E-Business

The application of technology to the activities in the life cycle of an order – from customer inquiry to order fulfillment - is called selling chain management. The e-business applications that automate these activities are called selling chain management applications.

Factors like increasing demand for customer self-service, the rising costs of pre-sales support, the increasing cost of order errors, changing sales channels, increasing product complexity, and the rise of mergers and acquisitions are driving the growth of selling chain management applications. Advances in technology have enabled continuous improvements in selling chain management applications.

The order acquisition process in the selling chain includes the following steps: identifying prospective customers, understanding their needs, exploring possible solutions, translating them into production, price and delivery terms, presenting the proposal to customers, revising it if needed, and preparing an order.