1. Improving Commercial Relationships
The potential for implementing business-to-business communication online is enormous. Electronic data exchange (EDI) has been used in various industries in the past to streamline corporate procedures and lower the cost of communication between partners. Suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, and retailers can exchange inventory information and improve the flow of information and products along the supply chain by using EDI. The cost of communication and the amount of errors were decreased by transmitting the information electronically.
Due to the high cost and lengthy implementation process associated with EDI, many SMEs have not adopted it. Every partner that uses it once a corporation has adopted it must do the same. Even if two businesses already have an EDI infrastructure in place, the unique connection between these businesses must be put into place. If a business has 50 suppliers, setting up 50 EDI infrastructures will be quite expensive for the manufacturer.
Although the EDI paradigm is sound, the technology was too expensive. All businesses can now access it thanks to the Internet. Costs that have been cut in half frequently occur, and EDI on the web enables the delivery of more content. It is now possible to exchange information across several mediums, which strengthens participant relationships. The Internet's real-time capabilities foster a sense of cooperation and common objectives. All systems and components of a virtual value chain can seamlessly connect with one another thanks to EDI via the Internet.
Early Web EDI implementations were based on proprietary standards, however XML documents are now being used in an increasing number of Web EDI implementations. See Chapter 9 for more details about XML.
2. Receptivity
The Internet makes it simple to boost client responsiveness. In order to keep customers loyal to a firm, response to customers and partners must be improved. Customers feel that their needs are being met by the business when it is responsive. Customers may verify the position of their shipments at any time using Trans-O-Flex, a logistics and shipping firm in Germany. Although all businesses now must have this function, it was innovative a few years ago. Instead of calling your logistics partner to check on the status of your products, you may just visit their website and do it yourself, saving both you and the shipping firm money.
When you give your customers your email address, someone needs to promptly and expertly respond to their emails. This is another definition of responsiveness. They must to be aware of who to ask within the organization if they are unsure of the answers. Even if you don't have the responses prepared, it is generally recommended that you respond to emails within one working day. Send a brief acknowledgement that you have received the email and that you will make an effort to assist in answering the questions. Providing partners with current information about your business is also crucial. For instance, GemPlus, one of the top smart card makers in Europe, uses a secure web connection to give partners access to the most recent and sensitive information (using basic authentication and SSL encryption). Partners can access this data by logging in and using their passwords. The GemPlus Extranet is located in this section of the website. As you can see, the only distinction between the Extranet and the Internet technically is the viewership restriction.
3. Introducing fresh services
Going online also serves the purpose of providing new services. It is challenging and expensive to introduce new services in established markets. On the other side, the Internet provides the opportunity to launch new services with very low startup costs. Not only should new services be offered to partners and customers, but also to staff members. A search engine for the intranet, for instance, could be a service for the staff. The difficulty of finding pertinent information on the internal network increases as an organization grows. The use of a search engine depends on all employees posting their documents online. Even if they are unable to produce HTML documents, it is quite simple to upload pre-existing word documents to the intranet, which can also be indexed by the search engine. Although it is lower than for HTML papers, the search hit rate for non-web materials is still significantly higher than not posting them online at all.
Through its order@hp.com website, Hewlett-Packard offers specific configuration bundles to resellers. Hewlett-services Packard's now include this additional new service. Hewlett-Packard had not previously made pre-configured packages available online. The next step was to provide an online configurator so that partners, resellers, and end users could now easily customize their PCs and Unix Servers. Special configurator tools are required for complex settings. Chapter 7 contains more details on the configurator tools.
The "Dell of the auto sector," AutoByTel, provides a full range of automotive services online. From a single website, you may buy, rent, lease, insure, and hire an automobile. Moving to the internet was a logical step for AutoByTel because, as its name suggests, it previously sold vehicles over the phone.
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