No matter what you think, this is the fact and always will be that e-commerce has become strongly related to managing supply chain over the past two decades. In broad meaning, we can say that the integration or involvement of supply chain in e-commerce refers to movement, planning and storage of goods and materials that are necessary base of business.
The first stage of the e-commerce business is extraction and storage of raw materials which is done from the ground with the help of a supply chain. And there is another aspect of it which is called reverse logistics where returned goods are handled and managed.
Simply put, the meaning of e-commerce is not just trading and shopping on the Internet. It has a wider meaning. It means businesses proficiency at all different kinds of operational levels.
E-Commerce and Supply Chain Efficiency
The integration of managing supply chain in e-commerce can be highly beneficial. Basically, e-commerce business comes with the basic requirement of selling and that is the main reason why souring and managing supply chain in e-commerce becomes primary priority in it.
There are various approaches of the managing supply chain in e-commerce that is considered suitable for different companies and situations. Therefore it will depend on the budget, plan and stage of your company’s life-cycle to make the right selection of approach for your company. Smart allocation in the supply chain is essential because many businesses rely on it.
If the right approach of managing supply chain in e-commerce has been selected then it will eventually result in improved customer service and improved customer experience.
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With the Supply Chain Efficiency, it will be possible to get the right product delivered at the right time and the right place. This is money saving and cost reducing strategy that is only possible with efficiency of managing supply chain in e-commerce.
Supply Chain Management as a critical component of e-commerce
Undoubtedly, we can say that Supply Chain Management works just like a strong backbone of e-commerce and that is why it is considered that it is a very critical component of it as well. When supply chain management and logistics management of the company is accurate then they can be assured that they can handle themselves in any kind of “ups and downs” situations.
Even when the world is changing dynamically which clearly effects e-commerce business in various manners, integration of supply chain can actually help you stabilize the effect of competitive and dynamic change of the market and company can become highly capable of getting highest odds of standing on the side of winners.
The impact Of E-Commerce on Supply Chains
We have summarized total five crucial reasons that demonstrate how e-commerce will have a positive and advantageous impact on supply chains.
1. No Longer Hidden Performance Gap:
This is the most significant fact that there is no possibility of hiding performance gap anymore in business. Performance gap becomes extremely visible with the application of strategy integrations and that is why it becomes possible for companies to make the necessary improvement whenever and wherever needed.
2. Not Yet Fully Exploited Capabilities Of Companies:
Companies do not explore themselves when they are not challenged with the competitiveness of the market. There are so many hidden capabilities that always stay hidden even though they can be exploited and explored in many ways.
The main reason of their lack of interest in capability exploration is lack of awareness. When supply chain and e-commerce are combined together, they make it easy for companies to get rid of such limitations.
3. High E-Commerce Solutions Investments and Positive Results:
Along with time, e-commerce has been developed to the unimaginable level. There have been many changes in the e-commerce industry and technology companies have expressed their interest in investing in new e-commerce solutions quite impressively.
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There have been heavy investment in e-commerce solutions by technology companies and they have seen positive results of their investment which became the major reason for their motivation in this area.
4. Supply Chain as Last Business Benefit Major Areas:
It is considered that the supply chain is one of the last key areas that relate to the business benefit. The involvement of e-commerce in it gives more space for the improvement to take place.
The performance and the benefit level of the supply chain improves when the e-commerce and supply chain are combined together.
5. Global future competitiveness:
With the advancement of technology and strategy, the competitiveness of all companies will be enhanced and we would be able to see it on a global basis that the value chains of partners will be fought out.
I strongly believe that e-commerce business stands on four pillars. Information technology, merchandising & products, supply chain management and marketing.
All these pillars have to be strong in order to create a scalable e-commerce business. The importance of supply chain management in e-commerce business is quite visible in the present time. Companies are investing heavily to strengthen supply chain and warehousing.
There are some risks and some benefits of e-commerce, there are inventory challenges and process complications, all these aspects makes it hard to manage e-commerce business but supply chain management reduces the burden of this task and makes the procedure stress-free and operational.
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(Disclaimer: This is a guest post submitted on Techstory by the mentioned authors.All the contents and images in the article have been provided to Techstory by the authors of the article. Techstory is not responsible or liable for any content in this article.)
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About The Author:
Entrepreneur with 12 years of experience in Digital Marketing, Ameen Khwaja is presently the CEO/Managing Director of LatestOne.com (Palred Online Technologies Pvt Ltd).
He is skilled in strategic marketing and gets excellent coverage in building online community, sales and brand awareness for the products.