Fulfilling the Promise of Multi-Channel Commerce - II
In the lead up to my videocast on multi channel strategy, I wanted to illustrate the difference between multi channel operations and multi channel commerce through the example of inventory management. One of the major justifications for cross channel investments is improving inventory utilization by making more of the inventory visible across the new sales channels. For e.g. this has translated into enabling in store pickup as a fulfillment option over the web. Another example is allowing special ordering of products like movies & music in stores (endless aisles).
I would classify these attempts as multi channel operations since they attempt to bring the best of fulfillment from a specific channel to make it available over other channels. It transcends into multi channel commerce when for e.g. store pickup is available as one of several fulfillment options when ordering online, over the phone, and in the store. Also even though the retailer may not have the product in a particular store, it moves it through its supply chain potentially consuming supplies reserved for other channels in order to enable customer pickup at their favorite store. The cherry on the cake is obviously if the customer can be promised an accurate date upfront at the time of ordering despite all these complications of fulfillment. One of the ways to achieve this - implementing a smart and configurable availability engine over the various inventory sources available at a retailer.
You can learn more about these differences between multi channel operations and multi channel strategy by viewing my videocast discussion with Dan Gilmore, Chief Editor of Supply Chain Digest. The details of the videocast on August 17th are available at http://www.sctvchannel.com/Videocast_Fulfilling_Multi_Channel_Commerce.php.
