The key to implementing VCM systems or any kind of Virtual Supply Chain system is to take it one step at a time. Our most successful applications have taken that approach, and today one of those customers has transitioned 95% of its ordering to the field and has grown 300% without adding administrative support. Everyone will try to tell you that it is one full system connecting you, your vendors and your customers. They are ultimately correct, but the answer to implementing these solutions is to pick one segment and start from there.
In 1997, we launched a VCM application that used web technology to streamline the process of sourcing specific trait grain production: communicating the obligations to the suppliers and the retailers, tracking the production parameters of the producer, and communicating the final production to the processors. The processor could also schedule shipments and determine payment on the same system that was used to start the process by the producers.
This system did not replace any relationships, and it did not get in the way of the current business process. It simply sped up the transaction and information dissemination. It eliminated duplicate handling of the information and it resulted in all parties in the value chain having superior knowledge with which to make better process decisions.
Since 1997, we have provided one of the most complete security platforms in the industry. Our platform allows the participants in the Value Chain to only see what they are authorized to see. Thus creating a system where one supplier can deal with multiple customers and one customer can deal with multiple suppliers all on the same system without risk of the wrong person accessing the wrong data.
The suite of tools expanding off the basic security platform addresses:
- The inefficiencies of order INTENTIONS, delayed shipping orders, immediate ship orders, product ALLOCATIONS, shared pricing, discounting, sales tracking and inventory management in a B2B environment (Order/Inventory Management).
- The inefficiencies in taking orders, showing product offerings, BUNDLING products, PROMOTION and inventory management in a B2C environment (Order/Inventory Management).
- The insurmountable task of digital data exchange with your trading partners (Order/Inventory Management). E-Markets enables seamless integration into your back-office systems.
- The time and talent drain of collecting and sending settlement and shipment information needed to finalize a contract (Trading).
- The time drain of showing your bids to the market (Trading).
- The inefficiencies of playing phone tag in order to conclude a transaction (Trading).
- The ineffectiveness of COMMUNICATING the specifics of a contract and the delivery against that contract to the suppliers and the buyers at exactly the same time (Procurement).
- The impossible task of TRACING food through the food chain so you can be assured what you are being sold has the specific quality traits you bought (Procurement).
- The high cost of ORIGINATING grain and by-products and the headache of determining the right time to price them (Risk Management).
In the AgriFood chain, everyone is being asked to do more for less every year. We must all become more efficient and take unnecessary duplication out of the value chain. That duplication is not your relationship with your customer. It is not your advice to your trading partners. It is not your facility to transfer and handle products. It is the handling of paperwork and information, it is the processing of repetitive information and the coordinating of the information to all the participants in your supply chain.
With so many potential headaches, let E-Markets help you find the best place to start.
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