Electronic -Business Question no 1 Explain major driving- trends in E -business :,

1 .....CONSUMERS TRENDS Faster service for the customer

Customers count speed of service as a key reason for doing business with certain companies Therefore, compress the number of steps it takes to serve customers. Customers hate delays moreover, they hate waiting for service, just look at the success of drive-through oil changes, drive-through fast food, and other quick turnaround businesses. Customers look for companies that provide faster service. To succeed companies must reduce trhe processing tine of search selection order entry and order fulfilment . delays at any step of the process unacceptable. It is very important that managers understand and diagnose the cause behind service delays managers need to analyse wether an integrated system can spreed service and so if they need to strategize, design and implement it as soon as possible .unfortunately, some managers wake up to late to heed the sound of customers fists pounding on the counters for faster service and their companies won t be in business for long time.

Self-service: empowered customers

The drivers of the self service waves are obvious consumers are able to shop anytime any where as long as they are connected to the internet .trips to the mall are eliminated along with parking hassales and long checkout lines. In the united states, a nation of families with two times workers, consumers generally have too much to do and too little time in which to do it. Therefore any technology or service that helps reduce shopping time has enormous economic value . This convenience or time saver megatrend best evidenced in the tremendous increase in fast food consumption in the past 30 years has been growing for the majority of the post world war II period. Self service has impacted a huge sector of the business work force the intermediary or middleman .when buyers and sellers realize that they can meet directly online.

Integrated solutions, not piecemeal products

The past decade has seen an interesting shift toward integrated solutions. A good example of an integrated solution is the Microsoft Office Suite. The office Suite product is one of the biggest money makers, Microsoft has because customers love its integrated functionality. Microsoft is betting that this demand for integrated product will continue in fact a core design objective in many of its products is seamless integration.

Electronic -Business 2....... E-SERVICE TRENDS Integrated Sales and service: customization and integration
The need to attract, acquire, leverage, and retain customers is still of primary concern to most business. Revenue growth through customer acquisition and retention remains a major requirement for competing successfully, to improve customer retention, companies are developing and managing customer relationships via better sales service integration and new technology. Customer relationships are the key to business growth. Firms must take absolute responsibility for a customers satisfaction throughout the want-itbuy-it and use-it experience. this requires learning and tracking customers needs behaviour and lifestyles and using this information to create a specific value proposition. This strategy is the path to consumer loyalty and it is called relationship selling.

Seamless support (consistent and Reliable customer service)

Making customers service easy and solution oriented is one of the most important trends in business today in this new era of customer-focused business, managers must understand that as customers value their time more they are less tolerant of screw ups in customer service as the speed of service increases the expectations for quality customer service grow higher. Companies that implement friendly and easy to use customer service processes present customer with single points of contact rather than shuffling them from one department to another so they have a new each time increasingly, customer service is no longer one customer dealing with one customer dealing with one enterprise. With outsourcing of business functionality and the increasing complexity of products, many service that guarantees customer loyalty, companies need to better coordinate their partners and vendors. To achieve their business objectives companies need to adopt integrated customer service applications that address the entire customer relationship rather than focus on departmental solutions that address only one part of the customer account relationship. Implementing integrated applications and the business practices they support will become increasingly critical for ensuring quality processes not only within a company but also in the firms relationship with its partners as a result organization should develop customer relationship solutions that go beyond the boundaries of the company to encompass the entire extended enterprise.

FLEXIBLE FULFILLMENT AND CONVENIENT SERVICE DELIVERY

Customers want everything more quickly, the multiple responsibilities and hectic schedules of today consumers are forcing retailers to produce innovative products and services. Home delivery and other unique fulfilment services continue to gain importance as consumer direct sales explode .

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To deliver the right product to the customer companies must streamline their supply chain the core component of the integrated suuplychain are quite simple take an order give an accurate promise dare manufacture the right goods allocate inventory properly, ship efficiently and do this while maintaining a minimal finished goods inventory The development of integrated supply chains is by far one of the most important business trends whatever bells and whistles you add to the basic foundation are wonderful. Quality business process can be enhanced by the implementation of new technology

Increased process visibility

Process visibility means providing business customers with access to accurate timely information about order status product and service helps create additional demand an excellent example of providing process visibility is the UNITED parcel Service ups tracking system customers can use the internet to track air and ground parcels anytime anywhere anyplace ups and fed Ex have changed customers expectations so that flawless delivery is now considered the norm not the exception part of the change in attitude comes from how customers now view the overnight package delivery business Process visibility is an essential business features as a package delivery companies compete with one another,

3.....Organizational Trends Outsourcing management

The modern business climate demands that companies live and breathe flexibility in order to survive. Such flexibility is often reflected in a firms decision to outsource specific business processes. Business processes outsourcing is the delegation of one or more business processes to an external provider to improve overall business performance in a particular area. For example, utility companies are outsourcing their cost centers (human resource and purchasing functions) in order to concentrate on their competence; making and selling energy BPO offers businesses innovative ways to save money and to enter or create new markets rapidly, without a significant up front investment. BPO provides a modular environment in which it is possible to scale up and ramp down depending on seasonal cycles and production needs the market trends driving the adoption of BPO strategies include pressure to increase earnings and reduce costs and an increased need to create and maintain a competitive edge. Traditionally, outsourcing has been used as a cost control technique, however, as globalization spreads and networking technology becomes more wide spread companies see outsourcing as a way to create a virtual enterprise, change corporate culture, gain access to premium thinkers and implement world class capabilities and technologies. Process owners are outsourcing entire processes for business performance rather than IT efficiency.

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Outsourcing strategies herald the beginning of a new era outsourcing lays the foundation for creating the virtual enterprise the core of the e business concept. The complexity of operations: the regulation and the de regulation of the markets: the steady, rapid advance of technology: and the need for continual growth are conditions that require core competency in too many areas for anyone company. A single organization working alone is no longer a justifiable business model.

Contract Manufacturing: Becoming Brand Intensive

Many web entrepreneurs have identified potential virtual distributor opportunities in various industries, and quickly established Websites. For example, in the chemical industry, ecommerce is changing the principles governing aspects of production planning, strategic thinking, and sales and marketing. The industry has long made a sharp distinction between commodity and speciality chemicals. But e commerce blurs the line because it makes all products a speciality by allowing other attributes to be layered onto the basic offering. e-commerce comes to the chemical industry just in time to provide a solution, allowing suppliers to deal directly and cost effective with even the smallest customer one of the reasons the chemical industry has been to slow to move electronic trading is the interwoven nature of trading links