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

No doubt, internet usage has been more and more popular. Almost every single man on the streets including the aunty next door is using internet to carry out online activities such as searching for information. The wide usage of internet had caused a revolutionary business phenomenon, which is the electronic commerce(E-commerce). Nowadays, thousands and millions of companies regardless of their firm's size use e-commerce as one of their business strategy. They create websites in order to promote and sell their products online. These companies allow business transactions to be carried out electronically. E-commerce makes them more competitive and stands out among the others. Now, let us have a peek on the benefits of the E-commerce.

Cycle time is basically the period of time from the order take place to the end of the transaction. Time is always precious to human beings as well as a business. If a business manage to reduce its cycle time, it has greater advantage over others. By implementing E-commerce, it helps to eliminate some unnecessary business transaction processes. For example, without the intermediaries, E-commerce speeds up the purchasing process as customers place their order directly to the producer after viewing the online catalogues. The producer on the other side will receive the order almost instantaneously and starts to respond and process it. By having E-commerce, there will be no purchasing order that are needed to be transfered from one department to another for authorisation which will take up time. Therefore, the process can be done within seconds. This does not only reduce the cycle time, it also helps to cut down the cost.

Other than reducing cycle time, E-commerce improves employees' empowerment as well. As we know, employees' empowerment means giving employees the authority to act and make decisions on their own. In firms that are using E-commerce, customers are put directly in touch with the staffs. The employees are given authority to deal with customers' needs and enquiries directly. They can also receive and responds to customers' comlpains in a short period. These enable the companies to build strong relationship with customers and maintain customers' loyalty. Besides, the companies' website is the most vital asset. It serves as a platform that introduce goods and services to all the potential customers. It is equals to the traditional shop lots or counters. Therefore, it is important for the employees to have authority to access and retrieve the companies' lastest information in order to update the website.

These days, most of the companies which are using E-commerce offers services in assisting their customers to make cost effective and correct use of a product. Customer support can be facilitated by a wide range of technological solutions. Customers can send enquiries to the websites and there will be a quick response. E-commerce also enables customers to shop online through out the day as it operates 24hours per day, 7 days per week. This will be more convenient to the customers as they do not need to rush to the shops or complexes before they closed. Besides, having full range of options or products attached with description facilitates the customers in understanding the products well and eventually made the right decision.

In short, E-commerce not only benefits the organization but also provide a better place for customers to shop in.