مدیریت کانال های توزیع در عصر تجارت الکترونیک

The emergence of electronic commerce (e-commerce) has created a new business paradigm, one that presents marketers with noteworthy opportunities and challenges. Perhaps the greatest impact is in the area of channel management. The top issue for many business-to-business (B2B) firms today is channel conflict. In this paper, we investigate the effect of introducing the Internet channel into an already complex, multichannel distribution system from the perspective of the supplier firm. We describe strategies for proactively managing conflict, both externally with channel partners and internally among the subunits responsible for managing the channels. Twelve propositions for research are developed; eight relate directly to the marketing mix and four focus on channel communication and coordination. All of the research propositions offered are mechanisms by which suppliers can influence the level of channel conflict they experience. Dedicated channel management groups, documentation of channel strategies, and superordinate goals are identified as strategies for minimizing unwanted conflict.

I don't think maturation and e-commerce belong in the same sentence. My picture of e-commerce is that it's on some kind of S-curve development. It's very, very early in the takeoff stage, and consequently, anything that we conclude about either the structure of e-commerce, the practice of e-commerce or the current players in e-commerce is very dangerous to draw a whole lot of long-term conclusions about. (Intel Chairman Andrew Grove, The Wall Street Journal, April 17, 2000) Led first by the Internet pure-play “dot-coms” and followed closely by the Fortune 500, the explosive growth of business-to-business (B2B) electronic commerce (e-commerce) has been well chronicled in the popular press. In its most recent forecast, Forrester Research predicts B2B revenues over the Internet will reach US$2.7 trillion in 2004, accounting for 17% of all B2B sales [1]. Such a large volume of online transactions would represent a sevenfold increase over the US$406 billion Forrester expects in 2000. The emergence of e-commerce has created a new model for doing business that affects all aspects of the marketing mix. A particularly important aspect of this new business paradigm is its impact on marketing channels. E-commerce presents business marketers with profound opportunities, including reduced costs, access to new market segments, and the ability to provide information worldwide on a continuous basis. However, e-commerce also introduces potentially significant challenges. Channel conflict is perhaps the most serious concern for companies as they add e-commerce. In a recent survey of 50 manufacturers, 66% indicated channel conflict was the biggest issue they faced in their online sales strategy, three times as many as the second most frequent response [2]. Firms are attempting to reconstruct the supply chain and make it more efficient, a process that will undoubtedly cause conflict with many of the supply chain's existing participants [3]. Traditional distribution channels are threatened by online e-commerce [4]. How supplier organizations manage this channel conflict throughout their entire distribution system will be an important factor in their success. The purpose of this paper is to address an important question for channels research — what impact does the advent of e-commerce have on managing channel conflict in a B2B setting? Emphasis is given to proactive strategies managers can utilize to prevent unwanted conflict, and propositions for future empirical research in this area are offered. The next section consists of an introduction to electronic marketing channels in the context of complex distribution systems, followed by a review of the academic channel conflict literature. Strategies for proactively managing channel conflict are presented next, along with research propositions. We conclude with a discussion of managerial implications and suggestions for future research in this area.

To summarize, we began by describing the recent explosive growth of B2B e-commerce, followed by a discussion of how it has added even more complexity to traditional distribution systems that were already using multiple channels. Next, we reviewed the marketing literature about channel conflict, making the important point that conflict can occur not only externally between the supplier firm and its channel partners, but also internally between the supplier's subunits responsible for managing all of the channels. We followed with the development of a number of strategies for managing channel conflict. Twelve research propositions were offered. The first eight used the marketing mix as an organizing framework to describe online strategies designed to work in a complementary way with the traditional distribution channels. The last four focused on the critical importance of communication and coordination, both external and internal, for managing channel conflict. Finally, we discussed the managerial implications of this paper and the need for further research in this important area. In conclusion, despite the uncertainty expressed by Intel Chairman Andrew Grove about e-commerce in the quotation at the beginning of this article, our prior knowledge in the channel management domain remains applicable. What has changed is that the advent of the Internet throughout B2B marketing has made managing channel conflict more important and complex than ever before. We hope our research serves to stimulate thought and inquiry in this exciting area, and that both academics and practitioners find it to be worthy of further study.