A New Approach for Evaluating the Order Fulfillment Process Options of B2C Horizontal Portals Using DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis)

By using the traditional statistical or operations research methods for deciding the product-delivery logistics, the portal companies are not using their competitive advantages on being more e-enabled, informed and computationally able than their traditional counterparts. In this paper, we show some typical characteristics of the portals like their handling of a huge range of goods in terms of transactional values or volumes. Subsequently, we have identified three types of generic product-delivery logistics of the portals with various intermediate entities or trading partners. Then, a completely different approach using an extreme point method rather than the traditional central-tendency-based statistical methods has been suggested

A Customer-Support Knowledge Network Integrating Different Communication Elements for an E-Commerce Portal Using Self Organizing Maps

Successful e-commerce portal organizations focus intensely on customers. They try to consider every bit of information that flows from the customer to their system as an input for analyzing and identifying their needs precisely and catering to them. Being mostly ‘click and mortar’ or completely e-enabled, they have a lot of operational flexibility to address customer requirements in a more personalized and customized way than their brick-andmortar counterparts with more operational rigidity and resource constraints. Managing diverse range of channels is a challenge because of exponential and sometimes disruptive growth of diverse technologies that are used for supporting highvolume e-commerce operations. Customers are bouncing between phone, email and the web with greater fluidity than ever and therefore, fragmented, ‘stove-pipe’ communications, in such situations, can create problems as they loose out the holistic view on the basic nature of the problems and customer priorities. Therefore, the use of a common knowledge base across all channels is a dire necessity for an e-commerce portal, especially the ones which do not have a ‘brick-and-mortar’ back-end. The customer-support knowledge network as proposed in this paper addresses these issues. Using Self Organizing Maps(SOM), the network becomes incrementally self learning representing various groups of communication instances at any point of time. The advantages include the integration of all communication elements and an assimilation of all the customer communication issues into a reusable form of self-learning network. It adds an immense value for a customer-focused ecommerce company for identification of generic issues, better understanding of customer concerns and priorities and designing products/ services/ promotions accordingly, to ensure an overall better success of business

A Process Model for Assessing the Distribution Options for Horizontal E-Business Portals

E-business portal acts as an interface between the e-suppliers and e-customers and many different types of distribution channels are defined individually by various enterprises. The logistics management and decision parameters for distribution models depend on the type of portal e.g. horizontal or vertical. In this paper the focus is on the distribution channels defined for horizontal portals, which are critical aspects of e-business but are not as explored as the other aspects. In this paper, various aspects of e-business models have been analyzed and research reveals that distribution issues need to be looked at with a fresh approach, because the tradition methods do not take into account some typical characteristics of e-business like the range of goods, transactional values and volumes the horizontal portals nowadays handle. Towards this end, three types of distribution channels for a generic horizontal portal have been identified. A decision parameter table has been formulated and used to assess various options for the distribution logistics for the horizontal portals. Also each of these broad categories has been dealt with individually highlighting their salient features along with the advantages and disadvantages associated. The primary objectives for assessment are cost savings and profit maximization of the portal. An assessment process model has been developed on the basis of some key e-business tangible parameters like transactional value, business volume etc. which can be further extended to include specific e-business model dimensions. The parameters are also analyzed subsequently in terms of their availability, size etc. so that the implementation considerations can be realistically made. Finally, the application potential, extendibility and usability of the process model have been explained and it has been shown that this generic model is simple, flexible and specific implementations can lead to e-business portals functioning with a better competitive advantage