Throughout the recent years, the information intensity that has been created from ICTs and especially the Internet has been proved as a great and constant obstacle in the supply chain management of businesses. In the era of internetworking competition it is not wise anymore for a business that wants to be viable to think about its own mission, objectives and value chain as a separate part from its suppliers’ and distributors’ value chains. Strategies that cause cost reduction, quality and efficiency improvement and competitive advantages in general should not anymore be considered for a single company’s functions, but for the whole Value Production System in which they participate.

The problems in the supply chain that appear to be obvious in today’s working environments, have to do with complicated external and internal ordering, receiving, delivering and logistics in general, that cause accumulative compromise to the value of the products and services delivered. Furthermore, because of the common sense that the supply chain has to do only with material flows and managing financial assets, managers appear to forget that a crucial factor for adding value to the final product of the Value Production System is the management of the information flows. Delivery of this information among the different supply and value chains is the key to an organization’s viability.

In order to address to the above problematic situations, information systems and ICTs can provide important help and therefore should be cautiously managed and not neglected. The information systems strategy of the various business units should be driven from the information systems corporate strategy. The use of ICTs such as extranets, ERPs, CRM’s, Web 2.0 and of course the Internet, can prove to be key factors for managing the information flows from the upstream to the downstream and keep up with environment changes. In addition, Strategic Information Systems (SIS) like GDSs (Global Distribution Systems) in the tourism industry or Electronic Distribution Systems (EDSs) through Value Added Networks (VANs) as long as Content Management Systems (CMSs) are very useful for a company in order to create business processes that are interoperable with their collaborators’ and present cross functional integration. A simple example is the forecasting of our distributors’ or suppliers’ inventory using real time, accurate information.

wine production process modification

we have designed a system that runs on our intranet which collects information from the sell side or customers shopping behaviors, blog comments and other data like seasons and demand curves and uses this information to predict customer requirements and this information is sent to the buy side to give the supplier an idea of the customer and to guide the wine production process to directly meet client demands hence promoting the focus on the customer even from the buy side and this information can be used to enhance the wine production process as will be explained below.



after harvesting of the grapes the stems are removed and separated into green for white wine and red for red wine and this is where we have added a system which utilizes client information from WOU to determine the percentage of grapes required for adequate production and more specifically the percentage of both kinds of grape to process to meet the specific immediate needs of the sell side. With this information the producers can maximize output based on good knowledge of future demand trends thereby reducing unnecessary shelf time of goods which is equivalent to more sales and ultimately more profit for the buy side. The CRM tool in the flow chart symbolizes the information supplied by WOU and its use goes beyond the wine percentage determination but it also helps determine specific packaging requirements and variations of red wine needed (lighter or darker) since they undergo different processes at the skinning stage (the darker wines require the skin to stay on longer for deeper coloration). These changed not only add value by reducing unnecessary shelf life but they also speed up the production process by enhancing division of labour.


Finally the buy sends product promptly since it receives its supply order from WOU with the client information ahead of the clients order which saves time and since the supply is tailored to fit the customers demand WOU is relieved of lengthy and bulky warehousing which saves Wines OF Uruguay time and money and the quick customer focused supply means that WOU are set to impress the customer with prompt service hence the happy customer who is also a loyal customer.

Wine Making Process Redesign

This week we conducted an initial research on how to improve the process of wine making with ICT. During the last lecture we learnt that it is crucial to be able to add value to an existing process of an organization by improving certain key procedures of it with ICT, or totally redesign it. However, another fact of great importance is that we should be aware of attributes of the process such as variety and volume of the referenced product, in order to alter it until a certain level to improve its efficiency and consequently the general functionality of the organization. Taking these under consideration, we came up with the uploaded diagrams as a first draft view of improving wine making processes in general and how a business like WOU can contribute to the process, in order to increase its value by providing important customer information.

From the first diagram we quickly identified that this process is highly standardized, but could benefit (create more value) from some environment feedback and therefore be altered to this direction. So, we thought of replacing the procedure of choosing to make red or white wine with a sophisticated and functional inspection tool. This tool will be able to keep track with internal data and communicate with other internal systems like for example the stock database, but also communicate with a database/knowledge base that will be systematically updated with environmental changes. These changes can be for example a sudden fall in the demand for red wine from the UK wine consumers, or a recent trend to a specific type of wine. The system will automatically adapt to these conditions and provide procedures that follow, with the right inputs. For example, the desteming procedure will know automatically the quantity of red wine that should be produced, regarding the market demand, the available stock, the amount and type of the grapes harvested etc.. Furthermore, this agent will align all phases of the process, in order to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the whole procedure (e.g. after calculating automatically the amount of white/red wine produced, inform stages like bottling for the amount of bottles required).

To sum up, we considered that a procedure like this could be altered in a way that its standardization would not be affected (wine making procedure, bottling to labeling) and really add value to the whole business structure by improving key issues of success like speed (automation), cost (less personnel units) and customizability (up to date with environment and mainly customers).

1st Workshop Output

The purpose of this workshop was to identify the supply and sell sides of the organization and provide an initial idea of the technologies that we found as most appropriate, after a first level scanning of WOU’s environment.
The most important parts of the environment scanning are as followed:

EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT

The external environment of a company consists of the Macro and Micro or Sector environment. We conducted a small preliminary research to come up with any Opportunities(+) or Threats(-) that we should be aware of at this initial phase of e-business adoption.

Macro Environment
• POLITICAL VIEWS (+) member of MercosurTradingCorporation (Can help our suppliers export xines more easily)
• ECONOMIC VALUES (+) Good banking services in Uruguay (Can help us with suppliers transactions)
• SOCIO CULTURAL ASPECT (-) Uruguay not well known in UK (Diminish this threat with effective advertising of Uruguay through the site)
• TECHNOLOGICAL (+) new and evolving ICT (Can provide huge push to transforming and redesigning business procedures of WOU)

Sector Environment
• SUPPLIERS (+) Small suppliers’ power, Lots of wineries (Ability to select the best and more IT developed suppliers)
• CLIENTS (+) plenty wine lovers in UK (Big target group, lots of opportunities)
• COMPETITORS (-) Argentina, Chile, USA, Australia, France, South Africa etc. (Immense competition, have to find the most suitable ICT solutions to be effective and gain acces to market)
• SUBSTITUTE (-) Beer (Diminish this threat with the right wine vs beer advertising through site)

INTERNAL ENVIRONMENT

We also made a small research of WOU's internas environment to identify possible Strengths(+) or Weaknesses(-).
• Resources: Few personnel units, Warehouse, Few mini vans , Online site, (-)Small funds.
• Unique Attributes (+) GREAT wine from Uruguay, rare popular Tannat variety, Innovative selling procedures


After the above analysis we came up to a business model presented in the uploaded picture


Wikinomics Reference
Furthermore we considered of the third chapter of the Wikinomics book (Tapscott and Williams, 2007) as a good source of inspiration, in order to come up with constructive ideas of involving technologies to the project. More specifically, feedback with the customers will be encouraged through online social networks and the blog feature of the site, as well as reviews of wine critics. Also the use of open source technologies like MySql, PHP, Apache from our part will be a positive and useful (in terms of cost effectiveness) approach to the peer contribution model suggested in the chapter.

Technological factors

Web Development can be split into many areas and a typical and basic web development hierarchy might consist of:

Client Side Coding
JavaScript client side programming tool.
AJAX Latest way of using client and server side tools to improve the user experience. (ASP and JS or PHP and JS)Flash Rich graphics
Microsoft Silverlight Microsoft's browser plugin that enables animation, vector graphics programmed using .net technologies Markup languages (such as HTML, XHTML and XML) Style sheet languages (such as CSS and XSL)

Server Side Coding
ASP (Microsoft proprietary)
ColdFusion (Adobe proprietary, formerly Macromedia)
CGI and/or Perl (open source)
C Server Scripts (TrustLeap G-WAN, freeware)
Java, e.g. J2EE or WebObjects PHP (open source)
Python, e.g. Django (web framework) (open source)
Ruby, e.g. Ruby on Rails (open source)
Websphere (IBM proprietary)
.NET (Microsoft proprietary)
Database Technology
DB2 (IBM proprietary)
Microsoft SQL Server
MySQL
Oracle
MS Access
Web servers
The 2 most popular web servers are
Apache 52% of market share (Open source)
Microsoft IIS 33 % of market share
Cross browser compatibility
Cross-browser refers to the ability for a website, web application, HTML construct or client-side script to support all the web browsers. The website is nowadays expected to support browsers such as Mozilla Firefox, Opera, and Safari in addition to IE6 and IE7 and above and Netscape.
Accessibility standards
The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) develops strategies, guidelines, and resources to help make the Web accessible to people with disabilities. The following WAI resources are intended to provide basic information for people who are new to Web accessibility.It is essential that the Web be accessible in order to provide equal access and equal opportunity to people with disabilities.
AAA Standard for Accessibility
Security Issues
SQL Injection,
Web Server Security and Database Server Security,
File Upload Forms are a major security threat
Web Site Security Center: Check & Implement Web Site Security
SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO), the use of various techniques to improve a web site's ranking in the search engines and thus attract more visitors.Domain Extension - .com or .net For the Global Market. Use .co.uk for UK Country specific traffic
Host Location - If your attracting UK business host in the UK.
URL Names - include relevant keywords - unique to each page.
Robots.txt - A file which permits or denies access to robots or crawlers to areas of your site.
Navigation Structure - Keep it simple.
Meta Tags - Title and Description. - Unique detail for each page, related to page content.
H1 Tags - Use for the short on page content description.
H2 and H3 Tags- Use for Headings for sub category's within the Content
Page Content - Critical Component.
Keyword Visibility - Within page Content.
Image Alt Tags - Helps with Accessibility.
Privacy Policy - Assures trust and confidentiality.
The site should confirm to the W3C standards

Conclusion

For WOU I would recomend to use PHP and MySQL which works on the Apache webserver.　The reason to use these technologies is that they are Open Sources, which means they have been developed through peer contribution, and therefore, are free.

Hosting cost for PHP and MySQL is the cheapest too.

It is a bit difficult to work with these as compare to few other more mature technologes, but the out come is the same.

intranet

INTRANET

A term coined from two words INTRA which means within or inside and NETWORK which is a system of several connections or branches. This gives a general idea of what an intranet is and shows the explicit difference between itself and the more commonly known INTERNET which is an unrestricted system. According to Alban intranet is (1999, p 25) a network within an organisation which adapts internet technology 4 use in its information setup. It is a private network that gives the organisation some form of privacy in the not so private internetwork which it has to be a part of these days in order to survive in the business world. Its uses however are not restricted to this but many automated operations now run on the intranet to give even more value to the business processes of these businesses which have been wise enough to adopt this system.

Some of these applications or processes which run on the intranet as their platform include Database management, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) etc. The CRM for example is used to document and analyse customer information to generate enough data to improve business, determine potential/ target customers and form an even extensive bond with existing customers. The intranet also handles internet functions like email, file transfer and web services in general.

For WOU it is quite clear that a CRM is in order and a sure necessity in order for it to survive as a business even though its product is a gold mine and this needs the intranet up n running. For a small company which has a few staff an intranet with a CRM is preferred to one with an ERP also because the latter is a very complex methodology adopted by large firms with multiple operations looking to keep a standard on every level but for a sole proprietorship like WOU a system that handles customer relations is ideal especially when it enables real time feedback retrieval from the company’s website. In many ways intranet has saved people money and increased efficiency and the best part is it’s affordable and relatively easy to setup.

There are four (4) steps to Intranet mapping

1. 1. Determine requirements of the business
2. 2. Planning
3. 3. Design
4. 4. And finally implementation

Happiness^ ^