Electronic Business: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications (4-Volumes) P77 doc

E-Business Application Levels Marketing Management Selling Management Customer-Service SC Visibility Information Sharing Capturing feedback from the customers, providing a mix of produ

E-Business

Application

Levels

Marketing Management Selling Management

Customer-Service

SC Visibility

(Information

Sharing)

Capturing feedback from the customers,

providing a mix of products and service offerings customized to customer needs

Providing up-sell and cross-sell product recommendations and product bundles, ÀH[LEOHSULFLQJPRGHOV

for markdown and rebates

Providing service order status and highlighting exceptions

x Publicizing product information x Increasing customer satisfaction x Reduce Inv.

Work-Flow

Automation

Capturing log records for every visit of a user in WKH:HEVHUYHUV¶ORJ¿OH

including pages visited, duration of the visit, and whether there was a purchase, demand collaboration with customers

3URGXFWFRQ¿JXUDWLRQ

quotation processing

Service order logging, billing of services

x Better prediction of customer demand x Improving response time

x Improving productivity

Integrated SC

Planning

Considering the supply-chain constraints while executing the marketing campaigns, SURYLGLQJFXVWRPHUSUR¿OLQJ

and segmentation

Supporting different channels for order capturing (Web based, call center, EDI, phone, e-mail, or personnel meeting)

Warranty check, service order processing, integrating the call center

x Increasing revenues and SUR¿W

x Creating new market/ distribution channels x Accurate promising date

New

Innovative

Processes

5HDOWLPHSUR¿OLQJWKDWWUDFNV

the user click stream, allows the analysis of customer behavior, and makes instantaneous adjustments to the site’s promotional offers and Web pages

2QOLQHÀH[LEOH

FRQ¿JXUDWLRQDQGUHDO

time promise date

Dealing with products and services as one package during selling

x Long-term relationship and trust with the customer x Gaining competitive advantage

Work-Flow

Automation

Consistent process with friendly user interface

8QL¿HGGHPDQG

plan across different departments

Exception work-ÀRZUHVROXWLRQIRU

demand changes and IXO¿OOPHQWGHOD\V

x Increasing HI¿FLHQF\

x Fast response

Integrated

SC Planning

Integration with strategic sourcing to reduce supplier base

Synchronized marketing, sales, production, and procurement plans

CPFR

x Speed x Accuracy

New

Innovative

Processes

SC redesign Mass customization Build to order

x Flexibility x Penetrating new markets x Customer satisfaction

Table 4 continued

Table 5 The impact of e-business application levels on CRM processes

A FRAMEWORK FOR

SUCCESSFUL IMPLEMENTATION

OF E-BUSINESS TECHNOLOGIES

Many companies are struggling with

implement-ing e-business technologies and achievimplement-ing the

promised value or ROI In addition, companies are

looking for guidelines and strategies for ongoing

operational management and support after the

go-live, which includes rolling more customers,

suppliers, and new business units when

imple-menting e-business solutions to improve SRM,

SCM, and CRM superprocesses

According to a survey of 451 senior executives,

RQHLQHYHU\¿YHXVHUVUHSRUWHGWKDWWKHLU&50

LQLWLDWLYHVQRWRQO\KDGIDLOHGWRGHOLYHUSUR¿WDEOH

growth, but also had damaged long-standing

cus-tomer relationships (Rigby et al., 2002)

Currently, there is uncertainty and doubt

among organizations regarding the new Internet

technologies, and although the appeal for best

SUDFWLFHDQGWKHEHQH¿WVRILPSOHPHQWLQJHEXVL-ness technologies are clear, enterprises struggle

in integrating them into supply-chain operations

because they are encountered by many challenges

like the inability to master change management, the need for new skills to support processes that span across suppliers and partners, the need for e-business strategy and continuous upper manage-ment support, the lack of comprehensive metrics and continuous monitoring, and the inability to select the right software-providing partner Figure 2 is proposed to address these chal-lenges and provide best-practice guidelines to implement e-business program transformation successfully

E-Business Strategy and Goals

$FOHDUVWUDWHJ\LVWKH¿UVWVWHSIRUDVXFFHVVIXO transformation Executives need to understand the big picture, the interactions between all the processes, and the e-business applications to help them in creating an e-business strategy

Benchmarking

Benchmarking is the process of comparing and HYDOXDWLQJD¿UPRUDVXSSO\FKDLQDJDLQVWRWKHUV

in the industry to help in identifying the gaps and

Figure 2 Framework for implementing e-business transformation programs

areas of improvement Benchmarking is used to

YDOLGDWHWKHSRWHQWLDOEHQH¿WDQGJDLQLQSHUIRU-mance measures from implementing e-business

applications

Process Analysis

The purpose of process analysis (also called design

and requirements) is to use modeling (process

PDSSLQJ PHWKRGV WR DQDO\]H ³DVLV´ EXVLQHVV

processes, capture the existing challenges and

pain points in the current process and the

sup-ply chain, design and validate the to-be process

improvements against best-practice benchmarks,

determine the extent of process and technology

changes possible in the currently existing systems,

and identify the additional software (application)

capabilities that are required to support the to-be

process that cannot be supported by the existing

systems This requirements list will be the base

for selecting the new software

Select the Right E-Business Software

As a best practice, organizations need to identify

the best-of-breed solution that is most suitable

for the required functionality for their business,

taking into consideration software-technology

maturity and sustainability Supporting leading

industry standards for e-business technology like

Java, XML, Linux, and Web services is crucial

during the selection process

Cost and %HQH¿W$QDO\VLV

&RVWDQGEHQH¿WDQDO\VLVLVWKHSURFHVVWKDWGH-

WHUPLQHVWKHSRWHQWLDOEHQH¿WVIURPLPSOHPHQW-ing the combination of the best-practice process

and the new application or software It addresses

questions like the following What is the potential

value of increasing the loyalty of our customers

when new marketing-management software is

implemented? What is the cost of implementing

the new solution?

Adopt a Value-Driven Implementa-tion Methodology

Adopting a value-driven approach to conduct the e-business transformation programs like Six Sigma is very critical An effective transforma-tion program typically takes 2 to 5 years, with several intermediate checkpoints (go-lives) to achieve the value needed to pay for the rest of the program

Performance-Management System

A performance-management system consists RI WZR SKDVHV 7KH ¿UVW SKDVH LV WR HVWDEOLVK

a consistent metrics-tracking and -publishing SURFHVVDQGWKLVSKDVHVKRXOG¿QLVKEHIRUHWKH implementation of the transformation program The second phase is to continue measuring the EHQH¿WVDQG52,ZKLFKVKRXOGVWDUWGXULQJDQG after the implementation

Since the performance-management system depends mainly on monitoring the metrics (KPIs), LWLVFULWLFDOWRVSHQGHQRXJKWLPHRQGH¿QLQJWKHVH metrics The performance-management system should manage and coordinate the development of these metrics Melnyk, Stewart, and Swink (2004) mentioned that metrics provide the following three basic functions

• Control: Metrics enable managers to

evaluate and control the performance of the resources

• Communication: Metrics communicate

performance to internal and external stake-holders

• Improvement: Metrics identify gaps

(be-tween actual performance and expectation) that ideally point the way for intervention and improvement

Sabri and Rehman (2004) provided guidelines for identifying and maintaining metrics based on best practice, recommended to capture all

opera-tional metrics because improvement in one area

could be at the expense of another, and suggested

WRVXPPDUL]HEHQH¿WVLQVL[NH\DUHDVUHYHQXH

increase, cost reduction, process lead-time

re-GXFWLRQDVVHWUHGXFWLRQFXVWRPHUEHQH¿WVDQG

VXSSOLHUEHQH¿WV

Change Management

Effective change management for e-business

transformation programs should consider gaining

and keeping executive sponsorship Without

executives’ buy-in and support, a

transforma-tion program would be much closer to failure

than success It should also involve all SC

part-ners in developing the new to-be process, and

VKRXOGHVWDEOLVKDEHQH¿WVKDULQJDQGLQFHQWLYHV

mechanism

Maintenance, Support, and Rollout

Although companies acknowledge the importance

of ongoing operational management and support,

few of them think ahead of time and allocate the

right resources for it Once the e-business

appli-

FDWLRQOLQNVDUHLQSODFHFRPSDQLHV¿QGWKHP-selves with an urgent need to manage the ongoing

maintenance and rollout Ongoing monitoring and

maintenance are necessary to ensure 100% uptime

DQGFRPSOLDQFH7KHODFNRIDGH¿QHGDQGFOHDU

plan for maintenance and rollout might impact

the whole transformation program negatively

The ongoing maintenance and rollout process

should include adding new SC organizations and

removing existing ones as necessary It includes

training programs and process compliance by

monitoring related metrics It also includes the

LGHQWL¿FDWLRQDQGGHVFULSWLRQRIDOOXVHUJURXSV

and the process of adding new users, making

changes to user authorization levels, maintaining

SUR¿OHVDQGGHOHWLQJXVHUV)LQDOO\FRQWLQJHQF\

plans should be reviewed periodically to make

sure its readiness Contingency plans represent

SUHGH¿QHGFRXUVHVRIDFWLRQVWREHIROORZHGLQ

case of the occurrence of a drastic event like when the sources for inbound information go down

Case Study

This case study is based on an article published

in October 2004 by Reuben Slone in Harvard Business Review (HBR), which is about the

sup-ply-chain turnaround by Whirlpool in the last 4 years Whirlpool makes a diverse line of products like washers, dryers, refrigerators, dishwashers, and ovens, with manufacturing facilities in 13 countries This case study is a real-life example

of a company that adopted many of the best-practice guidelines of implementing e-business applications that were highlighted previously in this section

Strategy

Whirlpool needed a strategy that not only ad-dresses the current needs, but also anticipates the challenges of the future Whirlpool wanted a strategy that can optimize supply-chain perfor-mance at minimum cost, and include new e-busi-ness technology, processes, roles, and talents to achieve competitive advantage Its strategy was to IRFXVRQFXVWRPHUUHTXLUHPHQWV¿UVWDQGSURFHHG backward Therefore, Whirlpool and Sears as a customer studied consumers’ desires with regard

to appliance delivery They found that consumers DUHDVNLQJIRUDFFXUDWHSURPLVHVDVD¿UVWUHTXLUH-PHQW³*LYHDGDWHKLWDGDWH´

Benchmarking and Process Analysis

Whirlpool benchmarked its competitors and ob-tained cross-industry information and competitive intelligence from AMR, Gartner, and Forrester Research Then it mapped out what is considered best-practice performance along 27 different SC-capability dimensions This exercise helped identify areas of improvement

&RVWDQG%HQH¿W$QDO\VLV

The program transformation team had to build a

compelling business case to get the buy-in from

upper management They had to justify their

pro-gram wholly on expense reductions and working

capital improvements

Effective Transformation Plans

Effective transformation plans include a

value-driven implementation methodology (Six Sigma),

performance-management system, change

man-agement, and rollout plans

Whirlpool started with improving the S&OP

process Its current process was inadequate with

Excel spreadsheet feeds Now, Whirlpool is able

to generate synchronized long and short plans

WKDWFRQVLGHUPDUNHWLQJVDOHV¿QDQFHDQGPDQX-facturing constraints or requirements Then, it

launched a CPFR pilot to share forecasts using a

Web-based application and to collaborate on the

exceptions, which enabled it to cut forecast

ac-curacy error in half within 30 days of launch In

January 2002, Whirlpool implemented a suite of

software products from i2 to reduce inventories

while sustaining high service level By May 2002,

a blind Internet survey showed Whirlpool to be

³PRVWLPSURYHG´³HDVLHVWWRGREXVLQHVVZLWK´

DQG³PRVWSURJUHVVLYH´LQWKHH\HVRIWKHLUWUDGH

partners

It segmented its products and followed a

different strategy for each product group For

high-volume SKU like dishwashers, refrigerators,

and washing machines, it used the build-to-stock

replenishment technique with its customers For

smallest volume SKUs, they followed the pull

UHSOHQLVKPHQWWHFKQLTXHZLWKWKHPRUHÀH[LEOH

build-to-order process The inventory savings

on the small-volume SKUs can balance out the

costs of stocking up on the high-volume SKUs

Whirlpool also started to move away from having

one service level across all products, recognizing

that some products are more important or more

SUR¿WDEOH WKDQ RWKHUV DQG VKRXOG KDYH KLJKHU service levels

Recently, there has been a focus on system-to-system transactions, in which the Whirlpool system talks directly to a customer’s system for purposes of transmitting purchase orders, exchanging sales data, and submitting invoices and payments At the same time, customers can check availability and place orders via the In-ternet Whirlpool is also looking to implement

an event-management capability that provides DQRWL¿FDWLRQZKHQHYHUDQDFWLRQLQWKHSURFHVV has taken place

A couple things were absolutely critical to keep the transformation program schedule on track: a KLJKO\GLVFLSOLQHGWUDQVIRUPDWLRQSURJUDPRI¿FH and an effective management system The key was

to think big but focus relentlessly on near-term deadlines Whirlpool organized the change effort into 30-day chunks, with three new capabilities

or business releases rolling out monthly, some

on the supply side and some on the demand side The main job of the program transformation

of-¿FHZKLFKDGRSWHG6L[6LJPDPHWKRGRORJ\ZDV

to ensure the completion of projects on time, on EXGJHWDQGRQEHQH¿W

7KHWUDQVIRUPDWLRQSURJUDPRI¿FHFRQWUDFWHG Michigan State University and the American Pro-duction and Inventory Control Society to develop

a competency model that can outline the skills and roles required in a top-tier organization Whirlpool also expanded the compensation system to allow employees to be rewarded for increasing their expertise even if they are not being promoted into supervisory roles It also put a huge emphasis on developing employees’ management skills and used a model developed by Project Management Institute (PMI) as a standard for evaluating and enhancing the organization’s project-management capabilities Finally, it assembled a supply-chain advisory board to provide guidance and assess the transformation program results and direction

To summarize, Whirlpool followed the best practice in leveraging e-business technologies,

and in return, it has much to show for its

trans-formation efforts Today, its product-availability

service level is more than 95% The inventory

RI¿QLVKHGJRRGVKDVGURSSHGIURPWR

days In one year, it lowered its working capital

by almost $100 million and supply-chain costs by

$20 million with an ROI equal to 2

CONCLUSION

E-business technologies present huge opportunities

that are already being tapped by many companies

and supply chains Leveraging e-business

tech-nologies effectively is key to gaining

competi-tive advantage, streamlining processes, slashing

waste, and eventually achieving business agility,

ZKLFKLVVLJQL¿FDQWO\QHHGHGLQWKHQHZDJHRI

globalization and intensive competition

More companies will start to realize that

gain-ing competitive advantage is no longer feasible

only by managing their own organizations They

need to get involved in the management of all

upstream organizations that are responsible for

the supply, as well as the downstream network

that is responsible for delivery and the after-sales

market The challenge for companies for the rest of

this decade is synchronization across supply-chain

processes, from product design and procurement

to marketing and customer-service management,

in order to be more responsive to customer needs

The new trend of mergers and acquisitions will

continue to rise, and big companies that are

buy-ing out smaller ones will grow even bigger in

the complexity of their supply chains This will

increase the need for e-business technologies to

streamline the process of collaboration between

the different entities

Therefore, in the next few years, we will see

the explosion of e-business-applications use as

FRPSDQLHV XWLOL]H HEXVLQHVV WR UHGH¿QH

VXS-ply-chain processes that span across suppliers

DQGFXVWRPHUVZKLFKZLOOUHVXOWLQDVLJQL¿FDQW

LPSURYHPHQWLQHI¿FLHQF\DQGZLOOKHOSFRPSDQLHV

achieve competitive advantage Companies that

do not come on board will realize that they are losing ground and customers soon

The widespread use of e-business will lead to new options for improving business-to-business and business-to-consumer collaborations like multitier collaborations and root-cause analysis for exceptions in the supply-chain performance

In addition, it will open new ways of integration between supply-chain partners like system-to-system integration using Web services (e.g., LQWHJUDWLQJRQH¿UP¶VLQYHQWRU\FRQWUROV\VWHP and another’s logistics-scheduling environment), the use of wireless devices, and the tight integra-tion of the Web site with the back-end systems

of supply-chain partners Eventually, e-business technologies will replace electronic data inter-FKDQJHWKHEHQH¿WVRIZKLFKQHYHUPDWHULDOL]HG for midsized companies because of its high cost

We also expect SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) to realize the importance of e-business and to follow one of the following arrangements

in adopting e-business technologies depending on the business requirements and cost factors

• Microsoft arrangement: Easy to implement

due to wide familiarity with the product and its selling process through partners, cheap license, cheap maintenance, and tight inte-gration with other Microsoft products like Excel

• Public Web-enabled arrangement:

Pre-built solution by a Web-enabled applications SURYLGHUDWD¿[HGPRQWKO\FRVWQRQHHG for software to be present on the company’s internal network, no maintenance fees, and lower risk due to almost zero-down invest-ment

Intelligent performance-management systems that can capture negative performance trends and select the correct resolutions are expected to come into widespread use in the next few years

To summarize, we will witness, for the rest

of this decade, what is called a tightly integrated

environment in which supply-chain interactions

involve tightly integrated databases and

applica-WLRQVSURFHVVHVDUHVLJQL¿FDQWO\UHGHVLJQHGDQG

streamlined to eliminate redundancies and

non-value activities

REFERENCES

Anderson, D M (2003) Build-to-order & mass

customization Cambria, CA: CIM Press.

Ballou, R H (2004) Business logistics/supply

chain management (5th ed.) Upper Saddle River,

NJ: Prentice Hall

Bowman, R J (2002) TaylorMade drives

sup-SO\FKDLQ HI¿FLHQF\ ZLWK  KRXU FOXE

Sup-plyChainBrain.com Retrieved December 10,

2004, from http://www.supplychainbrain.com/

archives/10.02.TaylorMade.htm?adcode=5

Curran, T A., & Ladd, A (2000) SAP R3

busi-ness blueprint: Understanding enterprise supply

chain management (2nd ed.) Upper Saddle River,

NJ: Prentice Hall

Devaraj, S., & Kohli, R (2002) The IT payoff:

Measuring the business value of information

technology investment Upper Saddle River, NJ:

Prentice Hall

+DQG¿HOG5% 1LFKROV(5Supply

chain redesign: Transforming supply chains into

integrated value systems Upper Saddle River,

NJ: Prentice Hall

Harmon, P (2003) Business process chain: A manager’s guide to improving, redesigning, and automating processes San Francisco: Morgan

Kaufmann Publishers

Lee, H., & Whang, S (2001) E-business and

supply chain integration Stanford Global Supply Chain Management Forum, 1-20.

Melnyk, S A., Stewart, D M., & Swink, M (2004) Metrics and performance measurement

in operations management: Dealing with the

metrics maze Journal of Operations Manage-ment, 22, 209-217.

Rigby, D., Reichheld, F., & Schefter, P (2002)

Avoid the four perils of CRM Harvard Business Review, 1-9.

Sabri, E (2005) Value chain management to achieve competitive advantage in retail industry.

Paper presented at the Middle East Retail Confer-ence, United Arab Emirates

Sabri, E., & Beamon, B (2000) A multi-objective approach to simultaneous strategic and operational

planning in supply chain design OMEGA: The International Journal of Management Science, 28(5), 581-598.

Sabri, E., & Rehman, A (2004) ROI model for procurement order management process Paper

presented at the Lean Management Solutions Conference, Los Angeles

Slone, R E (2004) Leading supply chain

turn-around Harvard Business Review, 1-9

Valencia, J S., & Sabri, E H (2005) E-business technologies impact on supply chain Paper

pre-sented at the 16th Annual Conference of POMS, Chicago

This work was previously published in Enterprise Service Computing: From Concept to Deployment, edited by R Qiu, pp 356-287, copyright 2007 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

Chapter 3.2

Technological Challenges in E-Collaboration and E-Business

Fang Zhao

RMIT University, Australia

INTRODUCTION

E-collaboration takes advantage of the current

Internet-driven business environment, which

integrates the most advanced electronic

tech-nologies and the knowledge-based economy

Companies engaging in e-collaboration must

participate in external business relationships by

using computer interactions (Damanpour, 2001)

Implementing e-collaboration strategy can require

many sophisticated technologies and systems

such as EDI, XML, eCRM E-collaboration is

thus confronted with the great challenge of

re-HQJLQHHULQJ,7VWUDWHJLHVDQGUHVRXUFHV³1HDUO\

80% of organizations that have rushed to establish

Web sites for online retailing have failed to invest

in the purchasing and distribution systems that

make delivery of their products possible” (Neef,

2001, p.3) System failure has a profound effect

on e-collaboration and e-business, both in the

short and long-term The tremendous complexity

of information technologies has become a huge

hurdle to companies embracing them,

affect-ing their entire management strategy, process,

structure, and most importantly, business bottom line results The main technological issues to be considered are associated with IT infrastructure, and managers’ and operatives’ knowledge and skills in e-collaboration and e-partnership The following constitutes some of the key technologi-cal issues facing e-collaboration

• Process and system alignment and integra-tion

• Interoperability of systems

• Accessibility, security and compatibility of interorganizational information systems

‡ 7UDI¿FLQFROODERUDWLYHHFRPPHUFHDFWLYL-ties

• Sustained IT support and resources

• Transferring and sharing information and data

• Building and sustaining an effective virtual network structure amongst e-partners

• Quality and effectiveness of networking and communications (Zhao, 2004)

collaboration enables the reduction of inventory costs and enhancement of customer service level across the supply chain (Lee & Whang, 2002) New product development is also facilitated by e-collaboration between business partners in which collaborative product development such as product rollover (the transition from one version

of a product to its successor) is completed with HI¿FLHQF\DQGVSHHGSRZHUHGE\:HEWHFKQROR-gies Some of the popular e-collaboration methods include virtual workrooms, online visualization

of demand forecast, online monitoring of capac-ity utilization, virtual development platforms and online visualization of business processes (Kersten et al., 2004)

In terms of the e-supply chain collaboration, VLPSOL¿HGDQGVWDQGDUGL]HGVROXWLRQVEDVHGRQ common technology architecture must be

instigat-ed, which may include trading partner processes, multiple levels of connectivity amongst trading partners, internal infrastructure, and system reengineering to ensure e-supply chain interoper-ability (that is, the interoper-ability to be fully compatible and capable of being integrated with each other in e-business), and e-application architecture (Ross, 2003) Given the fact that many companies now operate in more than one electronic supply chain, multiple IT integration becomes paramount to their business operations Interoperability can

be achieved through process standardization and information standards (e.g., EDI and RosettaNet Standards) Studies show that the achievement of PXOWLSOH,7LQWHJUDWLRQEULQJVVLJQL¿FDQWEHQH¿WV

to the companies that implement it (Davis & Spek-man, 2004) A study of implementation of e-SCM solutions shows that often the implementation is

³IUDXJKWZLWKGLI¿FXOWLHVSRWHQWLDOO\HQRUPRXV H[SHQVHVDQGVLJQL¿FDQWWUDXPDWRHYHQWKHEHVW

of organizations” (Ross, 2003, p.325) There are also issues relating to levels of implementation

As companies vary considerably in terms of the nature of their business, capacities, resources, size, developmental stage, culture, competency

of leadership, and so forth, the strategy for

e-col-This article focuses on the most important

techno-logical challenges and issues facing

e-collabora-tion and e-business in the areas of informae-collabora-tion

ÀRZ SURFXUHPHQW ORJLVWLFV HQJLQHHULQJ DQG

manufacturing, marketing, customer services,

DQGKXPDQUHVRXUFHV,WGHDOVVSHFL¿FDOO\ZLWKWKH

process and system alignment and integration as

well as the issues of interoperability which have

become of primary concerns in the practices of

e-collaboration

BACKGROUND

Generally speaking, e-collaboration refers to the

use of the Internet and/or Internet-based tools

among business partners beyond market

trans-actions The term is often used in the context

of supply chain, in particular, in supplier-buyer

UHODWLRQVKLSV(FROODERUDWLRQLVLGHQWL¿HGDVRQH

of the new areas of optimizing the relationship

between supplier and OEM via the Internet It

is an Internet-supported, enterprise-spanning

cooperation which is viewed as crucial during

the development and construction process (the so

called e-engineering process) (Kersten,

Schroe-der, & Schulte-Bisping, 2004) E-collaboration

aims to facilitate coordination of various supply

chain activities and decision-making processes

It often involves sharing of information and

knowledge on which joint supply chain decisions

can be made Information that needs to be shared

amongst supply chain partners often include

sales data, inventory status, production schedule,

promotion plans, demand forecasts, shipment

schedule, and new product introduction plans In

addition to information sharing, e-collaboration

provides opportunities for collaborative planning

and new product development By resorting to

e-collaboration and Web technologies, supply

chain partners can exchange product forecasts

and replenishment plans and then develop new

plans that meet market demand in a timely and

effective way Studies show that this kind of

e-laboration infrastructure should be realistic and

feasible, and in line with the company’s actual

need and capacity to embrace e-business

Incre-mental rather than radical changes are encouraged

to implement limited, tactical Web technologies

that will enhance existing processes for

e-col-laboration

INTEROPERABILITY: ISSUES AND

OPTIONS

Interoperability problems are one of the key issues

that are paramount to competitiveness and success

of corporations in e-collaboration

Interoperabil-ity must be viewed as a core business process in

managing interorganizational e-collaborations

Unfortunately, the costs of interoperability

problems are often underestimated or generally

neglected by management Empirical studies show

that interoperability problems can be very costly

LQWHUPVRI¿QDQFLDODQGWLPHUHVRXUFHVDQGFDQ

impact adversely corporate productivity and cause

enormous frustration among e-partners Some

large companies have endeavored to alleviate the

negative impact of interoperability problems by

LPSOHPHQWLQJVLJQL¿FDQWSURFHGXUHVWRROVDQG

infrastructure However, they are not always

suc-cessful in resolving the issues (Interoperability

best practices, 2004) According to a research

presented by David Prawel (2003), president of

LongView Advisors Inc Colorado, at the Time

Compression Technologies 2003 Conference,

many companies still spend a huge amount of

engineering resource on performing the manual

tasks associated with sending and receiving data,

FRQ¿UPLQJUHFHLSWWUDFNLQJFRQWUDFWLQIRUPDWLRQ

and so forth due to a lack of underlying

infrastruc-ture support Lack of management involvement

and assigning responsibility for interoperability

WRDVSHFL¿FPDQDJHURUWHDPDOVRFRQWULEXWHWR

the failure in resolving interoperability problems

Prawel made some key recommendations that may

help companies with interoperability problems to improve their interoperability Interoperability training and consulting, management support, a corporate approach to addressing interoperability issues, developing service relationships with ser-vice providers, and investment in infrastructure such as good translation and infrastructure tools are among the key recommendations

The collaborative technology infrastructure capacities required may vary in different supply chains and e-business contexts, along with the role and size of each e-partner The following presents fundamental and broad strategies for establishing and maintaining an effective e-infrastructure for e-collaboration in the supply chain

• Establishing simple and low-cost connectiv-LW\WRHQVXUHWKDWVPDOOHU¿UPVDUHDEOHWR access, and participate fully in, a collabora-tive infrastructure without having to make

a major investment For example, organi-zations should have access to networked SCM applications which are browser-based through broadband Internet connections or virtual private networks

• Establishing and implementing a common data model for data storage across the sup-ply chain, which would be a simpler, faster, DQGIDUPRUHHI¿FLHQWWKDQLQWHJUDWLQJDOO the various data models

• Developing high-level self-service technolo-gies that enable supply chain members to not only track orders and obtain logistics and billing information, but also automatically FRQ¿JXUH SURGXFWV PDNH SD\PHQWV DQG resolve disputes

• Developing business intelligence technolo- JLHVWRDQDO\]HWKHRQJRLQJÀRZRILQIRU-mation drawn from the entire supply chain, which helps companies make improvements

in internal operations and collaborative capabilities on an ongoing process In fact, applying business intelligence into

(be-tween actual performance and expectation) that ideally point the way for intervention and improvement

Sabri and Rehman (2004) provided guidelines for identifying and maintaining metrics...

Benchmarking and Process Analysis

Whirlpool benchmarked its competitors and ob-tained cross-industry information and competitive intelligence from AMR, Gartner, and Forrester Research... University and the American Pro-duction and Inventory Control Society to develop

a competency model that can outline the skills and roles required in a top-tier organization Whirlpool also expanded