Реферат на тему Proposal development for logistics business processes optimisation of the large Russian e-commerce company

Введение:

Background. Globalisation has increased competition in domestic and international markets. Development of logistical services has enhanced the growth of international business conducted between different countries. Russia is a relatively big country, compared with other European countries. In relation to the on-going growth of logistical services and international business, Russia’s location in terms of sea and railway connections is challenging compared other countries in Europe. Our logistical business sector requires development to capitalise on globalisation and to compete with the economic growth of the fiercer players in the Sea region.
This statement expressed the desire to develop e-commerce business processes, which is meant creating a greater added value for customers by investing additional capital into supply chain development.
Problem statement. The purpose of this study is to determine methods for improving a company’s e-commerce business processes, and then, to apply that theory to a single company through a case study; in addition, to find the specific opportunities for the company to develop their e-commerce processes.
Electronic working tools have been developed during recent years and created the potential for business process development. The previous studies showed that the companies that invested their capital and implemented electronic working tools in their supply chain increased profitability and customer satisfaction in every business process of the chain. Zairi (1997) stated that numerous approaches exist today for different business sectors to adopt to solve the various supply chain problems.
The issue is it worth to invest capital into e-commerce business process by using e-working tools, as it creats an added value for customers.
This study focuses on the following questions: is it worth for a company, including a small company, to improve their business processes only by investing in electronic working tools? Is there another alternative method for optimising business processes?
Thus, this study considers the following issues.
• The ways to improve the business processes within the company with using electronic working tools.
• The benefits for a company from investing in/upgrading electronic working tools?
Professional Significance. Investing significant capital into technology and electronic tools is one of the keys to success; such capital must be used correctly. The optimisation of business processes is a combination of technology and people. In other words, it is about finding the practices that best suit a company and the market in which the company does business (Mansar & Reijers, 2015).
This study shows how the order manufacturing process is controlled within e-commerce processes while implementing the required criterion. Technology- based solutions for process optimisation are tempted to implement as doing so may be believed to save time, but no automated solution is able to reveal a company’s critical information if the company does not know what it is looking for and cannot identify its problem areas.
Delimitations of the study. This study examines how a company could develop and implement an order-to- delivery e-process that does the relevant modelling and optimisation, although many articles support optimising processes using technology of an order-to-delivery where e-process is provided by advanced computer systems.

Logistics is an old term that was first used in the 1950s in the United States. The Council of Logistics Management from the US defined the term as follows: “Logistics is a part of Supply Chain, where flow of goods and all the warehousing, services and information is controlled as efficiently as possible from the manufacturer to the end customer, so that the end customer’s needs are satisfied.” (Sakki, 2013)
Rapidly changing business environment requires new approaches and methods for supporting management systems in all types of companies. Modern companies doing business use e-commerce systems by default. One of the key areas of e-commerce systems is logistics and the supply chain. The optimal way to ensure the success of logistics and supply chains is to use the methods of modeling and simulation based on appropriate models and especially its mathematical representation. This work highlights the customer-oriented model of the e-commerce system and deal with logistic optimization and simulations. As an example, a sample logistic structure which requires the adequate control approach is presented. This is isrealized by means of heuristic algorithms which are responsible for meeting the set criterion. Moreover, the criteria to either maximize the production output or minimize the lost flow capacity of the logistic system or minimize the tool replacement criterion are introduced. Equations of state are given in order to represent the flow of material through the logistic system.

Logistics is an old term that was first used in the 1950s in the United States. The Council of Logistics Management from the US defined the term as follows: “Logistics is a part of Supply Chain, where flow of goods and all the warehousing, services and information is controlled as efficiently as possible from the manufacturer to the end customer, so that the end customer’s needs are satisfied.” (Sakki, 2013)
Rapidly changing business environment requires new approaches and methods for supporting management systems in all types of companies. Modern companies doing business use e-commerce systems by default. One of the key areas of e-commerce systems is logistics and the supply chain. The optimal way to ensure the success of logistics and supply chains is to use the methods of modeling and simulation based on appropriate models and especially its mathematical representation. This work highlights the customer-oriented model of the e-commerce system and deal with logistic optimization and simulations. As an example, a sample logistic structure which requires the adequate control approach is presented. This is isrealized by means of heuristic algorithms which are responsible for meeting the set criterion. Moreover, the criteria to either maximize the production output or minimize the lost flow capacity of the logistic system or minimize the tool replacement criterion are introduced. Equations of state are given in order to represent the flow of material through the logistic system.

Фрагмент текста работы:

E-commerce system
The structural model describes an e-commerce system as a set of functionally connected components. The main basic components of e-commerce systems are [Pradeep, 2010]:
• customers and generally business environment,
• the Internet,
• the web server,
• LAN (Local Area Network),
• CRM (Customer Relationship Management) characterized among others in,
• ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning),
• payment system,
• delivery of goods,
• after-delivery (after-sales) services,
• information systems (CRM/ERP) of cooperating suppliers.
Important and integral parts of the whole system are hardware, software, people, co-operative suppliers, legislation and generally information and communication technologies (ICT). All shown parts of e-commerce systems are supported and controlled by the management at all control levels (tactical, operational, strategic). Most important for control and support functions are SCM — Supply Chain Management, FRM — Financial Resource Management, HRM — Human Resource Management, IBP – Integrated Business Planning and Information system/Information technology administration (IS/ICT management) [Bredford, 2012].
Customer-oriented e-commerce system
The e-commerce system should be seen as the part of a complete business environment. Here, the main decisive part of the environment is understood as the customer whose orientation is one of the main prerequisites of an effective management system. Based on its own research, Simulation Systems Ltd. [Simulation Systems, 2011] presented the fundamental definition and description of customer-oriented systems. They say that each customer-oriented system results from the individual work with the client taking into account specific details of his business processes. The customeroriented system is made according to the principle emphasizing the well-known truth which reads that the system must be created for the user, avoiding the need to adjust the user for the system. The development of customer-oriented systems includes the full cycle of tasks, such as: collection and analysis of data needed for automation, definition of the requirements, designing, implementation, introducing, testing and maintenance of the system. The specific features of the approach to designing of customer-oriented IS are formulated as follow:
• fundamental analysis of the customer’s business as a base for working out the solutions corresponding to the actual goals and problems of the customer;
• detail elaboration and coordination with the customer of all stages of the project development, control points and required resources;
• support of the convenient mode of maintenance, modification and extension of the system;
• provision of openness, mobility and scalability of the system.
Customer-oriented functionalities of e-commerce comprise business-to-customer (B2C) applications such as remote shopping, banking and infotainment-on-demand. To study the possibilities of e-commerce functionality improvement.
However, it requires to solve a wide range of technical, personnel and legal issues. In order to make this model fully operational in the real environment, the following conditions have to be met:
• ensuring unambiguous identification of the customer (the customer who has made the order);
• defining the legal framework for this type of business in particular;
• defining principles of the legal protection of the dealers (for example it is necessary to ensure that the customer could not deny the ordered goods);
• ensuring technical support of the mobile credit card readers;
• defining and implementing the logistic system.
The inputs constitute the management decisions on the e-Commerce parameters like prices, investments, marketing decisions, safety rules etc. The outputs include sales value, profits and margins, return on investment (ROI), stability, security and other key performance factors. The outputs are measured in the measuring element and compared with the targets in the differential component.
There is a general rule on the basis of which the customer wants to find products quickly and easily and get products in the shortest time as well as to pay for goods in the selected way and to have the longest possible warranty. One way of meeting this rule is to accept the basic philosophy of orientation on the customer and use all available technologies and business and management practices in company operations.
Logistic and supply chain and its optimization in e-commerce
In business, the logistics has the meaning of the way of the supply of goods by which the customers’ requirements can be solved. It determines the path of transporting goods and a lot of important information exchanged between the consumer, production or source points. Logistics and the entire system must be controlled. In this context, we are talking about the management of logistics and supply chain management [Chopra, 2012].
In a way to optimize logistic and supply chain in e-commerce, there are several benefits and drawbacks, which should be taken into account.
E-commerce has several advantages. Among which there are:
• cost reduction;
• fast product launch;
• low cost distribution of digital products;
• anonymity;
• large selection of goods and services;
• prompt delivery;
• a wide range of services provided (for example, education, health care, public services);
• online sale / order of goods / services reduces car traffic and reduces environmental pollution.
However, some disadvantages of the e-commerce system should be also noted:
• some complexity in the conduct and legitimization of the enterprise’s activities on the Internet;
• consumer’s distrust of services sold through the Internet;
• waiting time for delivery of purchased products;
• possible difficulties and costs if returning goods;
• attractive fraud platform (reduced network security);
• failure to receive tax payments to the state budget when maintaining “gray” accounting schemes.
Traditionally, to avoid negative consequences, the formal modelling of systems has been carried out by means of a mathematical model which attempts to find analytical solutions to problems which enable the whole chain of e-commerce system on the basis of the set of parameters and initial conditions.
Thus, there is a serious technological gap in the e-commerce market. On one side — the needs and possibilities of Internet technologies, on the other — the courier on a battered car. This is the technological gap between the «ideal world» and its physical reflection. The market of logistics services for e-commerce is rapidly developing. It is necessary to monitor trends, study the needs of the market and offer improved solutions.
Literature Review
Over the years, different authors and studies have presented many business process modelling approaches and techniques. Each study had its own focus and took its own direction for examining and classifying business process modelling techniques.
A good example is the research done by Davenport, Harris and Cantrell in 2004. They conducted a survey of 163 organisations and in-depth interviews with 28 other organisations on an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system popular in the 1990s. The article provided examples of how an ERP system was implemented at companies. Some companies began using the system without first analysing its processes and, thus, failed to achieve its goal of improving optimisation processes. The companies that had successful ERP implementations first analysed the system and its capabilities and how it could be modified to fit the needs of the business. Successful companies also explored the type of data needed and how the system could be used to enhance company resources (Davenport et al. 2013).
As previously noted, this study examines findings from a company’s point of view and focuses on the business side effects of process optimisation. Zairi recommends that companies create their own business process management (BPM) culture with the goal of solving reoccurring problems in a process or enhancing the quality of a process. A BPM culture should ensure that everyone in the company is aware of the corporate goals and should motivate employees to add more value to the core product and customers (Zairi, 1997).
Zakarian (2011) discussed different modelling tools and methods for analysing processes and highlighted the importance of having a thorough understanding of all of the processes before attempting to model and analyse the inputs and outputs. Zakarian (2011) stated that all data, functions and resources should be known before beginning to model the processes.
Majeed et al. (2012) discussed the importance of having general knowledge of the process activities and stated, “real-life business processes should be classified according to their structural characteristics and their capabilities for analysis and optimisation”. Majeed et al. (2012) defined three different categories of business processes based on the features of the process: mathematical models, diagrammatic models and business process lenguages.
Majeed et al. (2012) also categorised different approaches to analyse business processes in the three categories previously noted. It shows that diagrammatic models can be analysed using observational analysis techniques. BPL process models can be analysed using performance evaluation algorithms. Mathematical business models can be analysed using performance evaluation, validation and verification methods. Simulation is used when different business processes exist that contain more than one of these modelling sets; in this case, a combination of different analysis methods is needed (Majeed et al. 2012).