Some businesses make a great deal of money from their websites through greatly increased sales and uptake of services. Many more benefit from the ability of an e-business plan, properly thought out and implemented, to minimise day-to-day costs and save staff time.  

Many companies still rely on purchasing and back-office systems that revolve around the fax machine, telephone, or even handwritten forms. Companies that have adopted e-business are reaping the advantages that come from replacing manual processes with automated, digital systems that provide fast, accurate, customer-centric experiences. This can lead to a range of efficiencies such as getting paid faster.

Cost saving checklist

Use this checklist to identify the cost-saving centres and areas of efficiency gains that effective use of email and a carefully planned website can offer:

• Providing information - reduce staff time on the telephone with customers and suppliers by referring them to the website - also some telephone enquirers will be better informed as a result of referring to the site and therefore will take less time.
• Bookings and orders - data entered into an online form with appropriate links into the organisation's database accounting system bypasses staff, freeing them to market and sell more tickets, memberships etc.
• Publishing/printing - reduce cost of outsourcing to printers and graphic designers for brochures, research, concert programmes.
• Photocopying - reduce through-put and need for more and/or larger photocopiers.
• Faxing -reduce cost and time involved in re-keying data and reduce errors in interpretation of poor quality originals, eg handwritten forms and poor quality faxes.
• Postage and handling - reduce expense and time.
• Paper - reduce the overall paper consumption and therefore cost.
• Processing time - streamline processing of forms, eg online membership applications and orders.
• Account management - an e-commerce solution reduces processing of accounts, reconciliation, banking and can improve cash-flow.
• Communication and meeting costs - using email groups can reduce phone calls, time consumed in arranging meetings, number of face-to-face meetings, cost of getting people to meetings

 e-businessguide Case Study - Dragonfly Trout Adventures (134kb)

 e-businessguide Case Study - Allam Homes (448kb)

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