Journal Paper Task: Individual Assignment SSCM

Title of the Paper:

Journal Name:
Journal of Technology Management in China Vol. 7 Issue: 1, pp.22-35

Introduction:
The paper defines E-commerce as the process of buying and selling products or services
using electronic data transmission via the Internet and the www. The mere use of electronic
mail or the use of a web site for electronic publishing purposes does not constitute
ecommerce. Many firms have attempted to adopt e-commerce to upgrade their formidable
competitive capabilities and thereby build their own competitive advantages. However, some
firms have achieved great performance, whereas others have failed in competitive
outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to help fill this literature gap by developing a
framework that incorporates factors determining firms adoption of e-commerce in supply
chain management. The paper focusses on downstream part of supply chain. Through
literature review, this paper summarizes ten factors which determine firms adoption of e-
commerce.

Literature Review:
The adoption of E-commerce in various types of firms generally have a defined path.
 Journal Paper Task: Individual Assignment SSCM

Looking at the international scenario, Wong (2003)s analysis suggests that Singapore
appears to have relatively high readiness for e-commerce development, such as efficient
transportation and
telecommunications infrastructure, affluent population with multicultural links sharing the use
of English as a common medium of communication, and a transparent and trusted financial
and legal system. However, these various positive factors are likely to be offset by a number
of distinct disadvantages, chief among which are small domestic market, political
uncertainties and trade frictions. Molla and Licker (2005) found that those influencing factors
were not constant for firms in different stages. In the first stage, comparing with environment
factors, the organizational factors are more influential. As time goes by, the resource
advantages become less important, and e-commerce adoption is affected mainly by
environmental factors, together with the commitment and governance model that the firm
puts in place. Taken together, these influencing factors can be divided into three dimensions:
environment, firm and e-commerce technology. Models covering these three dimensions can
provide better explanatory power than models that cover only one of the other views (Molla
and Licker, 2005).

Issues Addressed:
The paper identifies that there exist various barriers in implementation of E-
Commerce in different aspects of supply chain management. These problems cut
across geographical boundaries, cultures, nature of industry and size of businesses

The paper develops a broad framework that establishes various issues and different
ways to provide better insights. It provides a conceptual basis for further quantitative
analysis. It also gives some important implications, both for practitioners and for
future research in this area

Insights Gained:
For e-commerce activity, the profit usually comes from high customer perceived
value and standardization of products and services. A good e-commerce strategy will
transform the way firms do business and thus is a fundamental procedure.
Firm size matters for e-commerce benefits and their adoption strategy. Small firms
with flexible structure are more likely to adopt e-commerce. For example, small and
medium firms tend to take e-commerce as a source to acquire competitive
advantages, while large ones tend to take it as a way to simplify firm operation and
lower costs.
Firms facing foreign competition are under greater pressure to adopt e-commerce to
expand market share and operate more efficiently. However, doing e-commerce
globally is difficult, especially for firms with limited resources. And firms already with
high level of globalization may not want to adopt e-commerce for fear of revealing
their price discrimination, product differentiation and so on

Actions Suggested:
Four significant factors driving firms efforts in e-commerce adoption are managerial
attitudes, corporate strategies, external pressures and firms technology strengths.
The managers should do a more thorough check from the whole organizational
perspective to see whether there is any inconsistency or any weakness. This is a
must for firms that have motivation to optimize the benefits of IT technology.
If business managers decide to adopt e-commerce, they should spend some energy
on building up a trust based corporate culture and a trust based transaction
relationship, both within the firm and when cooperating with external partners.
 Journal Paper Task: Individual Assignment SSCM

Institutional environment, including the efficiency of the legal system and proactive
government policy, influences firms decision a lot. Many studies show that good
government policy can help e-commerce growth. In China, on one side, Chinese
Government also has some related policies to encourage e-commerce adoption.
Firms in favorable macro technology environment are more likely to adopt e-
commerce. Firms technical strength manifests in the capacity of digesting and
absorbing new technologies, that is to say, whether they can integrate e-commerce
technology with their existing information system. For the other, such technical
strength also means firms affordability of e-commerce development and
maintenance costs.

Examples:

Dell

Dell achieved a great innovation in SCM by adopting a direct-sales model; that is, a
demand-driven supply chain in which the traditional build-to-stock approach is
replaced with a build-to-order model.
With the new model, Dell was able to reduce inventories, cut costs, and reduce
production cycles. Dell has expanded its JIT practices from the company to the entire
supply chain as suppliers have been integrated into Dells operations.
A strong impact of e-commerce in supply chains has made Dell survive from its
losses of over US$ 100 million through a best-practice leader at seamlessly
integrating e-marketing and SCM to enhance all processes across and an extended
supply chain and e-commerce.

Dr. Reddy

Dr. Reddys believe that the supply chain success will come through becoming more
nimble and agile even as they grow in size and business complexity. Hence, they are
focussing on intelligent integration of their supply chain and then enhance the supply
chain capabilities.
The primary issues of the company is to deliver the product on time and the
environment conditions in which they need to kept throughout the supply chain.
Earlier, the delivery used to happen through rail and lead time used to be quite large
The company has removed the barriers leading to reduction of lead time to 1-2 days.
A well designed supply chain with robust planning cycles that takes care of the
various lead times in the end-to-end supply chain helps achieve speed to market as
well as an agile supply chain.
 Journal Paper Task: Individual Assignment SSCM

*********************************************************************************