Chapter 7
E-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
chen@jepson.gonzaga.edu
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Application Case 7.6: Poste Italiane Gains Efficiency
and Compliance Through Implementing Workflow
Systems (p.346-cont.)
3.
•
4.
•
5.
•
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.
Explain how the system has improved workflow.
Time and uncertainty in delivery materials is greatly
reduced.
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.
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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., WalMart is a SCM company and a manufacturing
company).
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• 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.
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• 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.
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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
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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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