Sunday, June 15, 2008 . 1:32:00 PM
E-commerce: Reduction of cycle time, improvement in employees' empowerment and facilitating better customer servicesIn the globalize business environment, a business need to maintain its competitive edge in order to be successful. With the advancement of technologies, an organization can boost up its profit easily by applying E-commerce.
E-commerce is a system that allows an organization to communicate with its business partners, such as suppliers and customers by the use of electronic devices. With the use of electronic devices, it helps the organization to cut down the business cycle time. Cycle time refers to the length between a customer placing an order and the goods being sent to customer. For instance, when the customer made an order through the company’s webpage, the order will automatically registered into the company’s database, and sent the purchase order to related departments simultaneously. Similarly, when the stock has reached reorder level, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) system will automatically send an E-mail to the supplier to make the necessary orders.
E-commerce is a system that allows an organization to communicate with its business partners, such as suppliers and customers by the use of electronic devices. With the use of electronic devices, it helps the organization to cut down the business cycle time. Cycle time refers to the length between a customer placing an order and the goods being sent to customer. For instance, when the customer made an order through the company’s webpage, the order will automatically registered into the company’s database, and sent the purchase order to related departments simultaneously. Similarly, when the stock has reached reorder level, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) system will automatically send an E-mail to the supplier to make the necessary orders.Besides that, E-commerce also helps the organization to
facilitate better empowerment to employees. With the front end system, no employee is needed to interact with the customer while the customer is making order. While the employees are empowered to work on back end activities such as inventory management, accounting and finance, payment processing, delivery, etc. By doing this, an organization can have only little employees to run a business, while employees’ morale can be increased by empowerment. 
The key factor for a business to be successful is the ability to retain its customers. E-commerce able to provide a few “24/7” customer supports, such as user friendly “step-by-step” guidance, frequently asked questions, search engines, etc. Besides that, the online system includes customer service center, which specifically solve customers’ queries and deal with customers’ complaints. Feedbacks from customers are very important because it helps the company to identify the weaknesses, as well as the customers’ needs.E-commerce assists an organization to maintain its competitiveness by reducing cycle time, improving employees’ empowerment, and facilitate better customer supports. Therefore, it is considerable to implement E-commerce in the business as benefits are greater than costs.
