Supply Chain Management and E-Commerce

A SUPPLY CHAIN is a network of supplier, manufacturing, assembly, distribution and logistics facilities that perform the functions of procurement of materials, transformation of these materials into intermediate and finished products, and the distribution of these products to customers. Supply chains arise in both manufacturing and service organizations. It is a network of facilities and distribution options that performs the functions of procurement of materials, transformation of these materials into intermediate and finished products, and the distribution of these finished products to customers. Supply Chain Management [SCM] is a systems approach to managing the entire flow of information, materials, and services from raw materials suppliers through factories and warehouses to the end customer. SCM

is different from Supply Management which emphasizes only the buyer supplier relationship.

Supply chain Management is utilized to facilitate the coordination with outside business entities, or in the scope of extended enterprise. SCM usually refers to the redesign of supply chain processes in order to achieve streamlining of supply chain collaboration. It is generally performed only by large corporations with large suppliers. A Supply chain is a collection of interdependent steps that, when followed, accomplish certain objective such as meeting customer requirements. It is the combination of art and science that goes into improving the way your company finds the raw components it needs to make a product or service manufacture the product or service and delivers it to customers.

Supply chain networks have gained prominence in the last decade. Important reasons for their growing importance include: global dispersion and distribution facilities; demand for customized products for local markets; competitive pressures; and rapid advances in information technologies in the form of EDI, internet technologies, electronic commerce etc. The term supply chain management was first used in the early 1980s to refer to the notion that manufacturing firms should think of their own internal operations as an integrated whole, rather than as separate departments such as purchasing, stores, production, finished good warehouse, distribution and so on. It was quickly extended to cover relationships with suppliers and with immediate customers the idea being that working more closely and co-operatively with these e counterparts would enable a kind of integration and co-ordination that would lead to reduced inventory, better quality and delivery performance and reduced cost for everyone involved. 

The following parties are generally involved in a supply.

chain: Suppliers – organizations that provide foods or services to a purchasing

organization.

Manufacturers- are the companies engaged in the original production and assembly of products, equipments or services.

Distributors – arte the external entities that sell for suppliers or manufacturers directly and often collect all payments from customers and maintain an inventory of the suppliers or manufacturers products.

The following are five basic components for supply chain management:

1. Plan – This is the strategic portion of supply chain management. You need a strategy for managing all the resources that go toward meeting customer demand for your product or service. A big piece of planning is developing a set of metrics to monitor the supply chain so that it is efficient, costs less and delivers high

quality and value to customers.

2. Source- Choose the suppliers that will deliver the goods and services you need to create your product or service. Develop a set of pricing, delivery and payment

3. Make- This is the manufacturing step. Schedule the activities necessary for production, testing, packaging and preparation for delivery. As the most metric intensive portion of the supply chain, measure quality levels, production output and worker productivity.

4. Deliver- This is the part that many insiders refer to as logistics. Co-ordinate the receipt of orders from customers, develop a network of warehouses, pick carriers to get products to customers and set up an invoicing system to receive payments

5. Return- The problem part of the supply chain. Create a network for receiving defective and excess products back from customers and supporting customers who have problems with delivered products.

Impacts of E-commerce AND Challenges of E-commerce

The introduction of e-commerce has impacted on the traditional means of online exchanges. It is creating a new market place and opportunities for the reorganization of economic processes, in a more efficient way. The open structure of the Internet and the low cost of using it permit the interconnection of new and existing information and communication technologies. It offers businesses and consumers an innovative and powerful information system and another form of communication. This changes the way they search and consumer products, with these products increasingly customized, distributed and exchanged differently. The advent of e-commerce has seen a dramatic impact on the traditional ways of doing business. It has brought producers and consumers closer together and eradicated many of the costs previously encountered. It is evident that the supply industry will benefit from e-commerce which includes those producing computers, networking equipment and the software necessary. It is also evident  that a negative impact will be targeted at direct substitutes, such as retail travel agencies, retailers of software and “bricks and mortar: music stores. However, these impacts will be small compared to the developments imaginable.

As far as e-commerce is concerned it is still in an infancy stage in India. The environment exist today is not much suitable for the fast growth of e- commerce. There are various problems and challenges, which should be resolved  immediately to achieve a fast growth in this area. One of the important challenges faced by this sector is the lack of adequate infrastructure for IT technology and Internet. The penetration of personal computers in India is as low as 3.5 per thousand of population compared to over 6 per thousand in China and 500 per thousand in USA.

Another important reason for not developing e-commerce is the high tariff rate charged by Internet Service Providers [ISPs] Speed and connectivity is also poor. Another problem faced is that e-commerce sites are one of the favorite targets of hackers. If you think that your site is not relevant enough to catch

their attention, you are wrong, and this way of thinking will help you to prepare to face related risks. And the most serious drawback is the absence of effective cyber law at the moment. E-commerce is governed by the UNCITRAI model code, but this is not binding on any country. It is expected that all WTO member countries will soon enact laws to govern e-commerce. Towards this end, India has passed her Information Technology Act in May 2000.However, this Act simply considers the commercial and criminal side of law and fails to consider other multidimensional aspects of e-commerce,

Another cause for the slow growth of e-commerce is the privacy and security issues. Measures like digital signatures, Digital certificates, and fire walls can be adopted to secure safety and protection over the message passed on internet. Payment related problems also continue to block the e-commerce activities. Electronic cash, credit cards etc. are some of the popular payment method used for e-commerce transactions. But unfortunately penetration of e- cash and credit cards not only low, but Indian consumers are suspicious about the threat of fraud played by unscrupulous hackers. In order to minimize this problem experts suggest the use of digital certificate along with credit card to secure their payment activities.

Importance of E-commerce

 E-commerce, operating efficiency of the business firm will definitely  improve and which in turn strengthen the value and service given to customers and provide a competitive edge over competitors. These improvements may result in more effective performance. The direct benefit accrue to an organization on practicing e-commerce are better quality, greater customer satisfaction, better decision making, low cost, high speed and real time interaction. More specifically e-commerce enables executing of information relating to the transaction between two or more using interconnected networks.From the business perspective with less time spent during each transaction, more transaction can be achieved on the same day. As for the consumer, they will save up more time during their transaction. Because of this, E-commerce steps in and replaced the traditional commerce method where a single transaction can cost both parties a lot of valuable time.

E-commerce is the most cost effective compared to traditional commerce method. This is due to the fact where through e-commerce, the cost for the middleperson to sell their products can be saved and diverted top another aspect of their business. For e-commerce, the total overheads needed to run the business is significantly much less compared to the traditional commerce method. The reason due to that is where most of the cost can be reduced in E- commerce. To both the consumers and business, connectivity plays an important part as it is the key factor determining the whole business. From the business point of view, E-commerce provides better connectivity for its potential customer as their respective website can be accessed virtually from anywhere through the Internet.

This way, more potential customers can get in touch with the company’s business and thus, eliminating the limits of geographical location. From the customer’s standpoint, E-commerce is much more convenient as they can browse through a whole directories of catalogues without any hassle, compare prices between products, buying from another country and on top of that, they can do it while at home or at work, without any necessity to move a single inch from their chair. Besides that for both consumers and business, E-commerce proves to be more convenient as online trading has less red tape compared to traditional commerce method. Ecommerce itself gives a boost to the global market. In short, if without any major obstacles, E-commerce will certainly continue to mature in the global; market and eventually, it will become an essential business plan for a company in order to survive and stay competitive in the ever changing market.

E-commerce business have numerous advantages over off line retail locations and catalog operators consumers browsing online stores can easily search to find exactly what they are looking for while shopping and can easily comparison shop with just a few clicks of the mouse. Even the smallest online retail sites can sell products and turn a profit with a very simple online presence. Web tracking technology allows e-commerce sites to closely track customer preferences and deliver highly individualized marketing to their entire customer base. Some of the benefits of e-commerce are

1.  Expanded geographical reach
2.  Expanded customer base
3.  Increase visibility through Search engine Marketing
4.  Provide customers valuable information about your business
5.  Available 24/7/365 – Never close
6.  Build customer Loyalty
7.  Reduction of Marketing and Advertising costs
8.  Collection of customer Data

INTRODUCTION TO E-COMMERCE

E-Commerce is a latest technology related with commerce and computer. Commerce is the exchange or transformation or buying and selling ofentities (goods or commodities) on a very large scale involving transportation from one place to another. [Webster ]E- Commerce is the process of doing business online. Or we can say that E-commerce is to conduct business by using the IT (Information technology, i.e., computer technology and electronic communication) it is the buying and selling of items or goods or services on the Web using electronic communication and digital information processing technology.

EDI or Electronic Data Interchange is an early form of e-commerce. Its high cost, use of proprietary standards etc. hampered the spread of e-commerce. E-commerce is the process of doing business electronic. It changes the entire business scenario due to the powerful innovation of Internet, which is spreading fast through the world. The power of Internet as a global access was felt with the introduction of the World Wide Web (WWW) in 1994. This global network makes global relations with the companies made easier. It is predicted that, in the near future the digital economy will overtake the traditional economy of all developed countries.

E-commerce is a composite of technologies process and business strategies that foster the instant exchange of information within between organization. E- commerce strengthens relationship with buyers make it easier to attract new customer, improves customer responsiveness and open new markets on a globa scale. E-commerce is the application of various communication technologies to provide the automated exchange of business information with internal and external customer, suppliers and financial institutions.

THIS IS A PHOTOGRAPH OF ME Margret Atwood

Margaret Eleanor Atwood, (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian poet, novelist,

literary critic, essayist, and environmental activist. She is among the most-honored authors of fiction in recent history. She is a winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award and Prince of Asturias award for Literature, has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize five times, winning once, and has been a finalist for the Governor General's Award seven times, winning twice. She is also a founder of the Writers' Trust of Canada, a non-profit literary organization that seeks to encourage Canada's writing community. While she is best known for her work as a novelist, she is also a

poet, having published fifteen books of poetry to date. Many of her poems have been nspired by myths and fairy tales, which have been interests of hers from an early age. She has also published four collections of stories and three collections of unclassifiable short prose works.

About the poem:

In this poem the speaker is passively exposed to the photograph. This is a photo of

the poet that others have taken. This is a history of the poet which others have created. The others are males who are active in making history of females. When other makes history of female then there comes the problem of precision and

accuracy. In patriarchy males are creating women’s story. Photograph was taken sometimes ago. The speaker has not specified the time. The photograph is not clear, lines are blurred, and the light of photograph has become dim. Photograph stands for her history which is not clear; light stands for the creativity of the woman. If a woman does some important work in the society, that is shadowed. Patriarchy ignores the contribution of female. In the left hand corner, there are branches of tree. These branches of tree have emerged to right hand side. In right hand side there is a frame house. This can be seen if you see the photograph minutely. Here the right hand side

(frame House) stands for male and left hand side (branches) stands for female. 

A woman is treated as left hand and man is treated as right hand. Woman is placed on the left hand simply associated with branches which have no roots and man is placed on the right hand side. Left hand is normally weaker than right hand. Females are supposed to be weaker and passive than male. Lake stands for the society of the photograph. Beyond the society, there are low hills. Hills and lakes keep the woman in shadow. Hills and lakes are the causes that distort her history. Margaret is trying to show the small frame houses that are not responsible for the exploitations of women.

As a whole, society or the lake/ hill are responsible for the happenings to women. The speaker is not taken out of the lake. The poet portrays identity crisis. She is the center of domestic work, but marginalized in social, political and economical fields. The last line is revolutionary. 

Despite all the discrimination she is there. They can destroy her photograph but cannot destroy her existence. Woman is exploited since time immemorial. Therefore the speaker does not like to The title of Margaret Atwood's "This is a Photograph of Me" is quite suggestive. The title may give rise to several interpretations. The poetess may want our attention drawn to the photograph. She looks very different in reality. However, the most plausible interpretation would be that- the general perception or outlook about her was quite different; this was her real self in the photograph. She first goes on to describe the photo in terms of time, it was not a recent

photograph but taken some time ago. It appears to be smeared (out of deconstruction).These appeared to be blurred lines as though she was graphically analyzed. The blurred lines and grey flecks (aspersions) seem to be blended with the paper itself. They have now become intricately linked with her personality. The poetess is therefore depicted in the first stanza by means of logical analysis, and in terms of the material. Woman has always been intellectually disregarded; she rather remains a material commodity for commercialization. The advertisements of today pose as the best instances. We stumble upon the truth as the poetess declares in the next line: The photograph was taken the day after I drowned.