April 20178 IN MY VIEWECommerce means different things to different people. It is often narrowly described as being the business to consumer (B2C) small order home delivery market. But it's much more than that. eCommerce can be a platform for service businesses to connect customers to their offerings, such as a cooking school attracting new students or Uber matching passengers and drivers. It can also be a tool for large retailers to connect with their individual outlets to provide services such as automated inventory management and reordering services using point-of-sale data. Alternatively, it can be a platform for customers to find goods and compare prices before they physically purchase goods in-store. The applications and variations of eCommerce are endless and will grow exponentially as businesses start to use big data analytics to tailor and target solutions to end customers. The supply chain industry has been using eCommerce in the form of electronic data interchange (EDI) to communicate with its customers for over 20 years. Supply chain partners use it to swap order information between their distribution centres and sales and customer service teams to ensure B2B deliveries occur on time and accurately. The current explosion in eCommerce is an extension of this same concept to a different audience, namely smaller unit B2C orders, allowing businesses to communicate directly with their end customers to offer a more customised and targeted channel of supply. Asia leads the pack Asia is one of the largest and fastest growing eCommerce markets in the world, with Indonesia, Vietnam, and India leading the way in providing more creative and complex omni-channel distribution options to the end consumer. This trend is being driven by increasing minimum wages and a growing middle class with more disposable income on one hand, and decreasing `free' time owing to increasing congestion and transit times on the other.The swiftly declining traffic speeds in Jakarta for example, is directly influencing the rise of eCommerce in Indonesia simply through residents' increasing inability to easily access shopping malls. In fact, average traffic speeds in Jakarta are regularly recorded at around 8km/hr. This, combined with limited public transport options, means eCommerce is becoming a necessity rather than a choice for many Indonesians. The growth of eCommerce and omni-channel SolutionsBY CARLY CUMMINGS,CIO, LINFOX ASIA AND DIRECTOR, THE AUSTRALIAN-THAI CHAMBER OF COMMERCELinfox is Australia's largest privately owned logistics company that is rapidly expanding in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, China and Hong Kong. It employs more than 23,000 people working across five industry sectors: FMCG, Retail, Resources & Industrial, Australian Linehaul and Government & Defence.
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