WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF ELECTRONIC COMMERCE
Customer care has benefited from various in e-commerce, EC also e-business continue to pay dividends as long as the benefits as reported by e-commerce site.wordpress.com (nd) are still achievable. Reduction in cycle time, staff empowerment and cutomer support are just a few of the benefits. Efraim Turban et al (2008).
CYCLE TIME
The cycle time for an organization refers to the time it takes to complete a transaction; also turn around time, speed of operation etc Internet banking is one of the ways Nigerian banks increase customers satisfaction and cycle time. More transactions are done on the internet, ATMs, POS machines, through patnerships with card companies like MasterCard, Interswitch, VisaCard and the rest of them. It is easy to find all these in almost all Nigerian banks now because the management wants to minimize cost while maximizing profit. Trading equities used to take a very long time before orders can be successfully effected before but can now be done by just one click on the right button in the right website. The same is applicable for purchasing University of Liverpool recommended textbooks. Inputting my mastercard details makes the process of search and final purchase shorter and easy to accomplish for me. EC has brought to the world the likes of ebay, amazon.com and others responsible for online auction. Time is money, so instead of driving all about looking for a shop that stocks what I need to buy, I would rather go to the internet search for it and purchase it immediately.
EMPLOYEE EMPOWERMENT
Organizations now allow their staff to take certain steps that were not possible without electronic commerce. Booking of Consumer loans used to be on paper before in Oceanic Bank until recently when the bank designed an online procedure that empowers staff to issue more loans per hour. The reason for this is not far fetched; a soft copy consumer loan file needs little or no correction since the already inputted formulas are there to do the correction. Checking the consumer loan can now be done at a very high speed because there are software for testing if the excel file followed the desired procedures or not. With the bank empowering their staff in EC, more value is added because staff now sees themselves as important participants of the bank as well.
Electronic Commerce makes it simple for online tutors to detect malpractices amongst students unlike in offline Universities, where Doctors and Professors have to read the hard copy assignments submitted by various students, there will always be cases where collution and plagiarism will not be detected. Students will surely copy themselves knowing fully well that the instructor might not get to know. This is not the case in an EC committed University where all assignments are submitted online through software like Turnitin and safe assign.
FACILITATE CUSTOMER SUPPORT
Customer support was taken to another level through highly specialized customer relationship management; Norton allayed fears that my monthly internet bill is exorbitant. It all started when my hard drive crashed and I lost a recently purchased Norton antivirus. I was frustrated and had to chat online with customer care representative of Norton through their chat software. As if that was not enough, the agent I spoke with blew my mind when he told me that he was going to install the software into my laptop from his remote location. I thought to myself this must be a joke until I saw my mouse moving and clicking certain menus on my desktop. It was a wonder then, I thought I was looking at a Norton miracle, he put my laptop in order within five minutes and still told me thank you. I replied as many times as possible and fell in love with purchasing my antivirus solutions from Norton because I feel that their EC investments have paid off after all.
CONCLUSION
Every good idea has to develop through changes, the world never stayed in one place. What might be perfect today might be faulty tomorrow, no wonder Polaroid felt comfortable until the digital imaging swept their business away. Holycoast.com (nd) It is very correct to say that EC has come to change the world and it is doing just that real well and fast too. The value of improvement that has met the organizations cannot be overemphasized and thus will continue to draw the attention of other corporations to invest in new ideas, innovations and technologies.
REFERENCES
E-commerce site.wordpress.com (nd), Benefits of E-commerce [Online] Available at: http://ecommercesite.wordpress.com/2008/06/14/reduction-of-cycle-time-improve-employees-empowerment-facilitate-customer-support-through-e-commerce/ (Accessed on 5th July 2009)
Efraim Turban, David King, Judy McKay, Peter Marshall, Jae Lee, Dennis Viehland, (2008) Electronic Commerc – A Managerial Perspecive ISBN 9780135135440 Intl Ed. Pearson Education Ltd. London
Thompson A, Strickland A, & gamble J (2008). Crafting & Executing Strategy: The Quest for competitive advantage, Concept and cases. 16th Ed. Boston: Mcgrraw-Hill Irwin.