A survey of U.S. manufacturers concerning COM practices revealed the following results:

• 40% reported a significant positive impact on business from COM, 42% a moderate impact

• 80% felt that tracking order management was worthwhile. However more than half were unsure what their order processing costs were.

• 55% of companies with customer retention rates of 80% or greater used real-time customer order tracking, and that group was also using real-time customer order data to reserve inventory (44%) and capacity (26%)

• Customer service was most often cited by respondents as a reason to invest in e-business

• 65% reported collaborating with all customers - the telephone and fax were seen as vital collaboration tools

• (49% used phone or fax as their primary collaboration tools)

• Other tools included e-mail (16%) and conventional EDI (14%)
  (Vinas, 2002)

An AMR Research survey concerning the quality of order fulfilment in the automotive manufacturing industry discovered that the best of Tier 1 automotive suppliers came close to providing 100% perfect orders with 98% to 99% of orders being supplied without defect. Supplier performance ranging from best to worst revealed only a 6% differential. However the Tier 1 automotive suppliers who produced the best results reported using more: