- Write out an order fulfilment flow map that details how a company may see a customer's order from the time it is placed to the time it is delivered.
1. Take order from customer 2. Check availability of ordered apparels
4. Check order for missing details 3. Assign the shipment date, part number
5. Assign the shipping order 6. Enter order into computer system and
send order verification to scheduling.
8. Check available quantities and 7. Print order verification
Schedule for production
if quantity is low. 9. Manufacture the apparels and 10. Pack order per packing list and
send them to shipping section send the package/s to the store room.
12.) Bill the customer 11. Put the packages on skids (dispatch
packages and send the paperwork
- Detail porter's competitive forces model and how an EC company would apply the strategy when evaluating competition profitability.
The first of the Porter’s Five Forces to impact EC companies is the threat of new entrants. These ones increase the competition for the order fulfilment processes among an existing target market. EC companies can weather the threat of new entrants by seeking for efficient order fulfilment processes through technology and efficient workforce in order to keep up with the advancements in the industry.
The bargaining power of buyers - Companies seeking the services of order fulfilment can come together and demand better services and lower charges. To overcome this challenge, EC companies can form a union and standardise the charges as well as set standard operational guidelines. This standardization will give the EC companies greater bargaining power and safeguard their business interests.
The bargaining the power of suppliers- Similarly, EC companies can form a union and demand better services from their suppliers.
- Describe an ERP system and what the major benefits and advantages for an EC company.
An Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system is one that integrates the internal and external management of information in an organization. The system comprises of integrated software application and the supporting hardware to embrace five main business functionalities:-
- Manufacturing resource planning
- Human resource management
- Customer relationship management
- Supply chain management
- Financial management.
The benefits of ERP include:
- Improvement of the quality and efficiency of business processes
- Provision of support to upper levels of management by giving them decision making information
- Creation of more agility and the enhancement of a company’s adaptability to change. It makes a company less rigid in its structure enhancing cohesion both internally and externally.
Some of the advantages of ERP include:
- Sales forecasting which enables for the optimization of inventories
- Enhancement of order tracking
- Enhancement of revenue tracking right from the invoice to the cash receipt
- Matching the purchase orders (ordered goods), the inventory receipts (received goods) and costing (what was invoiced)
- Give the definition of "Web Analytics" Detail 3 metrics for an EC Buyer and EC seller.
“Web Analytics” are the qualitative or quantitative performance standards that make use of web applications. It is the facilitation of business analytic techniques such as online analytic processing and data mining to CRM applications. The web-related metrics for an EC buyer and an EC seller include:
- Return policy- Return policy for goods and the measures to determine the viability of goods for return are detailed on the web and both the buyers and the sellers can access and evaluate it.
- Navigability- The interface on which the buyer and the seller interact allows for both parties and especially the buyers to search for commodities and services and have most of their queries answered comprehensively and systematically.
- Timeliness- In this case, the time it takes to fulfil orders should be easy to calculate to a high degree of accuracy.
- What are E-CRM and the benefits for companies using CRM?
E-CRM refers to Electronic Customer Relationship Management. The benefits of CRM include the provision of superior customer care services through the use of IT technologies and the Internet. CRM focuses the entire operations on the customer.
- Employees can access information in other departments, work more cohesively and deliver services more efficiently and effectively.
- CRM enhances the development of close working relationships between the customers and the management. The better a business knows its customers, the more it gets opened up to potential development.
- CRM also increases customer loyalty.
- CRM also enhances foresighted management which in particular enhances project planning.
- Customer data is protected in CRM
