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Computer Science: Fulfillment & Logistics - Fulfilment Strategy.

In recent years, due to the rapidtechnological evolution and changes in market forces business organisationshave been forced to redefine their supply chain strategies. A new approachtermed as supply chain integration has been adopted to improve collaborationamong the partners involved (Cooper, Lambert, & Pagh, 1997; Knoblock &Minton., 1999). Among the new technologies internet has been the most importantfactor which has helped the companies achieve the supply chain integrationgoals. The word ''e-business'' can be used to describe the use of the Internetto reach the goals of supply chain integration (Kalakota & Robinson, 1999).This study will analyse the impact of internet, specifically on the fulfillmentstrategy of two UK based companies namely 'UK Night Vision' and 'Ifor WilliamsTrailers'.

UKNight Vision

'UK Night Vision' as evident from thename deals with top of the range night vision equipment, specificallybinoculars. The company is owned and operated by the Deben group industrieslimited (UKNightVision, 2005). 'UK Night Vision' is a part of the 'Outdoor andLeisure' division in the Deben group of industries (Deben, 2005). As 'UK NightVision' deals with the night vision binoculars only, the range of products isfairly limited as compared to its parent company. Due to this limited range ofproducts there seems to be no linkage with any database as such and hence theavailability status of the product is not displayed. This is also evident fromthe fact that static HTML pages were used for designing the website. Theproduct availability status is clearly displayed for the same product in theDeben's website which indicates that the parent company does have a backenddatabase. The shop front of UK Night Vision is well laid out and is easilynavigable. It is well designed keeping the general customer in mind and can becategorized as good quality 'shop front'. This website also provides a veryeasy and secure online payment mechanism. Additionally the customers have theoption to pay by cheque, phone or bank transfer which converts a lot ofvisitors to customers. The primary reason for this as mentioned by Sullivan (2001)is that, The average consumer today still prefers to place orders over thephone or use traditional shopping methods rather than placing orders online,although he or she may be a regular Internet user and may have found theproduct on a Web site. UK night vision has a convincing 7 day return policy incase the customer is unsatisfied with the delivered goods. The company alsoprovides a 12 months warranty on the goods it supplies to its customers. Itprovides comprehensive customer support through the website as well as throughtelephone, email, fax and postal communication. Buyers have a simple definitionof good fulfillment service: they expect retailers to keep their promises,whether that means having goods on the shelf in the offline world or deliveringthem as promised for Internet purchases (Maltz et al, 2005). UK Night Visionunderstands the importance of proper and prompt delivery of goods to thecustomers which is in accordance to its parent company (Deben). All UK Ordersare dispatched by Royal Mail's 'Parcel force 24' service ensuring next daydelivery of goods. They claim that 95.7% of our UK orders are delivered on time.The company is primarily dealing with Business-to-Consumer (B2C) distributionwhereas the parent company (Deben) deals with both B2C and Business-to-Businessdistribution (B2B) process. UK night vision has provisions for deliveringproducts to European and International destinations as well.

IForWilliams Trailers

'Ifor Williams Trailers' is one of theleading trailer manufacturers in UK and was established in the year 1958. Itdeals with a huge variety of trailers ranging from livestock, horse, generalpurpose, tipping, plant, flatbed and box van trailers as well as horseboxcontainers and pick-up canopies - a standard range of well over a thousandvariants. It has three factories located in Wales and has a production ofapproximately 700 trailers per week. 'Ifor Williams Trailers' do not selltrailers directly to the customers and has a comprehensive list of distributorsaround the world. The store front is satisfactory and is not linked to any kindof database for availability status etc. Price and brochures informationregarding the trailers are available in downloadable PDF format. Though thesite is easily navigable, it could have been better designed. Payments andrefunds are dealt with by the distributors and there is no data available onthe 'Ifor Williams' Website. Any service or replacement request has to comethrough the distributor from which the trailer was purchased. Delivery oftrailers is also managed by the distributors and tends to vary to a greatextent. Some distributors try to maintain a next day delivery promise. Pricesof trailers and delivery charges of trailers from the factory to thedistributor are maintained by the company and are listed on the website. Thecompany here is dealing with B2B distribution only as it does not make anydirect sales to the customers. Customer's first point of contact related to anyquery is usually the distributor though they can directly contact 'IforWilliams' as well. The company also has a commendable list of internationaldistributor (primarily European countries).

ComparativeAnalysis

Beforeattempting to compare and contrast both the companies it should be kept in mindthat both follow separate ebusiness models. UK Night Vision as a separateinternet retailer (from its parent company Deben) can be categorized in the B2Csector dealing directly with the customers. 'Ifor Williams Trailers' on theother hand can be categorized in B2B sector as it deals with businessorganisations only. Being in the B2C sector UK Night Vision has a more complexjob of delivering as well as tracking a single or multiple products to severalthousand destinations around the world. Comparatively in B2B it is easier todeliver or track a large quantity of product/s to a single business houseaddress as in the case with 'Ifor Williams Trailers'. Here it may be noted thatUK Night Vision is moving towards an E-Fulfillment strategy but has notachieved or does not feel the need to achieve it due to the low customer base.Whereas the parent company (Deben) of UK Night Vision seems to have a betterfulfillment strategy by allowing customers and trade partners a secure memberarea using which they can possibly track their orders, check stocks etc. Thereis no such facility provided for the distributors of 'Ifor Williams Trailers'and it seems that they are still following the traditional EDI (Electronic DataInterchange) methods.

Shippingand handling charges are the main reason most online customers abandon theirshopping carts before completing online purchases (DoubleClick, 2004). This canbe used to make fulfillment a marketing and customer retention lever. UK NightVision charges consumers well in excess of actual fulfillment (delivery) costsbut offer superior service as a result of which it reduces error rates anddelivery delays by up to 50%, according to the Federal Trade Commission (Mayer,2002). In the 'Ifor Williams Trailers' Case though there is no visible onlinetransaction and keeping in mind the fact that mostly bulk orders will be placedto them, the delivery charges seems to be fairly high as mentioned in the pricelists. This is done to maintain a superior service similar to that of 'UK NightVision'.

For E-retailers like 'UK Night Vision' it is very important for them to beassociated with reliable supply-chain partners with the support of a back endsupply-chain management systems. UK Night Vision has a strong backend supportin the form of Deben Group of Industries as its parent company which providesthe much needed reliability. In the case of 'Ifor Williams Trailers' whichhappens to be the main supplier for its many distributors it is in the positionto better manage orders, to facilitate the exchange of information between distributorsand the headquarters and to offer better customer service.

Another marked difference between the twocompanies is related to reverse logistics. Reverse logistics is a veryimportant as it helps in measuring the order fulfillment rate, accuracy oforder fulfillment and cost per order fulfillment. These indicators areimportant for a successful fulfillment strategy of a company. 'UK Night Vision'has a clearly laid out reverse logistics process in the form of refund policyand warranty whereas there is no clear mention of such process in the 'IforWilliams Trailers website'.

References

Cooper, M. C., Lambert, D. M., &Pagh, J. D. (1997). Supply Chain Management: More than a new name forlogistics. The International Journal of Logistics Management, 8(1), 1-14.

Maltz, A. Rabinovich, E. and Rajiv Sinha(2005) Order management for profit on the Internet, Business Horizons, Volume48, Issue 2, March-April 2005, Pages 113-123

Mayer, R. 2002, Shopping from a list:international studies of consumer online experiences (bits, briefs, andapplications), Journal of Consumer Affairs 36 (2002) (1), pp. 115-127.

Kalakota, R., & Robinson, M. (1999).E-business: Roadmap for success. Addison-Wesley

Knoblock, C. A., & Minton, S. (1999).Building Agents for Internet-based Supply Chain Integration. Workshop on agentsfor electronic commerce and managing the internet-enabled supply chain,Seattle, WA, May 1.

Deben, 2005 Accessed at www.deben.com on 07/04/2005

DoubleClick, 2004. January. Multi-channelshopping studyholiday 2003. Retrieved at http://www.doubleclick.net.

UKNightVision, 2005 Accessed at www.uknightvision.com on 07/04/2005

Sullivan, L. (2001), Mouserconsolidating operations - new headquarters equipped with latest networking infrastructure,EBN, No. 1277, pp. 44-5.

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