FREE online courses on ECOMMERCE FUNDAMENTALS - Mechanics of E commerce -
Organizational configuration
This involves the integration of business processes within
and between the firms that produce and distribute goods and services that are
traded in the electronic marketplace.
As E-commerce is primarily oriented
to trade and exchange, the most difficult problem is to harmonize
intra-organisational with inter-organizational business process integration.
Basic data exchange: Information and communication
technology (ICT) links are established between specific business processes in
transacting firms, but there is no electronic integration of business
processes within the firms themselves.
Asymmetrical integration: Selected business
processes are integrated electronically within individual firms, but this
integration is asymmetrical between transacting firms. Inter-firm data
exchange remains configured as in
Scenario One.
Symmetrical integration: Similar business processes
are integrated electronically between transacting firms, facilitating
co-ordinated exchanges of data related to more than one business area.
·All business processes are integrated electronically
within and between transacting firms, permitting exchanges of all data related
to all business areas.
·This scenario describes an
environment that would fully support both the customer and enterprise dimension
of E-commerce.
·Currently, such a scenario remains exceptional. Several
attempts are being made to construct highly integrated, transaction and product
data systems for the collaborative development, manufacturing and logistics
support of complex products like aircraft and defence systems.
·The best known of these
initiatives is Continuous Acquisition and Life-cycle Support (CALS), originally
developed by the US Department of Defence, but now being promoted widely as a
general E-commerce framework.
·In practice, there may be no momentum for sequential
migration from Scenario One to Scenario Four. Many scenarios can operate
concurrently, each supporting certain kinds of electronic transactions at some
level.
·The degree of integration achieved can vary according to
the type of enterprise, market or product involved, the size and type of
business.
·Even within firms, different
business areas can be at different stages of process integration.
·The Scenario Three relationship (including end-to-end
application interoperability) with any potential customer and/or supplier,
allows a firm to make productive use of the available information and
communication technology (ICT) systems to integrate core internal processes,
viz: EDI to link procurement with stock control. It helps exchange data with
suppliers and customers (e.g., electronic ordering in one firm co-ordinates with
electronic invoicing in another).
