Collaborative Commerce

(c-commerce): The use of digital technologies that enable companies to collaboratively plan,
design, develop, manage, and research products, services, and innovative EC applications.
Collaborative commerce will entail moving core business processes such as product
development and customer acquisition onto the Web
Collaborative Commerce: A means of leveraging new technologies to enable a set of
complex cross-enterprise business processes allowing entire value chains to share decisionmaking, workflow, capabilities, and information with each other.
We define c-Commerce as: the online business-to-business interactions between two or more
parties, focused on the exchange of knowledge and the mutual interconnection of business
processes in order to optimize value creation.

Essentials of Collaborative Commerce

Collaborative relationships results in significant impact on organizational performance. Major
benefits are: cost reduction, increased revenue, and better customer retention As a result of:

fewer stock outs

less exception processing
reduced inventory throughout the supply chain
lower materials costs
increased sales volume
increased competitive advantage

C-commerce activities are often conducted between and among supply chain partners. For
example ORBIS a small Australian company that uses a hub to communicate among all its
business partners. Hub is the central point of control for an e-market. A single c-hub,
representing one e-market owner, can host multiple collaboration spaces (c-spaces) in which
trading partners use c-enablers to exchange data with the c-hub.
Collaboration may be both between and within the organization for example collaborative
platform can help in collaboration and communication between headquarters or subsidiaries or
between franchisers and franchisees. The platform provides e-mail message boards and chat
rooms and online corporate data access around the globe no matter what the time zone.

AIMS OF COLLABORATIVE COMMERCE:

Increased efficiency (Economies of scale)

Augmented service portfolio (Economies of scope)
Risk reduction
Cost reduction
Market expansion, access to new markets
Quality improvement (products, services)
Reduced development and reaction time (Time-to-market)
Accessing/developing new skills, capabilities, resources, Outsourcing

Collaborative Commerce initiatives must succeed at five key

tasks:
Focus on business areas where the return is most compelling
Establish executive sponsorship to champion the program and assemble a seasoned
team
Create a business and technology blueprint that defines your vision in concrete terms
Develop a stakeholder management strategy early in the process and keep it at the
forefront of the program
Implement the program in short, phased initiatives that deliver ROI to all
stakeholders quickly

Directions of Collaboration:
Vertical Collaboration (Workflow)

Supply-side collaboration
Customer-side collaboration
Supply Chain collaboration

Horizontal Collaboration (Workgroup)

Group collaboration
Network collaboration

COLLABORATIVE NETWORKS:
Frequently collaboration took place among supply chain members frequently those that were
very close to each other e.g. manufacturer and its distributor or distributor and a retailer.
For example:
Dell, for example, has used tight electronic links with suppliers and customers to squeeze out
competitors in the commodity-like personal computer business

Even if more partners were involved the focus was on optimization of information flow and
product flow between existing nodes in the traditional supply chain. Advanced approaches such
as the collaboration, planning, forecasting and replenishing CSFR dont change the basic
structure Traditional collaboration results in a vertically integrated supply chain.EC and web
technologies change the shape of the supply chain, the number of the players within it and their
individual roles. E.g. ORBIS collaboration hub
The comparison between the traditional supply chain and new one is listed below:
PART A is basically linear and PART B shows the collaboration between the partners in which
way the can interact each others, bypassing traditional partners. Interaction may be between
several manufacturers or distributors as well as with new players such as software agents, b2b
exchanges or logistics providers.

EXAMPLES:

Adaptec: Reduction of design cycle time: Adaptec, Inc.

Adaptec outsources manufacturing tasks, concentrating on product research and
development. An extranet-based collaboration and enterprise-level supply chain
integration software incorporates automated workflow and EC tools are used.
A reduction in its order-to-product-delivery time from 15 weeks to between 10 and 12
weeks is seen.

Caterpillar: Reduction of product development time: Caterpillar, Inc.

Cycle time along the supply chain was long because the process involved the transfer of
paper documents among managers, salespeople, and technical staff. It Implemented an
extranet-based global collaboration system .Remote collaboration capabilities between
the customer and product developers have decreased cycle time delays caused by rework
time. Suppliers are connected to the system so that they can deliver materials or parts
directly to Caterpillars shops or directly to the customer if appropriate .The system also
is used for expediting maintenance and repairs.

Information sharing between retailers and suppliers: P&G and Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart provides P&G access to sales information on every item P&G

makes for WalMart Which is accomplished /done
electronically on daily basis, P&G has accurate demand information it uses
this information for replenishment for Wal-mart .by monitoring that Wal-Mart
has adequate inventory P&G knows about the when the inventories fall below
. P&G has similar agreements with other retailers.

Retailersupplier collaboration: Target Corporation

Target Corporation is a large retail conglomerate. It needs to Conducts EC activities with 20,000
trading partners. In 1998 Dayton- Hudson Company established an Extranet based system which
enables Target to reach many more partners, and to use applications not available on the
traditional EDI. This enables the company to streamline its communications and collaboration
with suppliers. It allows Business customers to create personalized Web pages.

Collaborative commerce and knowledge management

Knowledge management is the process of capturing or creating knowledge. C-commerce is
essentially an integration of KM, EC, and collaboration tools and methodologies that are
designed to carry out transactions and other activities within and across organizations

Benefits of Collaborative Commerce

Reaching high levels of Collaborative Commerce requires vision, commitment and considerable
resource investment. In early stage efforts, industries have found that creating simple standards
for terminology, technology protocols for exchanging data, and other basic details to be an
enormous undertaking. For example, it has taken years for the grocery manufacturers and
retailers to establish standards by which they could improve the way they forecast and fill
consumer demand. As companies move to higher levels of collaboration, the investment in time
and resources required grows proportionately. Thus a fundamental question must be addressed:
Is Collaborative Commerce worth the effort?

Companies at all four levels of Collaborative Commerce and provides a strong base upon which
to understand the business benefits available as companies advance to higher levels of
collaboration. Key business measures of Collaborative Commerce:

Revenue
Costs
Cycle time (the time it takes to accomplish a business process)
Quality (reduction in defects or errors)
Headcount
The number of new products or services introduced to market
Customer retention
Optimization of processes of each participant, improving of process transparency
Encouraging innovations
Reduced time-to-market
Risk sharing by technology implementation (costs of new technology)
Increase customer satisfaction by including customer wishes in the development process
(long term)
Concentration on core competencies
Reduction of inventory by announcing the actual demand situation to partners
Cost advantages

Barriers to Collaborative Commerce

Cost intensive, especially for SME (small and medium sized enterprises)
Lack of IT integration
Transfer of know-how
Reducing of competition may reduce innovations
Dependency from partners
Personal relationship (e.g. telephone call) is still important
technical reasons involving integration, standards, and networks
security and privacy concerns over who has access to and control of information stored in
a partners database
internal resistance to information sharing and to new approaches
lack of internal skills to conduct collaborative commerce
lack of defined and universally agreed-on standards

CONCLUSION:
The result of Collaborative commerce is an improvement of the processes along the supply chain
and should lead to a higher customer satisfaction by offering enhance services to the customers
which are more and more demanded by the latter. Furthermore, C-commerce
provides competitive advantages for the company and its partners by a higher innovation rate,

faster time-to-market and reduced inventory stock based on actual customer demand. In
summary, C-commerce improves the competitiveness of the enterprise and the partners.
Also known as c-commerce, collaborative commerce is a business strategy that calls for looking
at the process of supply chain management in a new way. Instead of seeing the elements of the
chain as independent entities that have no more than a tenuous connection with one another, each
organization involved in the supply chain views itself as being directly involved with all the
other organizations. In order to fully implement this different approach, the partners involved in
the chain make use of electronic or e-commerce to develop new and more efficient ways of
communication and interacting with one another. As a result, each partner benefits in terms of
managing costs, lower rates of errors along the chain, and in general a more efficient process that
begins with the manufacturer and ends with the customer.
In a collaborative commerce environment, one of the first steps in improving communication is
to utilize a standard business language. This approach makes it much easier to minimize the
chance for miscommunication somewhere along the supply chain. For example, it is not unusual
for various partners in a supply chain to use slightly different names for various components. By
standardizing the name of the component all the way through the chain, there is much less
opportunity for anyone along the way to misinterpret which product is required to fill an order.
Collaborative commerce also utilizes the establishment of the use of interactive communication
technology that makes it possible for each partner in the chain to see the entire history of an
order. Thanks to Internet technology in particular, it is possible to provide limited access to
networks and programs used by each partner. In the event there is a question regarding the
current status of an order making its way through the supply chain, it is relatively easy for any of
the partners to access this virtual pipeline. Once logged into the collaborative commerce chain,
they can determine the real-time state of the order, and thus be able to have a good idea of when
the order will reach the next stage of fulfillment.
The management options provided by collaborative commerce are geared for use in a world
where international commerce is increasingly the standard in just about every industry. When
structured to best affect, the communication line established by this process easily crosses over
boundaries of culture and location, allowing the flow of information to proceed with the highest
degree of efficiency. Ultimately, this efficiency translates into fewer errors, lower costs, and
order delivery that allow all businesses involved in the chain to enjoy higher profits and
productivity.

REFERENCE:
http://en.ecommercewiki.info
www.wisegeek.com
and from notes also