How e-commerce can reduce cycle time, improve employees’ empowerment and facilitate customer support?

Why use E-commerce??

Reduce Cycle Time

Traditionally, producers sell their products to customers through intermediaries such as wholesaler and retailer. E-commerce eliminates those middlemen between sellers and buyers by removing links from trading chain and put producers directly in touch with the customers. It provides a 24 hours store that also reduces sale cycle and reduces unnecessary phone calls and mailings.

Improves Employees’ Empowerment

E-commerce also improves employees’ empowerment where provides enabling technologies for the company’s employees. It can improve employee knowledge and effectiveness, which reduces contact handle times. Other than that, E-commerce increase employees’ empowerment by providing better decision support and reference tools and provide desktop enhancement for employees for data access and retrieval. Thus, it improves employees’ morale and loyalty.

Facilitates Customer Support

On the consumer level, an individual can go online to purchase anything from books, grocery to expensive items like real estate, online bill payments, buying stocks, transferring funds from one account to another, and initiating wire payment to another country. All these activities can be done with a few keystrokes on the keyboard. Using e-commerce gives customers the opportunity and shop at their convenience and at their place. They can access into e-commerce from home, office, or on the road, 24 hours a day, and 7 days a week. Besides, it slowly builds loyalty since it is so convenient and saves time.

The history and evolution of E-Commerce

The word E-Commerce or electronic commerce was founded late in the 1970’s. The term was introduced for transactions done via computer to computer.

There have been several key steps in the history and evolution of E-Commerce. To interchange data and to carry out business deals electronically in 1960’s Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) was formulated. Initially ecommerce was facilitating business transactions electronically using technology such as EDI (electronic data interchange) and EFT (electronic funds transfer) to send business documents such as purchase orders or invoices. However, in 1984 the ASC X12 standard became stable and reliable in transferring large amounts of transactions. In 1969 ARPANET, was developed by Americas department of defence for researching new reliable networks and later this enhanced into Internet that was purely used as a research tool for nearly 20yrs.

In 1991, Tim Berners-Lee developed World Wide Web at CERN that started the first Internet transaction. These technology supported exchange of data that was in text format only. The next major step occurred in 1993, Mosiac was developed by Marc Andreessen, this is the first graphic web browser. The Mosaic browser was quickly adapted into a downloadable browser. Netscape, the most successful graphic browser was later developed by Marc Andreessen. On the other hand, Microsoft came up with Microsoft Internet Explorer. The first business deal took place in 1994 and since then there have been billions of dealings.

Later in 1998 DSL was launched into the market that provided much faster access and persistent connection to the internet. A major merger, in early 2000, between AOL and Time Warner was another major push for electronic commerce. The merger, worth $350 million, brought together a major online company with a traditional company. In February 2000 hackers attacked some major players of E-Commerce, including Yahoo, eBay and Amazon. In light of these attacks the need for improved security in the development of electronic commerce

As the websites grew the importance of internet today is thousands of times what it was only a decade ago. E-Commerce is a new form of business that has developed rapidly. It provides a different mode of doing business that helps reduce labour cost and much faster transaction

An example of E-commerce success and it causes

E-commerce is defined as “the sharing of business information, maintaining business relationships and conducting business transactions by means of telecommunications networks”. It also includes various processes within and outside the organization in addition to buying and selling activities.

Generally, there are some rules for a successful e-commerce website. First of all, the retailer has a product or products that meet the customer need. After that, the retailer needs to use the website to advertise the product and make the website as attractive as possible, displays the product to best advantage.

For online payment systems and credit card processing, the retailer must ensure that customers feel secure in the online transaction. It is because customers are very concern about the level of security when providing sensitive information online and will use e-commerce only when they develop a certain level of trust. So the retailer must ensure the transaction is fully secured and no unauthorized access. The retailer makes it easy for customers to purchase products by using the credit card or e-banking systems.

The success case of e-commerce is bookseller

www.ABE.com , with no venture capital, is presently

slaughtering the VC-funded S.F. ABE.com did a lot of things right on the web, they put up a simple, user-friendly web site that delivered what the customers wanted, a good selection of used books at good prices.

But they did even more things right at the back end. For example, they left the books right where they were, sitting in low-rent used bookstore space. Alibris took possession of the books, piling up warehouse rental costs, labor costs, and doubling their shipping costs. ABE.com acted modestly, an appropriate stance in the quiet world of used bookselling. Alibris spend money with splashy advertisements in New Yorker magazine. ABE.com went out of their way to accommodate computer-illiterate used booksellers, by accepting inventory data in virtually any format. And not least, ABE.com answered the telephone, and they were pleasant to customers and suppliers alike.

As a conclusion, E-commerce success is not so easy, it need a clear vision and goal, patient and long-term view and embrace technology and change.

An example (pets.com) of an E-commerce failure and its cause

Today, businessmen are expending their business through internet in order to compete with their competitor. Businesses often rely on the Web to attract clients, communicate with suppliers, and generate revenues. As a result, the cost of failed online transactions can be significant even a single hour of downtime could cost a retailer thousands of dollars in lost sales. The use of the internet and web to transact business is called E-commerce. E-commerce had brought success to most of the businessman. However, there are also some failures. Now, let us look at some causes of failure in E-commerce and a real world example.

Causes of failures in E-commerce
The causes of failures in E-commerce can divide into four categories namely: software failures, operator error, hardware failures, and security violations. Software failure is failures occur during routine maintenance, software upgrades and system integration. Operator error occurs when the operator either omits an action or executes an incorrect action during system maintenance. Other than that, a hardware failure is also one of causes of E-commerce failure. It can occur for several reasons, for example, wear and tear of mechanical parts and loose wiring. Besides, some common security violations that occur in websites are password disclosures, Denial of Service (DOS) attacks, worms and viruses and theft.

A real life example
Pets.com (1998-2000) The important dot-com lesson was that advertising, never able to give pet owners a persuasive reason to buy pet online. Afteno matter how clever, cannot save you. Pets.com was r they ordered a pet, a customer had to wait a few days to actually get it. Moreover, because the company had to undercharge for shipping costs to attract customers, it actually lost money on most of the items it sold.

As a conclusion, all of the relailer need to enhance their operation and maintenance in order to prevent failure and become success in E-commerce.

Rzhen's story

I am Choo Jui Chan, study in UTAR Sungai Long Campus, which is the faculty of management and Accountancy. The course I am taking is accounting, which is also the choice of the majority student here. My friend, Li Yuen and I are come from Johor Bahru. Another two friends, Sei Li and Eunice are come from Segamat and also a friend, Rathi come from perak. We all are year three semester one ‘s student already. I will feel that the time is passing so fast.
My hobbies are listening music, shopping and traveling .In the last semester break, Li Yuen, Sei Li, Eunice and I have been go to the trip of Pulau Perhentian, Lang Tengah and Pulau Redang .The trip is organized by the traveling society of UTAR. The scenery is very beautiful and the sea is very clear and clean. Four of us are very enjoy the trip. We have been learn how to snorkeling, this is my first time snorkeling. At first, I am very fear, but finally I went snorkeling and I feel that the underwater is very attractive with coral and also a lot of fish such as nemo fish.
The websites I visited most are http://www.yahoo.com/, http://www.google.com/, http://www.utar.edu.my/, http://www.msn.com/ and http://www.friendster.com/, because I can connect with my friend with the inexpensive, convenient and the easiest way through internet The purpose of visited are search for the information I needed, knowing the up-to-date university news, chat with my friends and getting know the new friends. With the useful of Internet, I can listen the music and movie I like, see photo, chatting, search information and email to my family or friends.
Studying here is a good opportunity for knowing new friend and learning, I will appreciate lifestyle here and leave with a happy memory when I was graduated soon.

Shirley story

Hi! I am Chong Sei Li, 21 years old and now study at University Tunku Abdul Rahman. I am youngest in my family, I have two brothers and three sisters. My hometown are located in Johor , Segamat. My house are located in a village that call Kampung Sawah Padi , there are greenful, good view , and resident there are simple and helpful. My village actually a peaceful place for holiday because there quite quiet after 8 pm.

My hobbies is traveling. When holiday or weekend and when there are extra money in our pocket, my boyfriend and i will go for traveling. If weekend we will go to kuantan or Gunung Ledang because there quite near with my hometown, if we have more than 2 days holidays we will go for long-distance place. There many places we had visit like Thailand ,Pulau Langkawi, Pulau Redang,Pulau Pangkor,Pulau Pinang , Ipoh, Pulau Tioman, Melaka ,Terengganu and also China.

Websites that I visited most are http://www.yahoo.com/ , http://www.google.com/ , http://www.friendster.com/ , http://www.chinapress.com.my/ and http://www.utar.edu.my/. I visit yahoo for check mail, Google for seaching information that I need , friendster as a website that maintence my connection with my friend , view newspaper with chinapress and know the information in University with UTAR website.5 internet activity I use with internet are search for information, view video , listen song, chat with friend ,and also check mail.

Lastly, hope that i can successful graduate from university

Getting to know Ms Eunicet87!!

My name is Eunice Tee Tsui Huan. I am 21 years old and I came from a peaceful small town called Segamat. After two years of studying diploma in Tunku Abdul Rahman College, Johor Branch Campus, I came to University Tunku Abdul Rahman to further my studies in Bachelor in Commerce (Hons) Accounting and I am now a Year 3 Semester 1 student.

Even though I am major in accounting course but my hobbies are arts, designs, traveling and photography!

The trip to Pulau Perhentian, Pulau Redang and Pulau Lang Tengah during my last semester break was unforgettable! I have the chance to go snorkeling for the first time and to see the colourful underwater world. I also have the chance to take photo of the island with my Canon Powershot S5.

Besides travelling, i also like to draw and design. During my semester break, i will definitely spend some time on arts and drawings. It is one of my way to relief stress.

I would like to share with you some of the websites which i surf most of the tme. I often login to UTAR website (www.utar.edu.my) to check out for the latest events in the universities. I can also check the timetable and examination result in the website. Through UTAR website, I am able to link to the Star (www.thestar.com.my) where I can read newspaper on-line. Whenever I want to search for information to do my assignment, Google website (www.google.com.my) is definitely my top choice. It shows result according to web, image, mp3 and others. Other than that, I also surf multiply (www.multiply.com) where I can view many nice photos uploaded by professional photographers where I can learn photo shooting technique from their photos. My only email website is Hotmail (www.hotmail.com). I always login to hotmail to check my mail and it is much easier to send message. I also visit Youtube (www.youtube.com) to view video clips uploaded by different people around the world.

The top 5 internet activities that I have learnt are:

* browsing and sesarching for information on the www

* communicating with others via e-mail

* downloading and uploading files

* logging on to remote computers

* conducting business activities

I hope to get some comments from you and finally, thanks for viewing my blog!