (Isaacs, 2001) Insiders say Boo.com failed because it spent too much money
on marketing (Isaacs, 2001) While Boo.com Web designers fretted about aesthetics, customers were actually looking for good deals and fast delivery service Discordance carried the day
Petstore.com, Pets.com, Toysmart.com, and other similar ventures also failed to take off They offered nothing new by way of services to the customers These Web sites had neither in-expensive products, nor inin-expensive and reliable delivery systems They targeted ultra-thin product niches for which demand had never been proven (Isaacs, 2001), and they also did not augment their offers with high quality and timely service Toysmart.com did not have a chance in a crowded space occupied by Toys-R-Us and other e-tailers (Isaacs, 2001) These B2C e-commerce companies addressed a known need, but their offer did not match either customer expectations of better and
Trang 5cheaper service or the offers of already existing
QHZDQGWUDGLWLRQDOVXSSOLHUV(7R\VIDLOHG¿UVWWR
forecast demand, and then overreacted and
over-stocked products that quickly became obsolete It
FRXOGQRWIXO¿OOFXVWRPHUH[SHFWDWLRQVGHVSLWH
the fact that its top management team consisted
of experienced Disney executives Here again
we see examples of innovative companies and
their customers, where perceptual discordance
eventually led to service quality failure
Misperceptions about
Breakthroughs and Network
Externalities
7KH³EUHDNWKURXJK´QRWLRQSURPSWHGE\WKHLGHD
that the Internet was a disruptive technology,
DOVR VSDZQHG WKH ³LQVWDQWFRPSDQ\´ DSSURDFK
8VHHP UHVWLQJRQLOOXVRU\¿UVWPRYHUDG-YDQWDJHVDQGQRQH[LVWHQW³QHWZRUNH[WHUQDOLW\´
effects (i.e., the positive impact on all members
of an ever-expanding network) These ideas led
companies to build major brands supported by
marketing and advertising expenditures Only
some networks, however, are capable of positive
network externalities (Arthur, 1996) Networks
where members are not interdependent do not
exhibit positive externalities B2C seller-buyer
networks are usually star-shaped, where each
buyer is connected to a single seller An increasing
membership base does not therefore necessarily
FRQIHUQHWZRUNH[WHUQDOLW\EHQH¿WV
,Q WKH ¿UVW %& ZDYH WKLV ZDV WKH FDVH
B2C players did not have specialized partners
— transporters, parcel couriers, third-party
ORJLVWLFVSURYLGHUVIXO¿OOPHQWKRXVHVSD\PHQW
systems, and producers of main and peripheral
SURGXFWV /DFNLQJ VXFK VHUYLFHV ³WKH H\HEDOOV
the Web sites managed to attract did not turnout
to be loyal” (Useem, 2000, p 84) For example,
CDNow, a music e-tailer, had 83% name
recogni-tion, but only 17% loyalty Under such conditions,
EUDQGSURPRWLRQGLGQRWWXUQLQWR¿UVWPRYHURU
network advantage
A notable trend is that these hard-learned les-sons have made subsequent and surviving B2C players attentive to how networks function The survivors created partnerships to provide interde-pendent services and have learned to differentiate their products on the Internet
Misperceptions about First-Mover Advantages
Because the Internet offers instant market ac-FHVVLWFDQDOVRLQVWDQWO\ZLSHRXWWKH¿UVWPRYHU advantage of B2C pioneers In general, me-too FRPSHWLWRUVFDQHQWHUMXVWDVUDSLGO\DVWKH¿UVW PRYHUVGLG2QO\¿UPVFDSDEOHRIFUHDWLQJVXV-tainable advantages can hope to build customer loyalty Perceptions that B2C offerings in a sector are interchangeable commodities, quite logically, generate commodity like response from the cus-tomers In such contexts, savvy second movers sometimes win the competitive game
Breakthrough on the Customer Relationship Side
While B2C methods may not be the disruptive
³EUHDNWKURXJKV´WKDWWKHLQLWLDOZDYH%&SOD\HUV believed them to be, they are certainly different because they bring the sellers and the buyers together in new ways B2C methods disrupt old ways of doing business and change the customer-company relationships Given this, in B2C set-tings the customer’s voice must take precedence over technology’s voice B2C settings create new demands on managers regarding listening DQGUHVSRQGLQJWRWKH³YRLFHRIWKHFXVWRPHU´ This is not easy A Deloitte Consulting study RI WRS ¿UPV 5HHG IRXQG WKDW RQO\ 13% of the companies paid attention to creating customer loyalty networks (integration of market-ing and servicmarket-ing activities through technology) and supply chain collaborations (streamlining of
¿QDQFHDQGKXPDQUHVRXUFHVDQGWKHFUHDWLRQ
of e-chain connectivity involving collaboration
Trang 6and customization of manufacturing and supply
processes amongst supply chain partners)
,QSUDFWLFHWKH¿UVWZDYHIDLOHG%&¿UPVDS-pear to have seen themselves merely as providers
of goods by alternative means Late entrants and
survivors were substantially more customer
cen-tric They focused on basic product presentation,
FXVWRPHUVHUYLFHRQWLPHDQGHI¿FLHQWGHOLYHU\
no hassle returns, and so on In other words,
they designed their services and aligned them
with the needs of the customers, thus creating
concordance
IMPLICATIONS FOR MANAGERS
AND FOR FURTHER RESEARCH
B2C retail methods offer low start-up costs, ease of
entry, and greater geographic exposure, but these
advantages do not make B2C business models
simple For example, Amazon.com, the leading
B2C survivor, has increased the assortment of
goods offered Amazon is continually
augment-LQJ WKH ³%& LQQRYDWLRQ´ E\ DGGaugment-LQJ IHDWXUHV
such as full-text search of books,
recommenda-tion engines, reviews and ratings, time-based
Gold Box specials, referral bonuses, payment
system discounts, political campaign coverage
and contribution channels, and so forth Amazon
has realized that:
7KH¿UVWZDYH%&LQQRYDWLRQZDVDQLQFUH-ment
2 It is essential to keep pushing this innovation
VRWKDWWKH³$PD]RQFRPVKRSSLQJH[SHUL-ence” moves towards the two highlighted
concordant cells of Table 2
By 2004, Amazon had still not met
conven-WLRQDO UXEULFV RI UHWDLO SUR¿WDELOLW\ EXW LW ZDV
inching towards that goal
The foregoing discussion has several
implica-tions for B2C managers In relation to its
brick-and-mortar counterpart, the B2C operation must
be viewed and studied as an innovation In most cases, such an innovation would turn out to be more incremental than breakthrough in nature, at least from the customer perspective It therefore EHFRPHVQHFHVVDU\WR¿JXUHRXWWKHVHJPHQWVRI customers to whom the B2C option will deliver clear (and more than incremental) advantages Amazon found this segment amongst book buyers The B2C advantages, however, cannot be static Such advantages need to be constantly augmented and communicated to the customers Rather than lapsing into techno-euphoria, the baseline posi-tion of B2C managers should be this: it is going WREHH[FHHGLQJO\GLI¿FXOWWRFUHDWHDQGPHHWKLJK customer expectations
E-Toys thought it would present serious competition to brick-and-mortar toy sellers like Toys-R-Us by removing the hassle of shopping, especially during frenzied holiday periods This created expectations of a fail-proof service In practice, however, E-Toys ran out of key inven-tories, stocked the wrong inveninven-tories, and failed
to process orders correctly The result was that customers were subjected to serious delays, particularly during the busy holiday gift-giving season If E-Toys had positioned its innovation incrementally, say as an online birthday toy gift registry, perhaps it could have engendered and successfully met the lower expectation levels, and thus remained in business
In summary, we have used historical examples
in an eclectic cross-sectional fashion across the B2C retail sector to illustrate our proposed innova-tion theory-based framework for B2C success and IDLOXUH:HVWDUWHGE\TXHVWLRQLQJWKH¿QGLQJVRI UHFHQWHPSLULFDOVWXGLHVDVWRZK\VRPDQ\¿UPV with so much talent and easy access to capital, failed to use time-tested management principles Why did they fail to realize that managing a B2C e-commerce required acumen similar to that required in the conventional brick-and-mortar world? What was it about this new technology and service delivery method that most B2C managers misread? Why could these companies not convert
Trang 7have argued that it is not incompetence that led
to the collapse of many of these ventures, but a
misperception of their basic business on the one
hand and a mistaken positioning of their
innova-tive services for their customers These errors
we believe led to discordance in perceptions
between buyers and sellers, and misallocation
RIUHVRXUFHVZLWKLQWKH¿UPPRUHVRDWWKHIURQW
end for customer acquisition and technology
than on customer retention and delivery These
problems eventually resulted in serious lapses in
service quality, and customer desertion and the
customers’ abandonment of the B2C method
Our framework captures the problem of creating
concordance between buyers and sellers in the
context of high-tech innovations, and shows by
implication that managers have to be aware of
the nature and scope of the innovations and then
ensure that they are in concordance with their
customer base The framework underlines the
necessity of correctly choosing between the voice
of the customer and the voice of technology For
known needs and improved solutions, attention
to customer voice tends to lead to concordance
But as needs become uncertain and solutions are
evolving, customers know less about the needs
and will depend on the technology to address
their problems But if managers assume they
have breakthrough innovations, and chances
of this are high in high-tech settings, they will
alienate their clients and will not succeed The
framework thus can be of great use to managers
involved in developing and marketing innovative
products and services, especially in the
e-com-merce context They can carefully assess the
need-solution context in which they are operating
and then strive for concordance and avoid false
optimism or pessimism
While such an approach has value, it also
has obvious limitations First, there are reasons
other than innovation failure that potentially help
to explain the dot.com B2C crash phenomenon
These alternative approaches warrant further
continuing and in-depth study to understand the colossal economic collapse of the dot.com era Second, even within the innovation theory framework that we offer, there is need for further systematic in-depth studies that go deep into spe-FL¿F%&FDVHV0RUHV\VWHPDWLFFRPSDULVRQVRI B2C failures are also needed
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Trang 8This work was previously published in Journal of Electronic Commerce in Organizations, Vol 3, No 2, edited by M Khosrow-Pour, pp 68-81, copyright 2005 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).
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Commercializing technology: Understanding
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Moriarty Jr (Eds.), Business marketing strategy:
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Trang 9Chapter 2.11
Procedure for Modeling and Improving E-SCM Processes
Patcharee Boonyathan
University of Melbourne, Australia
Latif Al-Hakim
University of Southern Queensland, Australia
ABSTRACT
Today’s managers are turning to the functions
of the supply chain to improve margins and gain
competitive advantage The explosion of the
In-ternet and other e-business technologies has made
real-time, online communication throughout the
entire supply chain a reality Electronic supply
chain management (e-SCM) is a reference to
the supply chain that is structured via electronic
technology-enabled relationships This chapter
concentrates on the development of a procedure
referred to as eSCM-I for e-SCM process
im-provement The procedure focuses on process
mapping and relies on principles of coordination
theory It is based on SCOR to standardize the
process and take advantage of this technique
of benchmarking/best practices potential The
procedure employs IDEF0 technique for mapping
the processes
INTRODUCTION
Supply chain management (SCM) is a network of entities that encompasses every effort involved LQ SURGXFLQJ DQG GHOLYHULQJ D ¿QDO SURGXFW from the supplier’s supplier to the customer’s customer (Supply Chain Council, 1997, in Lum-mus & Vokurka, 1999) A key principle is that all strategies, decisions, and measurements are made considering their effect on the entire supply chain, not just individual functions or organiza-tions (Towill, 1996)
The association of supply chain manage-ment with e-business offers new challenges for marketing The explosion of the Internet and other telecommunication technology has made real-time, online communication throughout the entire supply chain a reality The Internet allows
Trang 10companies to interact with customers, and
col-lect enormous volumes of data and manipulate
it in many different ways to bring out otherwise
unforeseen areas of knowledge (Abbott, 2001)
Poirier and Bauer (2000) refer to the term
‘elec-tronic supply chain management’ as a reference
IRUWKH³QDWXUDOFRPELQLQJRIVXSSO\FKDLQDQG
e-commerce.” Electronic supply chain
manage-ment (e-SCM) is a concept introduced to the need
RIDGDSWDELOLW\DQGÀH[LELOLW\LQDKLJKO\G\QDPLF
e-business environment which focuses on network
integration E-SCM refers to the supply chain that
is built via electronic linkages and structurally
based on technology-enabled relationships
(Wil-liams, Esper, & Ozment, 2002)
Poirier and Bauer (2000) highlight three
constituents in the preparation and execution of
e-SCM:
1 E-network: Business networks should
sat-isfy customer demands through a seamless
(fully connected end-to-end) supply chain
to serve the end consumer (see also Towill,
1997)
2 Responses: Customer responses form the
central theme of the supply chain strategy
The market value of the supply chain can be
dramatically enhanced by jointly creating
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inter-enterprise solutions and responses
3 Technology: Each of the above
constitu-ents can achieve the purposes and goal of
the supply chain by being supported with
leading-edge technology, particularly
e-commerce
The three constituentse-network, customer
responses, and technologycould be seen as the
³LQSXW´LQWRH6&0ZRUNLQJWRJHWKHUWRDFKLHYH
the ultimate aim (output) of the supply chainthat
is, customer satisfaction In synergy with the
model developed by Goldman, Nagel, and Preiss
(1995) and Meade and Sarkis (1999) for agile
manufacturing, Figure 1 models the dimensions of
an e-SCM environment within the context of the IDEF0 process mapping modeling technique Murillo (2001) and Helms, Ettkin, and Chap-man (2000) indicate that the problem in pursuing supply chain construction efforts is not a lack of ideas about what to do, but instead about how
to coordinate the efforts throughout the supply network It was drawn by Peppard (1995) that a business process approach can act as a catalyst for bringing together the various things that have been occurring in the organization and management areas over the past decade He further suggests that a process focus can provide an integrative mechanism Process management involves plan-ning and administering the activities necessary to achieve a high level of performance in a process, and identifying opportunities for improving qual-ity and operational performance Ultimately it includes translating customer requirements into product and service design requirements (Evans
& Lindsay, 2002)
*ROGPDQHWDO UHFRJQL]HWKHVLJQL¿-cance of employees as a company asset and em-phasize the importance of leveraging the impact
of people and information for an agile enterprise Evans and Lindsay (2002) show direct correlation between employees’ (people) satisfaction and customer satisfaction, and argue that ‘people’ DUHWKHRQO\RUJDQL]DWLRQDVVHWWKDW³FRPSHWLWRUV cannot copy; and the only one that can synergize, that is, produce output whose value is greater than the sum of its parts.” Evans and Lindsay (2002) also emphasize that the two key components of service system quality are employees and in-formation technology Meade and Sarkis (1999) state that people and information are the most valued resources It follows that the mechanism that converts the input of the e-SCM environment
to its output (i.e., customer satisfaction) includes three constituents: process, people, and informa-tion sharing In an analogy with agile enterprise dimensions (Goldman et al., 1995; Meade &
...hand and a mistaken positioning of their
innova-tive services for their customers These errors
we believe led to discordance in perceptions
between buyers and sellers, and. .. acquisition and technology
than on customer retention and delivery These
problems eventually resulted in serious lapses in
service quality, and customer desertion and the
customers’... technology: Understanding
user needs In K Rangan, B.P Shapiro, & R.T
Moriarty Jr (Eds.), Business marketing strategy:
Cases, concepts, and applications (pp 281-305)