Reflection Two : APPLICATIONS

Statement 2: Applications

Today I would like to tell you the story about the applications for E-business such as supply chain management, E-procurement, E-marketing and customer relationship management. I was so impressed what I have learnt so far because there are many theories and concepts that I can implement them with not only my existing knowledge but also the future career or my own business. At the beginning, I have to admit that most of the businesses nowadays have been driven by the technology in every single process starting from the acquirement of materials to product distribution to customers. Therefore, the topic today is very important to the one who want to manage their own business or working for any company because the technology is embedded in the business process and we should know how to enhance our work efficiency by implementing those applications with the business process.  Today, I would like to share the one example of the implementation of technology with supply chain management which is the area that I like the most.

       What is supply chain management (SCM)??

The explanation of SCM will be explained in the following video.

As you can see from the video, SCM is so important to make the business flow smoothly and there are many technologies embedded in the processes. Interestingly, I am particularly interested in one of the SCM applications called RFID technology. This application can drive the world of supply chain to step forward to the new era.

Have your heard about the RFID technology? If you haven’t, please read the content below!

RFID is…

The identity of an object or person in a form of a unique serial number will be transmitted wirelessly by using radio waves; this system called Radio Frequency identification

Enabling data to be transmitted by a tag, which is read by a RFID reader and operated according to the needs of particular application is the purpose of a RFID system. Moreover, specific information such as price, weight, color, expiration date, location and identification will be embedded in a tagged product. As a result, there are many top companies around the world such as Toyota, 3M, Intel, Wal-Mart and Amazon that adopt this technology in order to maximize their profit

In addition, RFID has ability to track moving objects. If compared to ubiquitous UPC bar-code technology, RFID technology does not require contact or line of sight for communication. Furthermore, it is not only a capability of RDFI tag that can be read from several meters away but also beyond the line of sight of the reader. Beside, Bulk reading is another interesting feature of RFID system

HOW TO MAKE IT RUNs

Basically, three components are mainly required in order to run the RFID system.

• An antenna or coil
• A transceiver (with decoder)
• A transponder (RF tag) electronically programmed with unique information

Firstly, tag will be activated by the radio signal from the antenna in order to read and write data to it. Secondly, the reader’s activation signal will be detected when the RFID tag passes through the electromagnetic zone. Finally, the reader decodes the data encoded in the tag's integrated circuit (silicon chip) and the data is passed to the host computer for processing.

All in all, the organization will be benefited from adopting the RFID technology in three main aspects. First, the companies will have a good opportunity to reduce a number of product thefts from the effective tracking and quick authenticity check via RFID. The effective supply chain visibility is the second benefit because the firms are not only stable but also increase their demand certainty that can enhance the companies’ ability to track and manage the flow of inventory or products effectively. Inventing a new business process or product is the last benefit from the firms who are adopting RFID technology. Therefore, as a high competitive market nowadays, there are many companies that tend to adopt RFID instead of barcode due to the grater advantages in term of traceability and efficiency.

HOWEVER…

to adopt RFID technology, the firms have to consider not only the firms’ infrastructural capability but also the characteristic of their business.

Therefore, I also have a chance to do one of the most AWESOME activities in class called DEBATE. Incidentally, I got a topic regarding the SCM for the debate. I am the support team where I have to disagree a Porter Model saying that the traditional value chain model of Michael Porter is no longer useful as a framework for value chain management.

Let’s me explain you a bit….

The old model is a one-way chain involved with pushing products to customer; it does not highlight the importance of understanding customer needs through market research and responsiveness through innovation and new product development.

All processes in a supply chain fall into one of two categories depending on the timing of their execution relative to end customer demand. With pull processes, execution is initiated in response to customer order where customer demand is known. On the other hand, push processes, execution is initiated in anticipation of customer order where demand is unknown and must be forecasted. 

PUSH VS PULL

According to the traditional value chain model, the model has been focusing on a push model in order to sell products or services by predicting the demand from customers without doing any customer research.  However, nowadays customer research plays an important role in order to help the companies to develop their strategies to match with wide varieties of customer’s need due to the increase of innovation and technology.

For EXAMPLE…

Dell Company provides an excellent example to support this view point, as we know that Dell Company provides options for customers to customize their own computer. In other words, customers can choose every single part of computer as they want such as a monitor from SONY, a chip from INTEL, a keyboard from another company and so on.

According to the push strategy, Dell has to predict the customer demand and produce in a large number to joy the economy of scale. Imagine that how many computer parts that the company has to stock in warehouse according to the wide varieties of choices for customers to make a decision.   

Conversely, If Dell Company used the revised model where pull strategy is also focused, the production process will be done after the customers make a purchase or we can call “make to order”. In other words, the assembly of computer parts was shifted from the push to pull phase of the supply chain. As a result, customers are always able to get the computer of their choice, while total computer part inventories across the supply chain have declined.

To sum up, the customers’ need is necessary to take into account in order to make a strong competitive strategy due to the rise in demand uncertainty nowadays. Thus, we believe that Porter’s traditional value chain model is no longer useful anymore.

Therefore, I am looking forward to implement all of my knowledge to use in my very near future.

THIS IS WHAT I HAVE LEARNT FROM THE CLASS…. Which is very helpful

The last refection will be uploaded soon