Information Resources and Value-Chain De-Construction

The main driver behind this transformation is the availability of technological platforms that modify the main attributes of information.5
Over the past few years, significant, new opportunities in emerging technologies have changed the use of information assets: digitalisation separates the information flow from the physical one in the traditional supply chain, a phenomenon that is generally called 'business de-construction'.6
Information is detachable from its source in that it can be re-used, stocked and distributed.
For example, a company operating in a b2b digital marketplace can publish its catalogue on the Internet and make it available online, separating price information and selling conditions from the source that has generated them.
Information changes its specificity features, that is the number of individuals who benefit from its delivery.
In the above-mentioned example, the electronic catalogue is available to all those sharing the same digital standard, with no physical constraint.
Digitalisation also alters information plasticity since its original contents can be changed, modified, and shaped in the virtual environment.
For example, the product specifications published in an electronic catalogue can be easily modified and adapted to match customer needs.
One of the most important effects of these changes is removing the trade-off between information width, namely the number of individuals who benefit from it, and information depth, namely the richness of the message in a communication relationship.7
In the past, the main obstacle to sharing knowledge was the band restriction.
Only simple and codified information could be transferred and shared by many people.
Complex information flows and specific knowledge sharing were limited to closed environments.
In a digital marketplace, a machine tool producer can offer his products to a broader range of potential buyers than in an offline market. A buyer searching for a specific component can compare different product offers before making his final choice; the only problem is having companies with the same digital standards.
New technologies, which separate information flows from physical goods and services, eliminate this traditional trade-off in the information economy.
While the sales stock of a commercial distributor is limited by logistic restrictions, an online commercial intermediary can extend its product offering since he has no logistic boundaries.
The competitive pressure that many industries are now facing is a clear sign that the characteristics of information are changing.
The typical activities of the supply chains are now taking on original, new forms in the transaction processes.
Just as traditional value chains were linear, rigid and sequential, new value aggregations will become complex, flexible and synchronic.8
In this process, the role of infomediation services is crucial since they provide the efficient re-organisation of information in new value aggregations which is too expensive and complex to carry out and manage alone.
These services in the b2b environment will be the drivers of change and not only the enablers, and will become the strategic links in defining and constituting new value aggregations.


Note 5: On digital information features, see the in-depth analysis by Sampler (1998).
Note 6: In the traditional value chain the two flows partly overlapped since most of the information value was incorporated in the traded product and services. See Evans and Wurster (1997).
Note 7: For the analysis of digital information trade-off, see Evans and Wurster (1997, 1999).
Note 8: See the theoretical analysis of Ramirez (1999).



Top | Summary | < < Previous | Next > >
>> Home Page www.webprocure.de <<