Process: Demand chain
Flow
A demand chain is composed of the enterprises that sell a business's goods or services. For example, a demand chain may be composed of buyers who initiate the sales transaction, the resellers who sell the manufacturer's goods, and the manufacturer who creates the goods. Or a demand chain may be composed of the resellers who sell a manufacturer's goods, the manufacturer who makes the goods, and the distributors who supply the manufacturer's goods to the resellers. Demand chains also support direct sales channels, in which the demand chain owner sells directly to customers or business partners.
Demand chain hosting: The demand chain owner may host stores for its channel partners, for example resellers or distributors.
The following are some examples of some of the demand chains supported by WebSphere Commerce.
Buyers, channel partners (resellers), and manufacturers:
Buyers purchase goods from a manufacturer's resellers (channel partners). Resellers, in turn, obtain the goods from the manufacturer, via the manufacturer's hub. The resellers may be hosted by the manufacturer, or the resellers may be remote.
Resellers, manufacturers, and distributors:
The manufacturer provides a hub for their channel partners, including resellers. Resellers and other channel partners may be able to do several functions in this hub, including locating distributors of the manufacturer's goods. In order to locate suppliers, the reseller may browse a product catalog in the private hub. If the desired products are available from more than one distributor, the reseller can check product availability, distributors' location, and prices for various distributors. Then, if the reseller chooses, they can split their order between several distributors. The order is then sent to the distributors, who completes the transaction and delivers the goods or services to the reseller. The reseller then sells the goods or services directly to the consumer.
In addition, the resellers may be hosted by the manufacturer, or the resellers may have own remote stores.
The demand chain sample site, the Commerce Plaza, is an example of this reseller, manufacturer and distributor scenario.
Demand chain admin:
This process contains the administration tasks used to control how the business operates. Explore these processes if you are looking for information on the business tasks performed by employees to support the site.
Demand chain starter stores:
This process contains the customer experience at Commerce Plaza or a reseller store. Explore these processes if you are looking for information on how the customers interact with the site.
Demand chain solution:
This process describes the tasks performed to deliver an up and running Commerce plaza store. The information in the Demand chain admin and Demand chain starter stores processes are combined in the context of launching a business.
Subprocesses
(C) Copyright IBM Corporation 1996, 2006. All Rights Reserved.