Task Two – E-supply chains, collaborative commerce and portals - Topic Five

I found the article in the readings by Laudon & Traver “E-commerce: Business technology and society” really thought provoking. I had never considered the importance of having a place to start when browsing the web. I had never thought of Google as being a portal, I had always thought of Google as a purely a search engine.

Corporate portals have really changed the way in which we now conduct business. It is amazing how the internet and especially portals have become such an integral part of business activities.
I currently work for a large financial company who operates a corporate portal. This portal is the first thing that everybody logs onto first thing in the morning and my internet home page. The portal contains news, procedure manuals, contact list for every employee and supports many intranet based programs. The portal holds extra importance within this particular company as this is a parent company which has around 30 subsidiary companies which operate in many different markets; all of these subsidiary companies have access to our company portal. Portals are such an efficient way for large companies to keep employees up to date with policies, news, etc especially if employees are in different geographical locations.

After thinking about portals I realised that every time I log into the Uni site I am accessing a portal. The site ‘my.csu’ is such a useful portal when studying via distance education. It links you to so many important places for getting and receiving information about studying at Charles Sturt. By having all that information at a click away saves time when you are both studying and working.

Previously, I worked for a chemical supply company which was heavily focused up improving supply chain management (SCM). They used an external company for freighting and warehousing the chemical company interfaced the external company’s warehouse management systems with their own ordering system. This improved SCM by increasing efficiency by reducing ordering errors and increasing OTIF (on-time-in-full). The external company also had GPS monitoring in there trucks, providing the chemical company with an internet link to which allowed the company to track orders and provide exact delivery times.