Press Releases
Says FedEx and Gartner e-Business Think Tank
HONG KONG, November 6, 2000 - The supply chain plays a critical
role in e-business. In many cases, businesses are competing
on the intrinsic strength of their supply chains rather than
on price, variety, quality or service of their offerings
in digital enterprises.
This was a major conclusion reached at the first forum of
the e-Business Think Tank jointly created by Federal Express
Corp. (FedEx Express) and Gartner (IT) held in Hong Kong
recently.
The FedEx and Gartner e-business Think Tank comprises a dozen
of the world's leaders in high-tech business development.
Senior executives from the top companies in financial services,
software providers, wireless manufacturers and consulting
are participating in a series of regularly scheduled forums
to exchange ideas on e-commerce business strategy and development.
At the first forum, the consensus was that in the Business-to-Business
world, the movement of information is a critical part of
the supply chain in addition to the movement of goods.
Participants in the forum agreed that information has to
flow not only to the manufacturers, distributors and retailers.
It now has to flow to and from multiple transport providers,
customs and other government authorities, banks, insurance
companies, customer service vendors, the customers and the
customers' alliance partners, repair and return vendors and
other involved parties.
Members of the e-business Think Tank also drew attention
to the need for information to flow from point-of-sale through
the forecasting process and all the way to delivery and collections.
This information has to be mined by marketing and sales and
used by everyone from operations to customer service to improve
productivity and the value proposition.
Forum members also noted that winners in Supply Chain Services
would be the companies who can provide an open platform for
information, communications and applications across the supply
chain and who can, at the same time, leverage their competitive
advantage in transport and logistics.
FedEx's role in setting up the e-business Think Tank is
inspired by its catalytic involvement in the world of digital
commerce.
"FedEx is a pioneer and continues to be at the forefront
of the e-business revolution, providing vital supply chain
services for companies engaging in both business-to-business
(B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce. But in this
rapidly evolving and developing e-business market, we recognise
the need to understand the long-term requirements of key
players in the market in order to help facilitate the development
of strategic e-commerce partnerships," said David Cunningham,
President, FedEx, Asia Pacific.
"We believe the Think Tank will play a key role in reinforcing
Asia Pacific's leadership in creating and implementing e-commerce
solutions for businesses across all sector, markets and geographies,"
Mr. Cunningham said.
"E-business is no longer an issue of just competitiveness,
it is a matter of survival. In Asia, we see the e-business
models are different than those in U.S and Europe due to
the market, geography and culture uniqueness. The Think Tank
play a perfect forum in developing the Asia Pacific e-business
vision." said Michael Chan, Managing Vice President, Gartner
Consulting, Asia.
The Think Tank also examined the reasons as to why transactions
on most B2B exchanges have not yet reached the critical mass
needed to sustain them, a key concern among firms involved
in digital commerce.
The group concluded that the strongest B2B exchanges are
likely to be vertical exchanges driven by a small number
of buyers, as is the case in the automotive and aerospace
exchanges.
FedEx Express, a US$15 billion subsidiary of FedEx Corp.,
connects areas that generate 90% percent of the world's gross
domestic product in 24 to 48 hours with door-to-door, customs-cleared
service and a money-back guarantee*. The company's unmatched
air route authorities and infrastructure make it the world's
largest express transportation company, providing fast, reliable
and time-definite transportation of more than 3.3 million
items to 210 countries each working day. FedEx employs approximately
145,000 employees and has more than 43,000 drop-off locations,
663 aircraft and 44,500 vehicles in its integrated global
network. The company maintains electronic connections with
more than 2.5 million customers via FedEx Powership®, FedEx
Ship® and FedEx interNetShip®.
* Certain restrictions apply.
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