Management
Issue No. 9 - February/March 2003
Collaborative Commerce
Creating a shared value chain through Collaborative Commerce
by Vicki Williams and Donna Evans
What innovative concepts are you using to deal with the challenges of integrating your value chain? Can you even define your value chain?
Many organisations involved in manufacturing and retail have made huge investments in refining, automating and integrating internal business processes (design, manufacturing, marketing, warehousing and distribution) to gain efficiencies and reduce costs. Their suppliers and logistics providers have been pressured into similar activities, such as just-in-time manufacture and supply, cross-functional teams and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.
However, each of these initiatives is typically focussed within the four walls of a single organisation. The benefits once realised are being eroded as more organisations follow similar paths and these activities become an accepted cost of doing business rather than creating a sustainable competitive edge.
In response, industries are shifting towards new business models that require tighter collaboration across the supply chain partners (such as flexible manufacturing, outsourcing, shared services, vendor managed inventory and distribution centres).
The challenge is to identify those supply and demand parties that are strategically important to you, and have potential to create a shared value chain.
What is collaborative commerce?
Collaborative commerce is a set of multi-enterprise capabilities that allow an enterprise to share business processes, decision-making and data with its suppliers, customers and employees.
It goes beyond information sharing and requires a clearly defined company mandate (strategy), redesign of fundamental business processes and roles, cultural alignment across organisations, open and flexible technology solutions, and complimentary metrics for successful development and implementation.
Myth: Corporate organisations won’t accept or adopt major change.
Fact: They have no choic...
