Collaborative Commerce
(c-commerce): The use of digital technologies that enable companies to collaboratively plan, design, develop, manage, and research products, services, and innovative EC applications. “Collaborative commerce will entail moving core business processes such as product development and customer acquisition onto the Web”
“Collaborative Commerce: A means of leveraging new technologies to enable a set of complex cross-enterprise business processes allowing entire value chains to share decision-making, workflow, capabilities, and information with each other.”
“We define c-Commerce as: ‘the online business-to-business interactions between two or more parties, focused on the exchange of knowledge and the mutual interconnection of business processes in order to optimize value creation.”

Essentials of Collaborative Commerce
Collaborative relationships results in significant impact on organizational performance. Major benefits are: cost reduction, increased revenue, and better customer retention As a result of: * fewer stock outs * less exception processing * reduced inventory throughout the supply chain * lower materials costs * increased sales volume * increased competitive advantage

C-commerce activities are often conducted between and among supply chain partners. For example ORBIS a small Australian company that uses a hub to communicate among all its business partners. Hub is the central point of control for an e-market. A single c-hub, representing one e-market owner, can host multiple collaboration spaces (c-spaces) in which trading partners use c-enablers to exchange data with the c-hub.
Collaboration may be both between and within the organization for example collaborative platform can help in collaboration and communication between headquarters or subsidiaries or between franchisers and franchisees. The platform provides e-mail message boards and chat rooms and online corporate data access around the globe no matter what the time zone.
AIMS OF COLLABORATIVE COMMERCE: * Increased efficiency (“Economies of scale”) * Augmented service portfolio (“Economies of scope”) * Risk reduction * Cost reduction * Market expansion, access to new markets * Quality improvement (products, services) * Reduced development and reaction time (“Time-to-market”) * Accessing/developing new skills, capabilities, resources, Outsourcing

Collaborative Commerce initiatives must succeed at five key tasks: * Focus on business areas where the return is most compelling * Establish executive sponsorship to champion the program and assemble a seasoned team * Create a business and technology blueprint that defines your vision in concrete terms * Develop a stakeholder management strategy early in the process and keep it at the forefront of the program * Implement the program in short, phased initiatives that deliver ROI to all stakeholders quickly

Directions of Collaboration: Vertical Collaboration (Workflow)

* Supply-side collaboration * Customer-side collaboration * Supply Chain collaboration

Horizontal Collaboration (Workgroup)

* Group collaboration * Network collaboration

COLLABORATIVE NETWORKS:
Frequently collaboration took place among supply chain members frequently those that were very close to each other e.g. manufacturer and its distributor or distributor and a retailer.
For example:
Dell, for example, has used tight electronic links with suppliers and customers to squeeze out competitors in the commodity-like personal computer business
Even if more partners were involved the focus was on optimization of information flow and product flow between existing nodes in the traditional supply chain. Advanced approaches such as the collaboration, planning, forecasting and replenishing CSFR don’t change the basic structure Traditional collaboration results in a vertically integrated supply chain.EC and web technologies change the shape of the supply chain, the number of the players within it and their individual roles. E.g. ORBIS collaboration hub
The comparison between the traditional supply chain and new one is listed below:
PART A is basically linear and PART B shows the collaboration between the partners in which way the can interact each others, bypassing traditional partners. Interaction may be between several manufacturers or distributors as well as with new players such as software agents, b2b exchanges or logistics providers.

EXAMPLES: * Adaptec: Reduction of design cycle time: Adaptec, Inc.
Adaptec outsources manufacturing tasks, concentrating on product research and development. An extranet-based collaboration and enterprise-level supply chain integration software incorporates automated workflow and EC tools are used.
A reduction in its order-to-product-delivery time from 15 weeks to between 10 and 12 weeks is seen.

* Caterpillar: Reduction of product development time: Caterpillar, Inc.
Cycle time along the supply chain was long because the process involved the transfer of paper documents among managers, salespeople, and technical staff. It Implemented an extranet-based global collaboration system .Remote collaboration capabilities between the customer and product developers have decreased cycle time delays caused by rework time. Suppliers are connected to the system so that they can deliver materials or parts directly to Caterpillar’s shops or directly to the customer if appropriate .The system also is used for expediting maintenance and repairs.

* Information sharing between retailers and suppliers: P&G and Wal-Mart Wal-Mart provides P&G access to sales information on every item P&G makes for Wal- Mart Which is accomplished /done electronically on daily basis, P&G has accurate demand information it uses this information for replenishment for Wal-mart .by monitoring that Wal-Mart has adequate inventory P&G knows about the when the inventories fall below . P&G has similar agreements with other retailers.

Retailer–supplier collaboration: Target Corporation
Target Corporation is a large retail conglomerate. It needs to Conducts EC activities with 20,000 trading partners. In 1998 Dayton- Hudson Company established an Extranet based system which enables Target to reach many more partners, and to use applications not available on the traditional EDI. This enables the company to streamline its communications and collaboration with suppliers. It allows Business customers to create personalized Web pages.

Collaborative commerce and knowledge management
Knowledge management is the process of capturing or creating knowledge. C-commerce is essentially an integration of KM, EC, and collaboration tools and methodologies that are designed to carry out transactions and other activities within and across organizations
Benefits of Collaborative Commerce
Reaching high levels of Collaborative Commerce requires vision, commitment and considerable resource investment. In early stage efforts, industries have found that creating simple standards for terminology, technology protocols for exchanging data, and other basic details to be an enormous undertaking. For example, it has taken years for the grocery manufacturers and retailers to establish standards by which they could improve the way they forecast and fill consumer demand. As companies move to higher levels of collaboration, the investment in time and resources required grows proportionately. Thus a fundamental question must be addressed: Is Collaborative Commerce worth the effort?
Companies at all four levels of Collaborative Commerce and provides a strong base upon which to understand the business benefits available as companies advance to higher levels of collaboration. Key business measures of Collaborative Commerce:

* Revenue * Costs * Cycle time (the time it takes to accomplish a business process) * Quality (reduction in defects or errors) * Headcount * The number of new products or services introduced to market * Customer retention * Optimization of processes of each participant, improving of process transparency * Encouraging innovations * Reduced time-to-market * Risk sharing by technology implementation (costs of new technology) * Increase customer satisfaction by including customer wishes in the development process (long term) * Concentration on core competencies * Reduction of inventory by announcing the actual demand situation to partners * Cost advantages

Barriers to Collaborative Commerce

* Cost intensive, especially for SME (small and medium sized enterprises) * Lack of IT integration * Transfer of know-how * Reducing of competition may reduce innovations * Dependency from partners * Personal relationship (e.g. telephone call) is still important * technical reasons involving integration, standards, and networks * security and privacy concerns over who has access to and control of information stored in a partner’s database * internal resistance to information sharing and to new approaches * lack of internal skills to conduct collaborative commerce * lack of defined and universally agreed-on standards

CONCLUSION:
The result of Collaborative commerce is an improvement of the processes along the supply chain and should lead to a higher customer satisfaction by offering enhance services to the customers which are more and more demanded by the latter. Furthermore, C-commerce provides competitive advantages for the company and its partners by a higher innovation rate, faster time-to-market and reduced inventory stock based on actual customer demand. In summary, C-commerce improves the competitiveness of the enterprise and the partners.
Also known as c-commerce, collaborative commerce is a business strategy that calls for looking at the process of supply chain management in a new way. Instead of seeing the elements of the chain as independent entities that have no more than a tenuous connection with one another, each organization involved in the supply chain views itself as being directly involved with all the other organizations. In order to fully implement this different approach, the partners involved in the chain make use of electronic or e-commerce to develop new and more efficient ways of communication and interacting with one another. As a result, each partner benefits in terms of managing costs, lower rates of errors along the chain, and in general a more efficient process that begins with the manufacturer and ends with the customer.
In a collaborative commerce environment, one of the first steps in improving communication is to utilize a standard business language. This approach makes it much easier to minimize the chance for miscommunication somewhere along the supply chain. For example, it is not unusual for various partners in a supply chain to use slightly different names for various components. By standardizing the name of the component all the way through the chain, there is much less opportunity for anyone along the way to misinterpret which product is required to fill an order.
Collaborative commerce also utilizes the establishment of the use of interactive communication technology that makes it possible for each partner in the chain to see the entire history of an order. Thanks to Internet technology in particular, it is possible to provide limited access to networks and programs used by each partner. In the event there is a question regarding the current status of an order making its way through the supply chain, it is relatively easy for any of the partners to access this virtual pipeline. Once logged into the collaborative commerce chain, they can determine the real-time state of the order, and thus be able to have a good idea of when the order will reach the next stage of fulfillment.
The management options provided by collaborative commerce are geared for use in a world where international commerce is increasingly the standard in just about every industry. When structured to best affect, the communication line established by this process easily crosses over boundaries of culture and location, allowing the flow of information to proceed with the highest degree of efficiency. Ultimately, this efficiency translates into fewer errors, lower costs, and order delivery that allow all businesses involved in the chain to enjoy higher profits and productivity.