Supply Chain Management - E-Business and Supply Chain

Essay by michaelhedwanUniversity, Master'sB, November 2007

download word file, 2 pages 3.5

Through history, when new technologies were adopted (Thomas Siems, p.1), results were reflected as productivity improvements and growth in economy. In business, efforts were focusing on how to improve processes inside firms where the implementation of new technologies as mechanized transportations and new telecommunication channels gave a big push for supply chain management. Now it's much easier for managers to plan, order, monitor, and evaluate the progress of any process (ex: moving raw materials).

Supply Chain Management "SCM" is about moving the goods and services from supplier to customers and then payments from the customers back to the suppliers in the most efficient way possible.

E-business, (The Wikipedia Encyclopedia) (Thomas Siems, p.6) is any business process relying on automated information system. More precisely (Business to consumer - Ecommerce), its transforming important business processes through the use of internet technologies.).

Every body is now aware that speed and response to customer demand is a key attribute to business success since customer loyalty can be won or lost on product availability (R.Mason-Jone,

p.137) and the only way to achieve this challenge is by well managing supply chain because recent researches have proved that problems in supply chain management can companies between 9% and 20% of their values over six months period.

The efficiency of supply chain depends largely on the flow of information, so gathering and analyzing information is very critical for the performance of the chain. Here comes the role of so called E-business which is much faster in terms of collecting and analyzing important information. Activities as acquiring suppliers, well managing the inventory and information about transportation are better handled by automated systems; otherwise it will be time consuming for the firms.

It seems interesting to explore the consequences from Implementing E-business (more precisely Information technology)...