Editorial by Giancarlo Corò
In the crowded panorama of the internet, rational and practicable logistical solutions are starting to emerge, even for SMEs. These are intercompany virtual warehouses, managed by specialized operators, who, starting from low investment costs, significantly reduce supply management costs. But what conditions are necessary for these projects to be realized?
One of the most concrete forms of integration between e-commerce and logistics is being achieved through virtual platforms. This is certainly not the only way logistics meets network technologies. However, the possibility of optimizing procurement and reducing purchasing and supply costs through access to inter-company information systems can be a notable achievement, especially for SMEs. The idea on which these solutions are based is a typical principle of logistics: warehouses and procurement enjoy high economies of scale, so if multiple companies share these activities, each one gains in terms of technical efficiency compared to individually characterized solutions. In fact, beyond greater market capacity and lower administrative costs guaranteed by the concentration of purchases, it is known that for the same level of service, the cost of supply is an increasing function of the number of warehouses. Why then do small businesses, especially in industrial districts, not create warehouses and common supply services? The answer is that small businesses, in fact, do not only look at technical efficiency but also at preserving their management autonomy (an irreplaceable source of flexibility) and are very reluctant to share critical information on their markets, both in terms of supply and distribution, with their direct competitors. Furthermore, the creation of common logistics platforms encounters high investment costs, which are difficult to recover in the event of a change in strategy by a single company.
Virtual platforms overcome this obstacle and also reduce the first to a large extent. In fact, in order to optimize procurement and supply it is not necessary to build a common warehouse but it is sufficient to entrust the management of information on the status of existing warehouses and the reordering activities relating to managed purchases to a specialized operator. Not all procurement categories can be managed this way. But for many types of purchases and supplies of commodities the operation is certainly possible.
An essential condition is, therefore, that companies are able to share a logistical-communication standard on which the virtual platform is created. Solutions of this type are now offered by some operators, such as Datilog and Unitec (for a review, see the February 2000 issue of the magazine Systems & Enterprise), which have developed open information systems which, once adopted by multiple companies, allow savings on procurement (thanks to economies of scale) and simplify administrative management (by entrusting the renewals relating to repeated purchases to a single invoice).
