The article is devoted to presenting the role played by physical distribution in creating value in e-business processes and discussing the main global trends occurring in the physical distribution of products in the conditions of the electronic economy.
Perturbations in the functioning of online sales, caused by recent strikes at Poczta Polska, clearly show the links between modern e-business and traditional methods of product distribution. Over 5 million online store customers in Poland (according to Statistics Poland data), using the conveniences offered by e-commerce, simultaneously constitute a huge crowd of customers for the state postal operator and courier companies. However, the undoubted benefits flowing from the freedom of shopping and electronic payments quickly disappear when faced with the flaws and imperfections of traditional methods of delivering purchased products to the customer.
The Internet is a breakthrough technology. In the era of globalization and the mass implementation of information technologies in all areas of economic and social life, the skillful use of new technologies fosters innovation and the personalization of the market offer. As a result, it leads to the creation of new value for the enterprise and its customers. However, it is important to adopt an obvious assumption, which is an axiom of the operations of modern enterprises: even the most modern product, sold using the latest Internet technologies, must physically reach the place of use in order to be useful to the customer and bring revenue to the enterprise. Thus, value for the customer and the enterprise is created only as a result of combining efficient physical distribution processes with other processes carried out in the broadly understood supply chain and modern e-business processes, in particular e-commerce.
Rules of the new economy and the virtual supply chain
Modern enterprises, subject to global competition, are forced to respect global operating principles. These are based on increasing pressure to use information technologies in all spheres of the company’s operations and its contacts with business partners (including the virtualization of processes), integration and cooperation using the Internet, the elimination of intermediaries and intermediate functions, as well as the necessity of operating in real-time (real-time economy).
Enterprises that use the Internet infrastructure in their operations are an element of or use the offer of three basic segments of the new economy, that is: the user segment, the telecommunications company segment, and the supplier segment. They offer broadly understood online access services to the resources and capabilities of the Internet and enable the company’s operations to be based on the so-called “5C” principles, that is: coordination, commerce, community, content, and communication methods with business partners. As a result, a virtual supply chain is created (Figure 1), inextricably linked to the physical distribution processes of products occurring in the traditional supply chain and the information flows accompanying them.
The article comes from the “Logistyka” magazine 5/2008.