EBusiness and the Dairy and Grains Industry Value Chains in Australia

The work presented looks at the “What”, “Why” and “How” of doing business electronically in the Grains and Dairy industries in Australia. The investigation found that the use of internet-enabled business practices between members of both chains is increasing rapidly and is gaining respect as a means of improving efficiencies and productivity. It also found that the drive for electronically enabled business practices is coming from the larger food processing organisations, not only on the premise of improved internal efficiencies, but also because of increasingly tough food safety and quality assurance requirements that are prompting the need for real time quality information and decision support for product tracking back to source. Despite some similarities in the use of eBusiness processes and practices in the two chains, there were some different drivers and barriers to technology adoption, which are discussed