| In recent years companies have come to realize that a key ingredient to a successful supply chain strategy lies in e-business initiatives, which can potentially take place in diverse areas of operation within the organization. This document focuses on several e-business initiatives that a company may take to improve its procurement and inventory management strategies, and studies their impacts on the supply chain. It consists of three independent parts; each of them is aimed at investigating a distinct e-procurement initiative.; Chapter 2 studies the use of a short-term e-procurement strategy and compares it with longer-term strategies. Conditions are developed under which it is most cost-effective for a company to search for suppliers online rather than sign a multi-period contract with a single supplier. In addition, given an e-procurement strategy, we determine the optimal number of suppliers to contact so as to balance vendor search cost with total operating cost.; Chapter 3 focuses on the possible opportunities of using e-business to support lateral transshipments among retailers as a means for improving inventory management strategies. We focus our attention on a single retailer who may reach an agreement with a group of other retailers to purchase their excess inventories in case she faces shortages. It is assumed that each location has a limited quantity available for transshipment, and that some collaboration cost is associated with each location contacted, thus the number of locations to contact is considered a decision variable. We allow correlation of demand among the retailers, and study its impact on the optimal replenishment policy.; Chapter 4 investigates how a secondary market used by resellers to reach new market segments for disposing of their excess inventories impacts the manufacturer whose goods the resellers hold, and the supply chain performance in the primary market. In addition, we allow the manufacturer to intervene in the secondary market by offering additional quantity for sale in that market. We study the conditions under which it will be in the manufacturer's best interest to take such an action, and its expected impact on the resellers and the customers in both the primary and secondary markets. |
