Discuss how E-Commerce can reduce cycle time, improve employees’ empowerment and facilitate customer support

E-commerce has indeed evolved and many companies are taking advantage of it to better suit the needs of the ever growing consumers. Companies are using the internet to smoothen and ease transactions, resulting in a reduction of cycle time.

Cycle time means the the amount of time needed for a company to complete a business transacton. The most important cycle time for a company to reduce is of course the buying process. Ebay.com for example has reduced the cycle time of buying process significantly. Below

are few easy steps to take to buy a product in Ebay :

First, You go into the website http://www.ebay.com/

Second, You click on 'BUY' icon at the top.

Third, You click on the item that you want to buy.

Fourth, You BUY the product.

Ebay has certainly gained competitive advantage against other competitors with these few simple steps as they make the buying process as easy as possible for customers and thus reducing the buying process.

E-Commerce can also increase employees' empowerment by giving them more authority to do certain tasks. This way, more tasks will be shared among employees and the top authorities will be less burdened with certain matters and they can spend more time on expanding and improving the business.

Employees can be empowered by delegating e-commerce responsibilities to them, such as allowing their employee to design the web sites and process, control and ensure the smoothness of transactions online, respond to complaints and suggestions of customer online, as well as updating company web site’s information, such as products details and news. For example, http://www.yahoo.com/ homepage will always change everyday especially the latest news compartment to update the readers. Below is an example of yahoo homepage:


















This way, employees will be more confident in handling the course and process of businesses and need not always refer back to the top authorities for their decisions as this will only slow down the transaction processes.



E-commerce can also help to facilitate customer support.



Customer support can be facilitated by having HELP sections or FAQs sections to help customers if they have any enquiries regarding the products or services provided by the company. This will also enhance the customer relationship and strengthen the loyalty of customers towards the company. Customers can make full use of the HELP services provided by the website. Example of it is like below:




















However, if the complaints or suggestions are being ignored and not replied immediately, there is always another alternative to voice out, which is through e-mail. You can email directly to the company and usually the company's email will be stated at the 'customer service' section. If howver you want to post a letter to them, you can always find a company's address at 'contact us' section.

An example of an E-commerce success and its causes

Nowadays, many e commerce companies have made their million dollars in buying and selling through the internet. An example would be the Succeed Corporation. Basically Succeed corporation is an Arizona-based eCommerce company that helps small businesses succeed online. In a simpler way, it offers small businesses the ability to quickly and easily set up an e-commerce website and access to a wealth of tools to manage their online presence.



Furthermore, Succeed Corporation was recently recognized as No. 50 fastest-growing company in the United States by Inc. is the premier provider of eCommerce solutions that small businesses need to quickly and easily set-up and run their online retail operations and it offers a series of products built on the Succeed iBuilder platform to meet new and evolving eBusiness demands. Moreover, the offerings include websites, web hosting, e-mail and e-mail marketing, eBay auction management, as well as access to hundreds of thousands of products through its integrated supplier network. Recently, Succeed Corporation was recently recognized as No. 50 fastest-growing company in the United States by Inc.



With energy costs rising, interest by entrepreneurs to start home-based businesses like those facilitated by eCommerce technology from Succeed Corporation® has increased. This would be one of the reason that made this company successful. Furthermore, services such as online banking, financial services, collaboration, intricate integration with suppliers and customers, advanced customer service, advanced marketing have further improve their facility.



Omar Sayed, Founder and CEO of Succeed Corporation once said that for more than a decade Succeed Corporation have been helping entrepreneurs and organizations conduct successful eCommerce and we'll continue to develop new features and services to meet their evolving needs. This statement has been a guideline for the company programmers to continue in improving the facilty as well as to provide better quality services to the customers.

The History and Evolution of E-Commerce

The History Of E-Commerce

The history of E-Commerce(EC) is a history of how Information Technology has transformed business processes. It provides with a detailed explanation of the stages which EC has actually evolved and began to be used as a popular online mean of economic exchange where it refers to the online transaction of goods.

The development of EC applications started in the early 1970s with Electronic Funds Transfer(EFT), which refers to the computer-based systems used to perform financial transactions electronically. However, the use of these applications was limited to financial institutes, large corporations, and some daring businesses.

Electronic Data Interchange(EDI) was then developed in the late 1970s to improve the limitation of EFT. EDI enlarged the pool of participating company from manufacturers, retailers, services, and others. Such systems were called Interorganizational System(IOS).

An IOS allows the flow of information to be automated between organizations to reach a desired supply-chain management system, which enables the development of competitive organizations.

From the 1990s onwards, EC would additionally include Enterprise Resource Planning systems(ERP), data mining and data warehousing.

The term ‘electronic commerce(EC)’ was coined in the early 1990s when Internet became commercialized and users began flocking to participate in the World Wide Web. EC applications were then rapidly expanded.

Possibly EC is introduced from the Telephone Exchange Office. The earliest example of many-to-many EC in physical goods was the Boston Computer Exchange, a marketplace for used computers launched in 1982. The first online information marketplace, including online consulting, was likely the American Information Exchange, another pre-Internet online system introduced in 1991.

The Evolution Of E-Commerce

The evolution of E-commerce(EC) can be attributed to a combination regulatory reform and technological innovation. Through Internet appeared in the late 1960s, EC now took off with the arrival of the World Wide Web(WWW) and browsers in the 1990s. The liberalization of the telecommunications sector and innovations such as optic fiber and DSL which has helped to expand the volume and capacity of communications that helped in the process of rapid growth. As a result, the barriers to entry and engage in EC have fallen rapidly. In other word, the evolution of EC is where the internet and electronic data exchanges are steadily becoming valuable tools in the supply chain, but in a way that involves instead of eliminates dealers.

EC were first developed in the early 1970s with innovations like:

• Electronic Funds Transfer(EFT)- funds can be routed electronically from one organization to another.

• Eletronic Data Interchange(EDI)- used to electronically transfer routine documents, that expanded electronic transfers from financial transactions to other types of transaction processing.

• Interorganizational System(IOS)- a system which allows the flow of information to be automated between organizations in order to reach a desired supply-chain management system, which enables the development of competitive organisations.

Year	Event
1984	EDI, or electronic data interchange, was standardized through ASC X12. This guaranteed that companies would be able to complete transactions with one another reliably.
1992	Compuserve offers online retail products to its customers. This gives people the first chance to buy things off their computer.
1994	Netscape arrived. Providing users a simple browser to surf the Internet and a safe online transaction technology called Secure Sockets Layer.
1995	Two of the biggest names in EC are launched: Amazon.com and eBay.com
1998	DSL or Digital Subscriber Line, provides fast, always on Internet service to subscribers across California. This prompts people to spend more time, money, and online.
1999	Retail spending over the Internet reaches $20 billion, according to business.com
2000	The U.S government extended the moratorium on Internet taxes until at least 2005.

Sources:

http://newmedia.medill.northwestern.edu/courses/nmpspring01/brown/Revstream/history.htm

http://www.ecommerce-journal.com/articles/electronic_commerce_aka_e_commerce_history

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_commerce

http://ict.cdimm.org/man/engleza/ecomm03.pdf

http://www.tamingthebeast.net/articles6/world-wide-web-evolution.htm

An example of an E-commerce failure and its causes

The example of an E-Commerce failure that we choose is the webvan.com.

Webvan was an online grocery retailer. In the quest to become the number one online grocer, Webvan managed their way through a tangled web of operational changes. Webvan is an interesting failure, it was started in 1999 by Louis Borders, founding partner of Borders Books. The company spent an extraordinary amount of money during its short tenure as the largest and most promising pure play e-grocer.

On 9 July 2001, Webvan announced it would cease operations and seek temporary protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the U.S. bankruptcy code. About 2,000 employees lost their jobs. In money invested and employees affected, Webvan is the largest dot-com startup to fail.

Webvan grew too quickly, even for a New Economy company, and eventually choked on its own complexity. It focused on the delivery side of the dot-com shopping explosion but, like others, found sluggish consumer spending and the slowing economy impossible hurdles. Webvan failed because:

Ø It could not break the physical strength of traditional players in the grocery market, such as Safeway and Wal-Mart.

Ø It could not offer a strong value proposition to dot-com retailers and grocery consumers.

Ø It could not make a profit as a niche operation.

Stewart Alsop chimes in with his opinion on why Webvan failed. The company wasn't run by entrepreneurs, but by consultants. Entrepreneurs understand the very basic concept that any money you spend should advance the business. Consultants just spend money.

Webvan failed, but others have succeeded, and still others are still trying to

make a go of it. There are no guarantees of success. Nonetheless:

• Have a strong preexisting brand.

• Have good customer service.

• Have a preexisting distribution network.

• Operate on a dense geographic market.

• Have low costs.

Not all of these are necessary, but they help. Webvan managed one of

these - their customer service was good.