Interviews with Petrobras technicians showed the opportunities for improvement and the concerns to be addressed in future versions of Canal Cliente. Notable among them are:
• Supply Chain Management – integrating the flow of information from Canal Cliente to the physical flow of products. This integration seeks to explore the benefits from the synergy in the business between Petrobras, clients, transporters, logistics operators and sellers of the products.
• Integration of all clients with Canal Cliente – today, only a few Brazilian clients do not use Canal Cliente for their purchases. Non-inclusion of these clients implies maintenance of a structure parallel to Canal Cliente to receive orders and enter them in the system, resulting in costs and possible errors due to manual entry of data.
• Integration of Canal Cliente with other Corporate Systems of the Company – with benefits relating to business performance, integration of subsidiaries and relationship with shareholders, investors and clients.
• Integration of Payment Systems – to integrate the flow of information (Client-Bank-Petrobras) thus enabling Petrobras to have on-line and real-time knowledge of the payments made by clients while purchasing Petrobras products through Canal Cliente.
• Canal Cliente International – adaptation of Canal Cliente to serve the clients of Petrobras abroad. Today, about 10% of the billing comes from international market. For successful adaptation, there are a few difficulties to be studied and solutions implemented in the system, such as differences in the processes of the transactions made by companies in Brazil and other countries, in collection processes, local legislation and taxes on sales.
• Tax on Exports – at present, there are no international rules for taxation yet. Thus, in exports, there is a need to know the local legislation so that proposed prices for products are competitive.
• Adaptation of Sales Contracts Abroad – since Internet legislation varies according to country, there is a need to adapt the contract model to countries where Canal Cliente will be used. The model in operation is valid only for transactions within Brazil.
• Improvement in Sales Forecast – Canal Cliente databases have become the main source of information about sales made by Petrobras and, therefore, an important aid in managing its supply chain, forecasting demand for raw material, planning production at refineries and planning the export of surplus products and crude oil.
However, these benefits can be better used only if Canal Cliente is integrated to the Corporate Systems.
• Planning of Imports and Exports – improved sales forecast using sales information from Canal Cliente will allow planning of imports and exports of oil and products in situations that are more favorable to Petrobras than the spot market. Or even, to import certain oil derivatives under more favorable conditions instead of producing them.
CONCLUSION
Despite its complexity, the B2B Global Model was important for a holistic understanding of Canal Cliente and to guide the focus of technicians who participated in the Canal Cliente study about the relevant areas of environment in which this sales portal functions.
The B2B environment may be quite complex, depending on the location and how companies interact among themselves. This complexity may reach a level that may make it impossible to view the context the company operates in. This difficulty, however, may be reduced by using particular views of the environment generated by the B2B Global Model, obtained by applying filters like ‘show technology providers only’ or ‘show only those clients for a certain type of business and who operate in a certain region in the planet’. The possibility of separately treating subsets of the environment in which the organization operates makes it possible to follow up the results of implementing strategies for determined subgroups of companies without losing sight of the collateral effect on other companies operating in the environment.
Checkland's Soft Methodology facilitated understanding of the problem situation and, as a result of this understanding, it helped suggesting a series of action proposals which, if implemented, will promote feasible changes in Canal Cliente, benefiting Petrobras as a whole. Some of these proposals affect not only the internal environment of Petrobras, but also other external entities it deals with, like clients, financial institutions and transport companies. However, there is a need to implement the proposals suggested for intensifying intervention analysis, and analyses of the social system and political system. It is worth reiterating that the stage for the actions necessary for implementing the suggested proposals was not addressed in the study as it is the sole prerogative of Petrobras and requires the Company management's approval for execution.
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