The Impact of E-Commerce Developments on Supply Chain
Ü Introduction
In recent years, the impact of E-Commerce (EC) on supply chain (SC) has caught considerable attention. Many companies in the supply chain engage themselves in the field of EC to pursue benefits.
This report is authorized by the CEO and focuses on the improvements brought in by EC in SC. In the first section, it gives a brief overview of the supply chain management (SCM) and EC concepts; in the second section, it discusses the benefits offered by EC such as convenient information interchange; lower inventory level, less management time, value-added relationship and cost effectiveness; the security and legal problems with EC are also mentioned in the third section; in the last section, the report gives out the author¡¦s suggestion for the Chinese companies.
The report is based on a survey of available literature. Due to time limited, the information collected is not very completed.
Ü SCM and EC Concepts
Simchi-Levi, et al. (2000) define SCM as ¡§a set of approaches utilized to efficiently integrate suppliers, manufacturers, warehouses, and stores, so that merchandise is produced and distributed at the right quantities, to the right locations, and at the right time, in order to minimize systemwide costs while satisfying service level requirements¡¨.
Kalakota and Whinston, (1996) summarized EC as ¡§the buying and selling activities of information, products, and services via computer networks¡¨.
The report only focuses on two types of EC ¡X Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Customer(B2C).While B2B still captures 80 percent at least of total EC activity and dates back to the pre-internet era of electronic data interchange (EDI) based solutions, B2C is linked inextricably to the development of Internet as a new channel for the communication of a firm with the consumer (Angeliki &Loukas, 2003).
While EC focuses on the process improvement of inter-organizational transactions, SCM concerns more about the material and
In recent years, the impact of E-Commerce (EC) on supply chain (SC) has caught considerable attention. Many companies in the supply chain engage themselves in the field of EC to pursue benefits.
This report is authorized by the CEO and focuses on the improvements brought in by EC in SC. In the first section, it gives a brief overview of the supply chain management (SCM) and EC concepts; in the second section, it discusses the benefits offered by EC such as convenient information interchange; lower inventory level, less management time, value-added relationship and cost effectiveness; the security and legal problems with EC are also mentioned in the third section; in the last section, the report gives out the author¡¦s suggestion for the Chinese companies.
The report is based on a survey of available literature. Due to time limited, the information collected is not very completed.
Ü SCM and EC Concepts
Simchi-Levi, et al. (2000) define SCM as ¡§a set of approaches utilized to efficiently integrate suppliers, manufacturers, warehouses, and stores, so that merchandise is produced and distributed at the right quantities, to the right locations, and at the right time, in order to minimize systemwide costs while satisfying service level requirements¡¨.
Kalakota and Whinston, (1996) summarized EC as ¡§the buying and selling activities of information, products, and services via computer networks¡¨.
The report only focuses on two types of EC ¡X Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Customer(B2C).While B2B still captures 80 percent at least of total EC activity and dates back to the pre-internet era of electronic data interchange (EDI) based solutions, B2C is linked inextricably to the development of Internet as a new channel for the communication of a firm with the consumer (Angeliki &Loukas, 2003).
While EC focuses on the process improvement of inter-organizational transactions, SCM concerns more about the material and