A Web-based system may be a business process that’s supported and accessed online. as an example, e-commerce, a Web-based system involving purchasing products online, may include features like charge card approval systems and customer order tracking systems, which provide companies with the chance to sell their products and services online more efficiently. Many internal employee Web-based systems such as payroll, vendor selection and ordering, time sheet, and expense report submissions are samples of Web-based systems.
As an example of how Web-based systems are changing the way organizations harness the facility of the net, let’s take a look at the payroll function. Companies must provide their employees with benefit information, taxes paid, vacation/sick days remaining, then on each time they get paid. To complicate matters even further, of the people on payroll, some are contractors and part-time workers, while others are considered regular employees. If the company’s payroll system is
Internet-based, data is entered by disparate reporting units, in a wide array of geographic locations, removed from the headquarters’ accounting and payroll office, if needed. the net system is ready to keep better track of the quantity of vacation days, amount of 401(k) contributions, and insurance deductions on each employee’s pay stub.
The process of accounting for employees’ time also can be automated, eliminating the requirement for manually totaling payroll hours and time cards, reducing the quantity of errors, and providing immediate real-time data for managers, allowing them to form more departmentspecific, accurate, time-sensitive decisions. A Web-based payroll system is beneficial not only to human resources staff, but also to employees. They now not should make copies of their time sheets when they turn within the originals because past time-sheet records are available on the web for viewing and printing, and that they now not have to worry about calculational errors while adding numbers because the time sheets are automatically calculated online. The system also enables employees to fill out their time sheets while they’re away from the office, which is particularly convenient for people who spend a significant amount of your time within the field.
Clients also appreciate suppliers and repair providers who use Web-based systems. Not only does providing clients with access to information on your computing machine save them time, it saves you time similarly.
Allowing clients to access old reports and data from previous and current projects by employing a password online saves you from having to take outing of your busy day to print out the report and ship it to the client. The client is in a position to log in online and make copies of the report himself, and therefore the benefit to him is that he can access the data immediately. He doesn’t must look ahead to you to return from out of town to print his file so wait another day or two to receive it in the mail. Clients can even access project and budget updates, participate in virtual conferences and meetings, and retrieve invoices online.
While clients find the web process to be convenient and quick, your company saves time and money and also benefits from the “stickiness” factor. Once a client gets wont to accessing information using your system, she is going to be less likely to change her business to at least one of your competitors. As discussed in Chapter 8, this notion of switching costs may be a key driver of customer loyalty and competitive advantage.
Once clients understand and build trust in your system, they will be less likely to risk working with an organization that doesn’t offer this service to its clients or spend the time to find out a way to use another company’s system.
An example of a corporation that takes advantage of the stickiness factor is Bank of America. the corporate wont to charge customers for online banking, but now it offers the service free. The bank realized that once customers spend time inputting all the data required to use online banking and learning their system, they’ll be less likely to move their account to a different financial organisation.
Another Internet-based system that several companies have implemented is electronic bidding for products and services, meaning that proposal bids are sent electronically rather than via regular mail or paper- based systems. Benefits to companies of the electronic bidding system include the arrival of bids during a consistent, legible format freed from calculation errors, and a discount within the amount of man-hours and other resources needed to print, distribute, and edit bids. The suppliers who are bidding also enjoy the method because they need access to project bidding information 24 hours every day, and that they can send out their bids even once they are faraway from their offices. Additionally, the number of errors made on the forms is reduced because the system detects them and can not accept them unless they’re completed in their entirety and are freed from errors. Other advantages of electronic bidding are the elimination of travel expenses and confirmation of delivery of bid on the supplier side.
Although they will cost several thousand dollars to line up and their maintenance and support functions may should be outsourced, in general Web-based systems are more cost-efficient since they save on printing, human labor, mailing, and invoice costs.
As customers grow lighter with security issues regarding purchasing products online, Jupiter Research predicts e-commerce— purchasing products or services online—will still grow over the subsequent five years, specifically among small businesses that have established a reputation among consumers for being entities that are legitimate and trustworthy. additionally, Jupiter Research predicts ecommerce will grow from $65 billion in 2004 to $116 billion by 2008, and the percentage of U.S. consumers who purchase products online will increase from 30 percent in 2004 to 50 percent by 2008.
