Functional Business Activities and Processes Impacted by e-Business

Finance and Administration

• receiving/generating invoices
• receiving/generating payments
• entry and collection of accounts receivables
• monitoring bank activity
• electronic bill presentment, payment, and funds transfer
• credit line checks, issuing credits
• budgeting
• published financial reports and data on a secure, controlled-access intranet Web site
• online access to corporate finance and administration policies and procedures
• online access to historical, projected and current budget reports
• online inventory of current assets for review and update, and assessment of current distribution
• online self-service processing of employee expense reports
• online financial reporting and forecasting by company operating units and by partners
• online accounts payable/receivable data accessed by customers, suppliers, and partners
• online supply and processing of payroll information by employees and managers
• electronic funds transfer (EFT)
• standardization of business processes

Human Resources

• employee handbook: personnel guidelines and policies
• staff telephone directory
• employee benefits information
• posting job openings
• internal recruitment
• external recruitment
• educational and career development
• online multimedia technical training tied to production processes
• realtime inventory on availabilities and competencies of human resources throughout company for possible deployment on project management teams
• access to remote advanced learning resources (distance learning)
• community outreach functions: news, job postings
• workforce planning applications
• salary planning
• employee retention levels
• employee self-service expense filing, purchase requests, travel arrangements, holiday approvals
• employee access to personal corporate information

Business Intelligence, Planning

• data warehousing/data mining
• tracking customer preferences and using information to promote product innovations
• collaborative forecasting
• aggregating and prioritizing demand requirements
• planning product phase-in/phase-out
• feasibility modelling and scenario planning
• benchmarking
• maintaining common forecasts of customers across multiple supply chain partners
• improved forecasting techniques through analysis of historical trends, seasonality, and aggregate customer demand
• data entry for sales forecasts
• marketplace research
• business prospecting
• new product research
• monitoring the competition
• forecasting demand

Sales/Marketing/Promotion

• awareness and brand building
• internet marketing, distributor support, sales force support, advertising
• electronic product catalogue
• filtering Web content to target individual customer needs
• Web-accessed product demonstration information and sales presentations
• Web-accessed central repository of information on product availability, price lists, product catalogues, brochures, data sheets and specifications
• sales force access to sales reports on goals and performance data over the company intranet
• communication of sales leads to sales representatives and channel partners over the company Intranet
• online promotions and campaigns
• customer-focussed marketing strategies
• customer satisfaction measurement
• customer needs analysis
• customer complaints monitoring
• tracking customer preferences
• defining new product requirements
• company branding and promotion

Customer Service, Order Management and Post Sales Support, Fulfilment

• online information consolidated from multiple databases (customer, product, inventory, product manuals and shipping)
• customer self-service transactions (e.g., sales orders, instigating own service calls)
• online access to pricing/availability data, order entry/fill, forecast generation
• online post sales customer support
• customers access to company extranet to develop own forecasts using self service analytical tools
• customer online tracking of order status
• customer service, online newsgroups, product updates
• generating quotations, configuring products
• maintaining customer database
• maintaining product/price database
• online Web posting of answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs)
• online forms for entering and updating information on new and existing customers
• online order entry and tracking
• online customer problem data entry and tracking
• online self-service product warranty claims and processing
• negotiating price and volume discounts targeted to individual customers
• supplying backorder information
• information on substitute products
• warranty and maintenance processing
• order and delivery of replacement parts
• scheduling inspections
• generating profiles of historical purchase data and convenient reordering
• personalization/profiling of customers and market segments
• issuing advanced notification of changed products of parts
• realtime capture of point-of-sale information to improve customer response to customer needs

Purchasing and Procurement

• receiving materials and related documentation
• generating demand forecasts
• generating order specifications
• identifying alternative vendors
• engaging in reverse auctions
• engaging in forward auctions
• using of self-service e-catalogues
• letting suppliers enter their capacity and data commitments into the firm's production planning process
• online project tendering, purchasing and invoicing
• online bidding
• participating in an e-purchasing consortium
• online receipt of supplier's schedules
• online provision of demand forecasts to suppliers
• real-time automated vendor certification and feedback, sourcing quality
• online purchase approval and routing
• generating supplier performance records: best and worst delivery, quality and rework information
• online determination of product availability and substitutes from multiple vendors
• comparative multi-source product analysis
• automatic bill of materials explosion: routing separate line items in a single order to multiple suppliers
• automated comparison shopping

Research, Engineering/Design Development

• collaborative product/process design among a firm and its partners
• innovation: Web-enabled conferences with customers and suppliers
• virtual inter-enterprise collaborative research and development
• access to remote high performance computing and laboratories
• online feedback on product performance from employees, customers, suppliers, partners
• collaborative project planning
• online access to engineering change orders by engineering, marketing and manufacturing departments
• online access to workflow management applications
• online access to central repository for design standards and development methodologies
• online engineering/technical library repository of code, specifications
• online Q&A real-time customer feedback through service and support teams
• Web-posted in-process technical papers for review and comment
• Web-posted completed papers for use by all functional areas
• shared development (of products and documentation)
• online reporting of development work in progress
• online development delivery of technical training
• inter-firm exchange of design files and enhancement of collaborative design work in real-time
• product life cycle collaboration, joint design processes
• co-designing new products with suppliers and customers
• provision of online access to central database for up-to-date bills of materials or specifications for producing products
• new product development
• product quality measurement

Production/Manufacturing/Operations

• using Web-based EDI
• exercising just-in-time and quick response
• production scheduling
• optimized internal workflow
• optimized manufacturing network across sites
• optimized production switching time and setup procedures
• process control applications
• virtual manufacturing
• production planning applications
• production monitoring and management
• maintenance scheduling
• integrated supply chain management
• collaborative scheduling
• online production status, production quality, shop scheduling/sequencing
• online (paper-free) ordering of replacement parts by customers
• online entry of supplier availability by downstream production inputs, i.e., parts, resources, prices
• tracking and tracing production lot information and inventory
• access to quality assurance statistics
• online access to production scheduling and optimization by manufacturing personnel across multiple partners
• managing capital projects
• facility and equipment maintenance management
• long-term capacity and resource planning
• asset tracking, MRO, depreciation schedules and disposal
• disposition of scrap material into the marketplace

Distribution/logistics/warehouse Management

• packaging and shipping
• booking/confirmation, routing data, freight invoice, tracking, warehouse management
• shipment track and trace
• receiving, storing, and staging (just-in-time, automated data collection, warehouse management systems)
• handling returns and incorrect shipments
• reverse logistics: returns processing and rebates, exception handling and customer support, return authorization
• inventory control and warehousing
• tracking and tracing the inventory of production input material