COMPUTER APPLICATIONS IN

BUSINESS

ASSIGNMENT

SUBMITTED BY:
E-COMMERCE
Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce or ecommerce,
consists of the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems
such as the Internet and other computer networks.

IMPORTANCE OF E-COMMERCE  

Internet e-commerce and related technologies are playing an important role for
B2B transactions where the buying decisions are not reading automated. Internet
network provides an end user interface, and gives those end users global access.

E-commerce can be used to search, purchase and after sales services.

Organization can search for goods and services that are not available from their
existing suppliers. Search may not be successful but there is no harm in trying.
There are lot of sites where organization can find supplier for good and services.
Organizations can purchase or sell goods and services over the Internet. After sales
services are very expensive and required a lot re-engineering, but with the help
of Internet e-commerce these services are to be effectively and economically
delivered via the Internet.

Online purchasing is very convenient for customers and can provide competitive
advantage for the vendors. According to Cunninghum, CISCO’s director of advanced
customer services, “we roll something out, put it on the web with a secret url, show
a couple of dozen customers, listen to their comments, true it, tweak it, let it out.
Six months later we were going to have a change or two. We plan for it. It’s not a
surprise, not a shock, nobody’s hurt. Our most successful tools (commerce agents),
became that way because customers said, ‘Its what I want. I want the output on
the screen, in e-mail, or a fax.’ Boom! We were not so smart; we just do what the
customers tell us.”
E-bay
BENEFITS FOR THE CUSTOMERS

EBay serves two main purposes. The first is to effectively expose your item to
millions of people on the web. eBay is the first place many people go to look for
items, both new and used, so placing your item here means that you have a much
higher chance of people finding out about it.

The second, and equally important reason, is that eBay gives your site and
company tremendous exposure at a very low cost. For as little as 30 cents, you can
create an auction which highlights your product—and can direct people to your web
site. That’s incredibly cheap advertising that’s totally focused towards people who
are searching for what you have to offer.

Success stories: A teddy bear maker in Virginia used to sell her hand-made crafts

for $30 a piece. With the exposure she gets on eBay, her bears now sell from $100
to $300 each. Even if you don’t have a web site, you can use eBay

A non-profit pet rescue group in Los Angeles has raised thousands of dollars a

month selling items.

An antiques and crafts store in a very small town now sells their items worldwide. A
simple links from their site to eBay allows them to showcase items in stock. They
can do this all without any knowledge of web building software—or any software
other than their web browser. (To learn a trick for linking from your site to a gallery
of your items on eBay, click here.)

Many small stores now sell more on eBay than they do through their storefront.
You’ll see sellers who’ve sold thousands of items and are literally making a living
just by selling on eBay.

These are just a few of the millions of small businesses that use eBay. Larger
businesses can use it to make sure that their items are available to millions of
people a day, to sell off excess inventory or refurbished items, or just draw more
people to their sites.

Think of eBay like a giant swap meet—eBay provides the site and bidding system.
They don’t provide the items—you do. Transactions take place between individuals,
and eBay has nothing to do with these transactions other than to host them.

eBay totally geared towards making money, whether it’s selling items from your
attic or your stockroom.
You post an item and decide how long you want your auction to run. You can also
choose to include a “buy it now” button buyers can use to purchase your item
instantly at whatever price you set.

You write your own copy, take your own photos, and completely control what you
say about your product.

BENEFITS FOR THE COMPANY

Companies become more and more interested in expanding their operations online.
E-bay has many benefits and advantages not found in the typical brick and mortar
location, and therefore, explains why so many businesses are flocking to the
website.

It offers advantages that include the ability to expand into global markets with a
minimum of expense, thus allowing firms to reach narrow market segments that
are geographically scattered.

As the Internet is a cost effective medium of delivery, the main advantage of eBay
is its cost efficiency. And here's why: eBay decreases the cost of creating,
processing, distributing, storing and retrieving paper-based information. High
mailing and printing costs are also lowered or, in many cases, completely
eliminated as the buyer most often pays for the shipping of the products that they
buy.

The cost of marketing of promotional material also drops drastically. Another major
advantage that most companies see is the increase & brings, and increased sales
typically mean increased profits as well.

Yet another advantage of moving a business on eBay is that it allows the flexibility
to target market segmentation, which in turn allows companies to focus on a select
group of customers, thus having a competitive advantage in giving them what they
want and satisfying unique needs.
TRANSACTIONS AT eBAY

Find an item.
Enter keywords into the search box located at the top of any page, or browse
through our list of categories on the home page.

Learn about the item you found.

Read the item description carefully. If you have any questions about the item, you
can find answers by clicking the Ask a question link.

Review the seller's Feedback.

View the seller's business reputation by looking at his or her Feedback score, and
read the comments left by previous buyers to be sure that this is a seller you feel
you can trust.

Bid or Buy It Now.

Check the item page to see what purchase options are available. You can either
place a bid on an item or purchase it instantly using Buy It Now. Remember, all bids
are active until the listing ends. If you win or click theBuy It Now button, you're
obligated to complete the transaction.

Pay for the item.

After you've won or bought the item, send your payment to the seller within 3 days.
To pay with one of the electronic payment methods offered by the seller, click
the Pay Now button in the listing or email notification If you're picking up the item,
you can pay by any method the seller accepts (including cash).

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT (CRM)

It is a widely-implemented strategy for managing a company’s interactions
with customers, clients and sales prospects. It involves using technology to
organize, automate, and synchronize business processes—principally sales
activities, but also those for marketing, customer service, and technical support.
The overall goals are to find, attract, and win new clients, nurture and retain those
the company already has, entice former clients back into the fold, and reduce the
costs of marketing and client service.
 ADVANTAGES OF CRM
 Increase Customer Lifecycle Value 
In most businesses, the cost of acquisition of customers is high. To make
profits, it is important to keep the customer longer and sell him more products
(cross sell, up sell, etc) to him, during his lifecycle. Customer stay, if they are
provided with value, quality service and continuity. CRM solutions enable you to
do that.
 Execution Control 
Once the business strategy is put into motion, the management needs feedback
and reports to judge how the business is performing. CRM solutions provide
management with control and a scientific way to identify and resolve issues. The
benefits include a clearer visibility of the sales pipeline, accurate forecasts and
more.
 Customer Lifecycle Management 
To keep the customers happy, you need to know them better. At the minimum,
you need a centralize customer database, that captures most of the information
from your entire customer facing departments and partners. Integrated CRM
solutions, like CRM enable you to manage customer information, throughout all
stages of their life cycle, from contact to contract to customer service.
 Strategic Consistency 
Because CRM offers business and technological alignment, it enables companies
to achieve strategic company goals more effectively, like enhanced sales
realization, higher customer satisfaction, better brand management and more.
Additionally, the alignment results in a more consistent customer
communication creating a feeling of continuity.
 Business Intelligence 
Due to the valuable business insights that CRM provides, it becomes easier to
identify the bottlenecks, their causes and the remedial measures that need to be
taken. For example, CRM provides real-time business focus dashboards with
extensive drill down capabilities that provide the decision makers with the depth
of information required to identify the causes and spot trends.

DIS-ADVANTAGES OF CRM

Record Loss
 Some CRM applications use remote Internet connections to save customer
records. Sales force is a popular CRM application provided through an Internet
connection on the company's domain. The disadvantage of this type of CRM is that
the company does not have control of the data, and if the remote CRM system has
an outage, the company is unable to retrieve records. If the company chooses a
small CRM application that is not stable, it can mean several thousands of dollars in
 lost revenue. When using a remote CRM application hosted by another company,
use local backups to avoid record loss.

Overhead
 If the company decides on a local CRM application, there are overhead costs
associated with running the software. If the software is proprietary, the company
needs to pay software developers, system administrators and maintenance people
to keep the software running. It's also important to keep backups of the
information, which adds an expense to running a personalized CRM application.
There may also be system downtime. Having a local personalized or proprietary
CRM system also requires the owner to do system upgrades and security patches to
ensure the integrity of the system.

Training
 If the company is small, training issues may be a small disadvantage. Large
corporations need to roll out training schedules for all their employees. For large-
scale CRMs, this can mean hiring professionals to train employees in groups.
Training takes away time for productivity, so it is a disadvantage for brand-new
CRM systems. The CRM training is also different for managers compared to regular
staff, because most CRMs have specialized functions for managers and executives.
These extra functions are also required learning. The training requirements can be
as short as a few hours or can take up to several days.

BENEFITS OF CRM FOR AIRLINE INDUSTRY

A vexing question for a number of airlines is how much value does customer
relationship management, or CRM, really deliver to the bottom line and how does
an airline go about getting it? While this question remains unanswered, many
skeptical senior managers will continue to pay lip service the strategic importance
of a customer-centric perspective and will continue with business as usual. Applied
Technologies Group's investigation of 17 world-class airlines has clear indicated that
significant revenue improvements of n 0.9 and 2.4% are achievable 

This revenue increase comes from three areas:

 Re-attracting defected customers, which accounts for between 0.1 and 0.3%
of revenues;
  Increasing the share of a customer's travel wallet, which accounts for 0.3 and
1.2% of revenues;
 Acquiring new customers, which accounts for approximately 0.05% of
revenues?

Naturally, associated with these revenues are costs, but these only amounts to
between 0.3 and 0.6% of the existing cost base:

 The marginal additional flights needed as incentives estimated to be between

0.2 and 0.4% of costs;
 Additional CRM initiatives amounting to between 0.2 and 0.5% of costs.

Savings in costs due to more efficient and targeted running of the existing CRM
program, providing a reduction of 0.1 to 0.3% of costs;

As stated above, the bottom line impact of CRM is significant, but varies according
to the airline implementing the initiatives. The range estimates are:

 For a large airline: $100-$250 million per year;

 For a midsize airline: $25-$60 million per year;
 For a smaller airline: $15-$50 million per year.

There are many benefits to be gained for airlines and airline passengers, firstly,
passengers could book and check in through internet 24 hours, 7 days a week, at
any time, any where. Secondly, airlines could reduce sales cost. American
Southwest Airlines CEO, Gary Kelly said the Web site is playing a major role in
mitigating the rise in unit costs affected by high fuel prices. It's 10 times cheaper to
deliver to customers through the online service than through a travel agent, Kelly
said, and costs 5 times less than using Southwest's own reservation staff. The
booking cost per passenger online is "well under $1," said Kelly, and is scaling down
even further. He said Internet use by passengers was helping the carrier keep fares
at low discount levels. (Aviation Week & Space Technology/March 6, 2000, p38).

Massive investment in both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-customer

(B2C) information systems is expected to translate into important cost savings in
procurement, sales, billing and other support activities. The airline's fully automatic
ordering system, for example, should reduce order processing costs by 90%,
according to Chairman/CEO Juergen Weber of Lufthansa Aviation Group. (Aviation
Week & Space Technology/May 15, 2000, p40).