Week 3 - How E-commerce can reduce cycle time, improve employees' empowerment and facilitate customer support

E-commerce is buying and selling of product or services made over the electronic system such as internet and computer networks. E-commerce is getting common, when computer started to enter to our everyday life such as making payment over e-banking and shopping over internet. With the appearance of internet, e-commerce enable businesses reduce cycle time, improve employees’ empowerment and facilitate customer support.

Cycle time is defined as the amount of time needed to complete a transaction which consist of receiving an order from customer preparing invoices or receipts , preparing product, delivering process and transaction. Normally, cycle time is a recurring process. Businesses trying to cycle time to make revenue generated faster. It can be reduce by eliminate the non-value add activities such as product repair, machine set-up, inspection, testing and schedule delays. In e-commerce, paperless environment has speed up the cycle time normally taken for a traditional transaction. By using Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), cycle time could be reduced in the part of reimbursement of stock. When the stock level is low in the retailer’s warehouse, without order of retailer, the supplier able to view stock status of retailer and deliver stock to retailer’s warehouse. A good example will be Finney Automotive Inc. in Cadiz, Ohio. Eric Sheets, the office manager of Finney Automotive said they able to reduce cycle times and better overall efficiency on the shop floor via e-commerce by get connected to their supplier. They get their damaged rental vehicles back on the road and generating revenue. It’s proven that with mean of e-commerce, transaction done faster for an average of one full day.

Employees’ empowerment refers to the authority given to make decision without consulting the manager. With the new way of running business, e-commerce, employees must respond promptly to the inquiry of customers, otherwise, the customers will shift to others competitors. Particular in customer service, resolving complaint is crucial to businesses to retain customer and complete sales. A good example will be Ford Motor Co. It had just been awarded ‘Best internal corporate website ever’ in year 2001. Its intranet support over 175,000 users across 92 countries, which also allow employee to customize their site and view to get information and tools they need for their job.

Lastly, how exactly e-commerce facilitate customer support? With the features of websites, businesses can operate 24 hours 7 days non-stop throughout the year. Customers can reach a seller whenever wherever they are via internet. Without the human facilitation, businesses can list frequently asked questions by customers together with the appropriate answers. This can save time as similar questions won’t be answered over and over. When customer service personnel not around, email support is useful whenever customers have problems. If the site is very large and complicated, putting an internal search engine will able to assist customers to find what they want without having to navigate their way through the site. For example, Ebay and Amazon.