dr. chen, electronic commerce prentice hall & dr. chen, electronic commerce 1 chapter 7...

1Prentice Hall & Dr. Chen, Dr. Chen, Electronic CommerceElectronic Commerce

Chapter 7E-Supply Chains, Collaborative Commerce, and

Corporate Portals

Class Exercises

Jason Chou-Hong Chen, Ph.D.

Professor of MIS

Graduate School of Business, Gonzaga University

Spokane, WA 99223 USA

[email protected]


Application Case 7.1: Nike’s Supply Chain: Failure and Eventual Success (p.315)

1. What developments led to Nike’s supply chain being such a challenge to manage?

• As demand and complexity grew, the existing supply chain management practices began to break down.

2. What factors led to the i2 Technologies implementation being a highly complex project? Were the increased complexities really necessary?

• The project attempted to predict sales of a huge number of products using a large variety of inputs, some of which were not needed.


Application Case 7.1: Nike’s Supply Chain: Failure and Eventual Success (p.315-cont.)

3. What was wrong with Nike relying heavily on automatic statistical forecasts generated by the i2 Technologies’ software?

• Because the system relied on data, if the quality of the initial data was poor or ambiguous, the results were incorrect.


Application Case 7.6: Poste Italiane Gains Efficiency and Compliance Through Implementing Workflow

Systems (p.346)

1. Briefly describe the major problems faced by Italian Post.

• The firm needed to distribute a variety of important documents throughout the organization easily while being able to track them and ensure security.

2. What was nature of the solution provided by document management and workflow management systems?

• The system allows employees to access a central portal to view, edit and approve documents.


Application Case 7.6: Poste Italiane Gains Efficiency and Compliance Through Implementing Workflow

Systems (p.346-cont.)

3. Draw the Italian Post process of document creation, dissemination, and storage outlined at the start of this case. Draw the same process following the introduction of the new technologies. Where are efficiencies being achieved?

• Depictions will vary.4. Explain how the system has improved workflow.• Time and uncertainty in delivery materials is greatly

reduced.5. In what ways do the new systems improve collaboration

among the distributed postal offices?• GREATER VISIBILITY OF THE PROCESS AND ITS

RESULTS ALLOW FOR BETTER COMMUNICATIONS.


Discussion Board Questions

• **7. Discuss the proposition that competition in contemporary business is best described and conceptualized as competition between industry supply chains, rather than between individual corporations.

• It can be argued that companies are now more dependant on their value chains than in the past and that competition is now a function of a company and its value chain partners. (e.g., Wal-Mart is a SCM company and a manufacturing company).


• 5. Compare and contrast a commercial portal (such as Yahoo) with a corporate portal.

• Both Web sites provide a variety of information and a variety of types of potential learning and interaction. An Internet portal such as Yahoo! is horizontal, providing a variety of different types of information about various topics. A corporate portal is vertical, providing information only about the company.


• 13. Explain the need for groupware as a facilitator of collaboration.

• Groupware allows different groups and individuals to freely collaborate and communicate. This is the function groupware is designed for, and it simplifies the process and generally adds to the richness of the communication.


Internet Exercise

#7. Enter i2.com and review its products. Explain how some of the products facilitate collaboration.

• This firm offers software products to assist in supply chain collaboration in the following areas:

– Fulfillment Optimization– Logistics Optimization– Production Optimization – Revenue and Profit Optimization– Spend Optimization


Real-World Case: SYSCO – Excellence in SCM thru BPI and IT (p.358)

1. What was the purpose of SYSCO’s ChefEx system? What were the benefits of this system?

• The system allowed the firm to add a large variety of gourmet foods to its product offering. These offering allowed chefs to increase the number and variety of their offerings, which increased orders for SYSCO.

2. What was the objective of SYSCO’s RFID system? What were the benefits of this system?

• The objective was to better track refrigerated foods, this lead to better quality and less spoilage.

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