The internet can grow your profits and improve your business
The internet is a growing phenomenon that has become a powerful tool in helping many businesses better manage their operations, increase customer service, and even increase profits. The internet never sleeps and this great quality allows you to leverage the benefits of a 24/7 business without the associated costs. Through the effective use of internet sources, like e-business solutions, you are able to provide self-service portals that allow customers to take care of their own needs, in addition to allowing customers to place orders without the assistance of an employee. This allowing your employees more time to work on other important tasks and increase productivity throughout your business.
So how can you take advantage of these internet capabilities in your business?
A lot of businesses are getting on board with eBusiness opportunities. This means that instead of having just a physical storefront, businesses are able to provide an online storefront that gives them all the function of a physical store, just online. Sage users can leverage these benefits too, with Sage 100 eBusiness solutions - eBusiness Manager and eBusiness Web Service.
This useful tool provides everything a business could need when performing eBusiness tasks, like 24 hour customer self-services capabilities and different hosting options. With eBusiness Manager, your customers will be able to complete tasks like placing an order, checking an order status, or retrieving personal account information all online. The solution is quick and easy to set up and, if you’re a Sage user already, can be integrated with your Sage 100 business management solution. This eBusiness solution also provides your business with customizable options for the appearance of your website by offering various style sheets to choose from, or giving you the capabilities to make your own style sheets.
Sage eBusiness Manager offers three standard applets: .store, .inquiry, and .order. The .store applet consists of everything you need to run B2C business transactions such as credit card payment processing, shopping cart display, product information, and email notification when a customer makes a purchase. The .inquiry applet is a more advanced online ordering process and consists of tools where customers would have the ability to check their order history, invoices, order status, and store credit availability. The last applet .order was designed to assist in the completion of an order, which consists of confirmation pages, updating shipping address capabilities, and order management. As for the hosting capabilities, there are two options for hosting Sage eBusiness Manager: local and remote. As the names state, local hosting options are for when your business will be responsible for hosting a server that your eBusiness module will run on, while a remote hosting service would be hosted by Sage Hosting Services Network.
This eBusiness module was created for web developers or programmers who wish to integrate their Sage 100 through third party applications, like e-commerce. Web Services offers customizable and secure e-commerce features that allow your business to run the way you want. With the eBusiness Web Services module you control what your business needs and who has access to your eBusiness functions by giving you the option to enable one company, selected multiple companies, by specific roles, or by areas of access. To ensure maximum security, Web Services utilizes HTTPS encryption, which means all communication through your internet browser to your eBusiness website is encrypted, ensuring protection and confidentiality. However, to ensure this encryption is protected, you must use SSL encryption, which is security of your original encryption (almost like double the security to safeguard your information). As for which Web Services Descriptive Language (WSDL) Web Services uses, there are two options: Full and Basic. Full supports Visual Studio 2008 Service reference, while Basic supports all other environments and supports Visual Studio Web Reference, Sun Java JAX-WS client, and PHP Integrated SOAP client.
Internet is the next best thing, so get on board!
If your business does not have any type of eBusiness connectivity, you could be missing many opportunities. Nowadays if a customer cannot find your business online or your business does not provide a way to purchase online, you run the risk of many missed sales opportunities and/or being quickly discarded from your customer’s mind. So don’t fall behind! Make sure that your business is up and running with an innovative eBusiness solution that will help you ensure the care of your customers 24/7, establish profitable e-commerce transactions, and warrant the growth of a booming business.
Still have questions?
For more information about Sage software and how it can help your specific business needs, contact us at Crescent SCS by calling (562) 981-0125 or by sending an email to dhensen@crescentsw.net. You can also visit us online at http://crescentsw.net
