Beyond Offline Frontiers
In the digital age, finding a business house which has no website or presence on the Internet is next to impossible. However , one can list many companies who create a site and leave it to fend for itself. Few people are aware of business applications of the internet. Here are some reasons that will justify as to why one should give a little more attention to the virtual world.
Virtual Office: The Internet offers a place to set up an office in the virtual world. Think of your website as a virtual office where you are able to meet your clients. It is a place, which offers a company a platform for interacting with a client. It is similar to the opening of a branch office so that a customer can come to that office which is more convenient for him. The online medium can also be used to carry out financial transactions, interact with the client; carry out intra-office communication all at the click of a mouse. This increases efficiency, saves time as well as cuts down upon costs. In case of a virtual office, it is always convenient for the customer as he has access to the site 24x7x365.
E-store: It is possible to create an online showroom or e-store for your business. For e.g. if you are into manufacturing electronic equipments, you can create a virtual showroom which will display the products and also contain a line or two about the product. They can easily browse the product list. One can even have a shopping cart so that the visitors can buy the products.
Access to the International Market: The biggest advantage of having a virtual office is that it has no geographical barrier. It is gateway to the international market. There have been instances where the company has gone in to regional markets. A good example will be The East India Company, which came all the way from England to do business in India, and this was well before the invention of the computer or the Internet. However, till date, only those companies having deep pockets could think of doing business abroad. The Internet has changed all that. A person sitting in India can take orders form abroad. Outsourcing is a result of this flexibility provided by the Internet.
Evaluation of the value addition by middlemen: Internet helps you to evaluate the role played by your middlemen. In the pre-internet era, it was difficult for buyers and sellers to locate each other. This job was best left to the middlemen. The dawn of the Internet put buyers and sellers within a few mouse clicks of each other. Hence those who just play the role of bridging the gap between the buyer and seller are being rendered futile. The Internet has provided business houses the option of retaining those middlemen who provide value additional service like providing market information etc.
Increases worldwide connections: A company can increase its worldwide connectivity. This is another opportunity presented by the web. For e.g. if a candle making firm in India sets up a website, it can get an order for a firm set up in Germany which is involved in distributing candles to churches in Germany. This networking can prove beneficial to both the firms. For the Indian firm it will mean an opening of one more market for its products. The German firm will benefit by making greater profits as the candles will cost be cheaper. Imagine so many increased opportunities for your business. And that too by just putting your business on the Internet.
Better customer satisfaction: Having the business online, in addition, to offline allows the business to serve the customers in a better way. One can provide better services by having chat forums, etc added on to the site. This will help the customers to inform about their grievances to the higher authorities and get prompt reply.
Equal opportunity: The Internet provides an equal opportunity for every kind of business. It does not matter whether you are a ten-employee firm or a 15,000-employee giant. It is true that larger firms will be able to spend more bucks on their online branding and advertisements. But there is space for everybody on the net. However, one has to make the site more search engine friendly to attract more potential customers.
Internet thus provides good opportunity to conduct business, in tandem with conducting business in the traditional manner.
