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

E-Commerce is a type of business model, or segment of a larger business model, that enables a firm or individual to conduct business over an electronic network, typically the internet. Electronic commerce operates in all four of the major market segments: business to business, business to consumer, consumer to consumer and consumer to business. There have some advantages by using E-Commerce which will discuss below.

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Cycle time is the amount of time between a customer placing an order when they are needed and receiving the goods. Reducing cycle times means that shorten the time it take for a business to complete the productive activity from the beginning until the end. It can increase competitive advantage, decrease costs, and increase revenue. E-Commerce reducing the cycle time by eliminating an intermediaries between sellers and buyers because they attempt to sell directly to customers. Besides that, online store operates at 24 hours so the customers are given the opportunity to browse,shop and do their transaction in any time. In addition,customers can receive relevant and detailed information in seconds, rather than days or weeks. For example, Dell has plans to open manufacturing facilities in emerging markets such as Brazil, India and central Europe on September, 2007 in order to get closer to customers and reduce cycle time.

E-Commerce also improve employees'empowerment by enabling or authorizing an individual to think, behave, take action, and control work and decision making in autonomous ways. For example, customers are able to view your online shop (your website) and then they will choose exactly what type product they want, so the employees are responsible to deal with the customers without need to get permission from their employer. This is because employees can make their own decicions, thus this will increase the productivity. Moreover, E-Commerce also providing employees with greater and easier access to information provided by the employer. With the intranet, employees can be able to access the company's database to know the latest activity.

E-Commerce facilitates customer support by providing a wide range of technological solutions and communication opportunities. Additionally, E-Commerce supports self-help customer service so consumers can answer their own questions.Besides that,consumers also can send their inquiry for some products and services by email to enable them to get the detailed information.On the other hand,E-Commerce provides customers with more choices and frequently provides customers with less expensive products and services by allowing them to shop in many places and conduct quick comparison.