Caring for your e-business
It is a well-known fact that most that e-commerce and e-retailing are the new buzz words in the field of commerce. According to emarketer.com, online sales showed an increase of 25% in the year 2005. This means that online is the way to go for most of the business. Here are some tips and facts that shows how what to do in an e-business and how having an e-business can be a great way of cutting down the cost.
Revenue is not everything: One has to remember the fact that revenue is not the end of everything. It is equally important to build brand awareness as well as provide good customer satisfaction as these factors also play a crucial role when it comes to earning revenue at later stages. Initially when the concept of e-business was launched many of those involved in the e-business deployed all the strategies which included banner ads and Pay per click. The thinking was that revenue would be easily generated. This revenue was equated with success however, a little later they realized that the actual earnings fell way short of expected targets. The fact is that revenue is not everything in an e-business. Though it is important it is also important to give attention to the end customer. Similarly it is necessary to promote the website of a company if it has to be successful in an e-business venture.
Allow easy access: It is necessary to allow easy and free access to certain data or material a website has. This is necessary to attract traffic. Allowing publication of newsletters, journals, search result etc, to remain in public domain is important. By keeping magazines, journals and books off limit and restricting it to members only restricts their popularity and their chances of garnering online subscription. It is often noticed that even if a full version of a novel is available online, people prefer buying the print version. This is because unlike an online version a print version is easy on the eyes, can be read anywhere and anytime and can be also archived at the convenience of the user. For e.g. If a small time magazine decides to make its copies online, it might get featured in a search engine result. There is also a very good chance of getting some new subscriptions as people might find the content appealing and may subscribe to the magazine.
Free is not viable: Sometimes the business may be such that free is not just an option. For e.g. if an art house is planning to start a website, it is obvious that it cannot sell the paintings for free. So in order to increase its online business it has the option of putting a display of its paintings on the website. Many might be wary of putting a painting online for a display. What if someone copies the idea? But the fact is that online visibility only leads to selling off things that are usually hard to sell. And then there is always the protection of the copyright law. Also with the availability of certain software, it is possible to prevent the copy of images uploaded on one's site.
Efficiency and economy goes hand in hand: It is a common fact that efficiency leads to economy. By adopting technology in certain process, a firm can make itself more efficient as well as increase its savings. Some of the places where technology could be put to use are:
Intranet and extranets: All organizations, irrespective of their size, have to create documents, reports, events and schedules, etc. These are used for communicating with the client as well as inter-company communication. Technology can be used for providing a common platform for carrying out communication. This saves the paper work and also increases the speed of communication that in turn increases efficiency.
Try to amalgamate technology and human resource: Human resource is often the most costly of all the resources. Hence a company can try to use technology instead of human beings to save on cost and increase the efficiency. For e.g., in international exams such as GRE and TOEFL the role of the paper examiner has been completely done away with. The computer judges the knowledge level of the candidate and accordingly decides the questions that are to be asked. The questions are chosen from the data bank, which is stored in the computer's memory. The results are also made known then and there as they are computed by the system itself.
Better customer service: By turning some part of its business into an e-business a company might be able to provide better services to its customers. Technology has always tried to make human life easier. The same fact can apply to business entities. Internet banking is a classic example where the power of Internet has been harnessed to provide better services to the customers. Almost all the banks in the world provide their customers the ease of carrying out transactions and other banking functions at a click of a mouse.
E-business can give the organization a chance to harness the power of net and technology and bring in efficiency and cost-effectiveness in its workflow.
