TABLE OF CONTENTS Enablement of complex, collaborative e-Supply networks with information infrastructures may lead to a highly-probable, though slow, Lamarckian evolutionary process, rather than a revolutionary inflexion point of current business practices among Industrial Organizations. Notwithstanding, the value of using the Internet-based IT - or any supply chain/relationship management tool - may not significantly improve until the company re-invents itself to embrace internal and external transformation not an easy undertaking!
e-Business is changing the Industrial Age models of customer acquisition, procurement, pricing, and customer satisfaction as well as how we measure the performance of a corporation. Focus on the customer is all consuming; customers want to buy products anytime, anywhere, cheap and fast, and fulfillment processes must be structured to meet these demanding requirements. Companies are simply recognizing that the old rules will not give them the continued success that they had enjoyed, but instead, new ways and protocols are emerging.
What we have presented so far is the substantial structural changes that are underway within the area of e-Supply Networks and their catalysts, e-Markets. The functionally driven silos present in many contemporary supply chains are being transformed, and replaced by more streamlined, electronically based processes. Internet and associated technologies such as XML have revolutionized inter-enterprise business processes by enabling seamless information exchange between business partners. High volumes of data can be transferred at low cost, and even minor business partners can exchange information in an economic manner. Interactive on-line access to each others' systems can be achieved easily via...
