Influence of Electronic Business Technologies on Supply Chain Transformation

Electronic business technologies enable to separate the information flow from the commodity flow in the supply chains. As a consequence, the information role of intermediary links in supply chains may be highly reduced. Only if customers are familiar with electronic business technologies, a manufacturer may conduct business processes electronically without the need of intermediaries as information providers. In the paper, a model with both real and virtual warehouses and direct shipments is analyzed. It is shown how such model may help to evolutionary shift business from a traditional to electronic one. A system of e-procurement e-MAX-ML deployed in Philips Lighting is discussed as an example of successful application of the described model.