Bricks and clicks

Bricks-and-clicks is a business model by which a company integrates both offline ( bricks) and online (clicks) presences. It is also known as click-and-mortar or clicks-and-bricks, as well as bricks, clicks and flips, flips referring to catalogs. For example, an electronics store may allow the user to order online, but pick up their order immediately at a local store, which the user finds using locator software. Conversely, a furniture store may have displays at a local store from which a customer can order an item electronically for delivery. The bricks and clicks model has typically been used by traditional retailers who have extensive logistics and supply chains. Part of the reason for its success is that it is far easier for a traditional retailer to establish an online presence than it is for a start-up company to employ a successful pure "dot com" strategy, or for an online retailer to establish a traditional presence (including a strong brand). The success of the model in many sectors has destroyed the credibility of analysts who argued that the Internet would render traditional retailers obsolete through disintermediation. Advantages of the model Click and mortar firms have the advantage in areas of existing products and services. In these cases there are major advantages in retaining ties to a physical company. This is because they are able to use their competencies and assets, which include: 1. Core competency. Successful firms tend to have one or two core competencies that they can do better than their competitors. It may be anything from new product development to customer service. When a bricks and mortar firm goes online it is able to use this core competency more intensively and extensively. 2. Existing supplier networks. Existing firms have established relationships of trust with suppliers. This usually ensures problem free delivery and an assured supply. It can also entail price discounts and other preferential treatment. 3. Existing distribution channels. As with supplier networks, existing distribution channels can ensure problem free delivery, price discounts, and preferential treatments. 4. Brand equity. Often existing firms have invested large sums of money in brand advertising over the years. This equity can be leveraged on-line by using recognized brand names. An example is Disney. 5. Stability. Existing firms that have been in business for many years appear more stable. People trust them more than pure on-line firms. This is particularly true in financial services. 6. Existing customer base. Because existing firms already have a base of sales, they can more easily obtain economies of scale in promotion, purchasing and production; economies of scope in distribution and promotion; reduced overhead allocation per unit; and shorter break even times. 7. A lower cost of capital. Established firms will have a lower cost of capital. Bond issues may be available to existing firms that are not available to dot coms. The underwriting cost of a dot com IPO is higher than an equivalent brick and click equity offering. 8. Learning curve advantages. Every industry has a set of best practices that are more or less known to established firms. New dot coms will be at a disadvantage unless they can redefine the industry's best practices and leap frog existing firms. Pure dot coms, on the other hand, have the advantage in areas of new e-business models that stress cost efficiency. They are not burdened with brick and mortar costs and can offer products at very low marginal cost. However, they tend to spend substantially more on customer acquisition. Business-to-business between businesses, as opposed to those between businesses and other groups, such as business and individual consumers (B2C) or business and government (B2G). B2B is also commonly used as an adjective to describe any activity, be it marketing, sales, or e-commerce, that occurs between businesses and other businesses rather than between businesses and consumers.

Automated Ecommerce Transactions It is a term also used in electronic commerce and to describe automated processes between trading partners. The volume of B2B transactions is much higher than the volume of B2C transactions. One reason for this is that businesses have adopted electronic commerce technologies in greater numbers than consumers. Also, in a typical supply chain there will be many B2B transactions but only one B2C transaction, as the completed product is retailed to the end customer. An example of a B2B transaction is a chicken feed company selling its product to a chicken farm, which is another company. An example of a B2C transaction is a grocery store selling grain-fed chickens to a consumer. B2B can also describe marketing activities between businesses, not just the final transactions that result from marketing, though the term can be used to identify sales transactions between businesses (also referred to as "institutional sales"). For example, a company selling photocopiers would more likely be a B2B sales organization than a B2C sales organization. "Business-to-business" can also refer to all transactions made in an industry value chain before the finished product is sold to the end consumer. What is B2B Marketing Communications? B2B marketing communications is how businesses promote their products and services to other businesses using tactics other than direct sales. The purpose of B2B marketing communications is to support the marketers sales effort and improve company profitability. B2B marketing is generally considered to be more complex than B2C marketing, often complicated by a longer sales cycle and multiple decision makers on the buyers side. B2B marketing communications tactics generally include advertising, public relations, direct mail, trade show support, sales collateral, branding, and interactive services such as website design and search engine optimization. The Business Marketing Association is the trade organization that serves B2B marketing professionals. It was founded in 1922 and offers certification programs, research services, conferences, industry awards and training programs. B2B Marketing Methodologies Positioning Statement An important first step in business to business marketing is the development of your positioning statement. This is a statement of what you do and how you do it differently and better than your competitors. Developing your messages The next step is to develop your messages. There is usually a primary message that conveys more strongly to your customers what you do and the benefit it offers to them, supported by a number of secondary messages, each of which may have a number of supporting arguments, facts and figures. Building a campaign plan Whatever form your B2B marketing campaign will take, build a comprehensive plan up front to target resources where you believe they will deliver the best return on investment, and make sure you have all the infrastructure in place to support each stage of the marketing process - and that doesn't just include developing the lead - make sure the entire organization is geared up to handle the inquiries appropriately. Briefing an agency A standard briefing document is usually a good idea for briefing an agency. As well as focusing the agency on what's important to you and your campaign, it serves as a checklist of all the important things to consider as part of your brief. Typical elements to an agency brief are: Your objectives, target market, target audience, product,

campaign description, your product positioning, graphical considerations, corporate guidelines, and any other supporting material and distribution. Measuring results The real value in results measurement is in tying the marketing campaign back to business results. After all, youre not in the business of developing marketing campaigns for marketing sake. So always put metrics in place to measure your campaigns, and if at all possible, measure your impact upon your desired objectives, be it Cost Per Acquisition, Cost per Lead or tangible changes in customer perception. B2B standards UN/EDIFACT is one of the most well-known and established B2B standards. ANSI ASC X12 is a popular standard in North America. RosettaNet is an XML-based, emerging B2B standard in the high tech industry. An approach like UN/CEFACT's Modeling Methodology (UMM) might be used to capture the collaborative space of B2B business processes. E-Marketplace "E-" or "electronic" marketplace in a business-to-business context is primarily a large online platform (B2B portal) or website that facilitates interaction and/or transactions between buyers and suppliers at organizational or institutional rather than individual levels. Since the builders of such marketplaces primarily aim at facilitating buyer-seller interaction (in most cases without being a buyer or seller themselves), these are also referred to as "third-party" B2B marketplaces. These marketplaces can do one or more of the following: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Help buyers find new suppliers and vice versa Help reduce the time and cost of interaction for B2B transactions Help increase trade between distant geographies Help manage payments and track orders for B2B transactions Help reduce the number of profits after tax Help increase the greenhouse gas emissions in the country Help the environment by using appropriate technology that is environmentally friendly

Vertical e-Marketplace A vertical e-marketplace spans up and down every segment of one specific industry. Each level of the industry has access to every other level, which greatly increases collaboration. Buyers and sellers in the industry are connected to increase operating efficiency and decrease supply chain costs, inventories and cycle times. This is possible because buying/selling items in a single industry standardizes needs, thereby reducing the need for outsourcing many products. fifth point would be that e commerce has a variety of different opinions going out towards different people in different organization that are committed to such technology.therefore i bring to a conclusion that e commerce is not well no where near the advanced technology that us in organizations use nower days. Horizontal e-Marketplace A horizontal e-marketplace connects buyers and sellers across many industries. The most common type of materials traded horizontally are MRO (maintenance, repair and operations) materials. Mainly business and consumer articles, these items are in demand because they are crucial to the daily running of a business,

regardless of industry and level within that industry. Many corporations have MRO materials bought directly on-line by the maintenance team in order to relieve the purchasing department. No-frills e-Marketplace Developed in response to customers wanting to purchase products without service (or with very limited service), the no-frills e-marketplace parallels the B2C offering of no-frills budget airlines. The subject of several Harvard and IMD articles/case-studies, no-frills B2B e-marketplaces enable the effective de-bundling of service from product via clear "business rules." This provides the basis of differentiation from conventional B2B sales/purchasing channels. Etymology The term "business-to-business" was originally coined to describe the electronic communication relations between businesses or enterprises in order to distinguish it from the communications between businesses and consumers (B2C). It eventally came to be used in marketing as well, initally describing only industrial or capital goods marketing. However, today it is widely used to describe all products and services used by enterprises. B2B (Business to Business) Cambil Software shares a myriad of rich experiences with its clients in business to business (B2B) with a rich and technology savvy range of features in web design, web development, B2B marketing and B2B portal. It specializes in the field of eProcurement, enabling and automating the customer's purchasing capacity with the adoption of cost-effective means. Cambil Software adopts a methodology that consists of the evaluation of suppliers, request for proposals and online transactions. B2B Web Design The web design at Cambil Software consists of the following:

Enabling of business processes via web services Providing access to enterprise information systems through web services Designing architecture, leveraging the right tools and standards for web services Providing the accessibility between applications through web services Developing and implementing web services

Web development The business to business eCommerce is a success at Cambil Software due to its eProcurement strategy. It caters to a wide range of professional services consisting of cost-effective web development, web redesign, flash website design, link development, search engine submissions and monitoring and website programming. Cambil Software has an assimilation of website programmers, designers, website marketers and website analysts who work on the latest technology and have an experience of following the best practices and processes. It implements the tasks mentioned below:

Business and technical consulting Customization Installation and beta testing Integration and stability testing Business process design and workarounds Final configuration and testing Documentation and knowledge transfer Advanced development requirements

B2B Marketing 4

The business to business marketing strategy at Cambil Software enhances the company's image by implementing cost-effective, sophisticated solutions with end-to-end solutions. It comprises of a dedicated team of information technology experts who adhere to the best practices and processes keeping pace with the changing market trends. Cambil Software is a marketing research company that provides quality information as well as data generation that optimizes business to business operations. It ensures a greater return on investment and the solutions designed are tailor-made and customized integrated with communications services, technology and business intelligent strategies. The business to business marketing strategy sketches a roadmap to achievement by analyzing and studying the market, assessing the business specifications, studying the available resources and creating timelines.

B2B Portal
Cambil Software endeavors to present effective information on the internet that enables the user to optimize his business to business strategy, resources and costs. The Cambil Software portal is an assimilation of the business to business website directory, business to business search and business to business marketplace. It provides an insight into the some of the most effective software products and services and the navigation across the directory structure is easy. Business-to-consumer Business-to-consumer (B2C, sometimes also called Business-to-Customer) describes activities of Ebusinesses serving end consumers with products and/or services. It is often associated with electronic commerce but also encompasses financial institutions and other types of businesses. B2C relationships are often established and cultivated through some form of Internet marketing. Classifications of B2C e-commerce Online intermediaries Online intermediaries are companies that facilitate transactions between buyers and sellers and receive a percentage of the transactions value. These firms make up the largest group of B2C companies today. There are two types of online intermediaries: brokers and infomediaries. An infomediary is a Web site that provides specialized information on behalf of producers of goods and services and their potential customers. Advertising-based models In an advertising-based system, businesses websites have an inventory, which they sell to interested parties. There are two guiding philosophies for this practice: high-traffic or niche. Advertisers take a high-traffic approach when attempting to reach a larger audience. These advertisers are willing to pay a premium for a site that can deliver high numbers, for example advertisements on Yahoo! or AOL. When advertisers are trying to reach a smaller group of buyers, they take a niche approach. These buyers are well-defined, clearly identified, and desirable. The niche approach focuses on quality, not quantity. For example, an advertisement on WSJ.com would chiefly be viewed by business people and executives. Community-based models In a community-based system, companies allow users worldwide access to interact with each other on the basis of similar areas of interest. These firms make money by accumulating loyal users and targeting them with advertising.

Example: Yahoo! Groups

Fee-based models In a fee-based system, a firm charges a subscription fee to view its content. There are varying degrees of content restriction and subscription types ranging from flat-fees to pay-as-you-go.

Advantages of B2C e-commerce B2C e-commerce has the following advantages:

Shopping can be faster and more convenient. Offerings and prices can change instantaneously. Call centers can be integrated with the website. Broadband telecommunications will enhance the buying experience.

Challenges faced by B2C e-commerce The two main challenges faced by B2C e-commerce are building traffic and sustaining customer loyalty. Due to the winner-take-all nature of the B2C structure, many smaller firms find it difficult to enter a market and remain competitive. In addition, online shoppers are very price-sensitive and are easily lured away, so acquiring and keeping new customers is difficult. A study of top B2C companies by McKinsey found that:

Top performers had over three times as many unique visitors per month than the median. In addition, the top performer had 2,500 times more visitors than the worst performer. Top performers had an 18% conversion rate of new visitors, twice that of the median. Top performers had a revenue per transaction of 2.5 times the median. Top performers had an average gross margin three times the median. There was no significant difference in the number of transactions per customer and the visitor acquisition cost.

Essentially, these masters of B2C e-commerce (Amazon, etc.) remain at the top because of effective communication and value to the customer. B2C (Business to Consumer) Cambil Software believes that e-business is about leveraging the potential of the internet as a powerful platform to create business value by adopting the business-to-customer (B2C) strategy. Be it web-enabling existing systems and technology or business processes, identifying improvement opportunities, extending or transforming business processes for maximizing returns.B2C assists in creating new revenue landscapes, optimizing value chains, deriving insights from enterprise and industry information for decision supporting, and building integrated multi-channel e-business solutions. Cambil Software's e-business and e-commerce services are designed to address the entire spectrum from strategy to implementation. B2C Websites At Cambil Software, the professionals help the clients to set up their B2C portals and maintain them. They also provide the customers with B2C solutions, as per their requirement. Having been a player in the industry for some years, the professionals have a grasp on the required technology, business scenario and the standards of the industry. At Cambil Software, the professionals use various methodologies such as application frameworks and reusable software for high project turn around time. They also ensure commitment and rigor to quality processes and engagement model that ensure immense attention to every customer need. B2C eCommerce In today's business world, every enterprise is realizing the potential of eCommerce and is adopting it. Some of the major advantages related with this business type are:

Workflow automation Efficient business relationships Efficient customer service through emails Less time required in communication It is not time or venue bound

Regular and fast updating of data Online information like reports and invoices available, relating to the business transactions

Cambil Software provides its customers with different services as:

Web Application Development With a pool of efficient programmers, Cambil Software develops custom applications for the client organization, as per their business requirement. It is not the design alone which they concentrate on but the impact of the same on the client organization.

Building eCommerce sites Web enabling legacy systems User experience design

Enterprise Portals Cambil Software also specializes in portal management of the client organization. Their rich expertise in this field and the knowledge of the industry helps them to turn the portal into a customer's delight.

Infrastructure and architecture User experience Portal management Analytics and business intelligence

Enterprise Content Management Having realized that a website is not just an information center but contact point between the customer and the client organization, Cambil Software helps in content management. At Cambil Software, they assure that the content management systems permits instant updates and non-redundant data in the database.

Workflow design Content repository, template and taxonomy design Multi-site management

Web Architecture Consolidation Cambil Software professionals that building a website, is much more than just designing and writing contents. It is about creating online communication and business. They inspect the market conditions, analyze the situation and funnel it down as per the client needs.

Applications frameworks Standardization

The B2C solutions provided by Cambil Software, minimize the operational costs, centralize customer requests, and analyze the assists in managing the business more efficiently. The professionals at Cambil Software make a difference in the clients' internet marketing ventures and helps increase their profit margins. Business-to-employee Business-to-employee (B2E) electronic commerce uses an intrabusiness network which allows companies to provide products and/or services to their employees. Typically, companies use B2E networks to automate employee-related corporate processes. Examples of B2E applications include:

Online insurance policy management Corporate announcement dissemination Online supply requests Special employee offers Employee benefits reporting

B2E is business-to-employee, an approach in which the focus of business is the employee, rather than the consumer (as it is in business-to-consumer, or B2C) or other businesses (as it is in business-to-business, or B2B). The B2E approach grew out of the ongoing shortage of information technology (IT) workers. In a broad sense, B2E encompasses everything that businesses do to attract and retain well-qualified staff in a competitive market, such as aggressive recruiting tactics, benefits, education opportunities, flexible hours, bonuses, and employee empowerment strategies. More specifically, the term "B2E" is frequently used to refer to the B2E portal (sometimes called a people portal, which is a customized home page or desktop for everyone within an organization. The B2E portal is sometimes considered to be synonymous with an intranet, but it differs in its focus on the employee's desires. The intranet's focus is the organization; the B2E portal focus is the individual. The B2E portal is designed to include not only everything that an employee might hope to find on an intranet (such as a corporate directory, or customer support information), but also any personal information and links that the employee might want (such as stocks information, or even games). The intention is to increase not only efficiency, but also employee satisfaction and a sense of community within the organization. A B2E portal has three distinguishing characteristics:

A single point of entry: one URL for everyone within an organization. A mixture of organization-specific and employee-defined components. The potential to be highly customized and easily altered to suit the particular employee.

Corporations may develop their own portals or they may rely on the services of any of the large and growing number of B2E portal developers. B2E (Business to Employee) B2E portals or e-HR systems are becoming the de-facto standard in order to streamline and optimize the human resource functions of the organizations. It further helps in improving the communication between the employee and the organization. When a company decides to take to e-HR applications, a clear understanding of the organization, its business and its customers is very important. This is very essential to ensure the company's growth in terms of corporate performance, productivity and functional objectives. B2E software also enables easy communication between the employees and the managers via the emails. The employees could also have access to the other work place services like talent management, knowledge management and communication. Cambil Software offers a wide range of B2E solutions like recruitment management, employee management, leave and payroll management. Human Resource Management Systems (HRMS) / HR Software Solutions HR management is the most crucial function of the modern-day business organizations. HR department require assistance to keep up with the changing number of employees, departments and their job profiles. Cambil Software offers HRMS, which will assist the business goals. These solutions will adapt to the changing needs of the organization's business and other daily operations. HR management software helps the organizations with the recruitment detail and procedures and the database of the entire workforce. Customized HR Software Supplier Cambil Software enables the client organization, with a blend of sophisticated yet easy to-use HR solutions, and successfully passes through the sudden twists and turns of the human resource department. This will bring the clients to the heart of the problems within the organization and help them solve it. Cambil Software will first analyze the existing products, staffs, company policies and the size of the organization and then get into the

generation of the software solution. It will also provide a complete range of professional services like project implementation and management, payroll systems, support for the training and other HR practices. HR software for recruitment. HR recruitment solutions from Cambil Software will help enhance the recruiting procedures of any organization. The customized solutions distribute the different functions involved in the recruitment process. This software:

Converts all the details in the paper into the electronic format Populates it with data This web-enabled solution would integrate all the requirements Store information like the skills, education, expected salary and experience Keep a track of the interview details and updates itself with the follow-ups Generate automatic offer or rejection letter Enable the HR processes to be a two-way traffic Enabling the employees to manage their own profiles

The HR software systems include leave management systems, security systems and more. Employee management As the name suggests, this module optimizes the management of employee details. Not only does this give employees the access to their details resting with the HR, but also the permission to update the information. This does enables in better quality of the details. Some employee details maintained are:

Employee particulars Personal particulars, address Education particulars Career history Performance appraisals Skill profile Immigration details

Payroll Management Software Payroll management software is an integrated solution that helps to provide service and control, with regard to the payroll formalities. Payroll accounting software or HR payroll software play a major role in today's employee-friendly corporate world. The payroll management systems or solutions deal with the financial aspect of the employee details. It deals with the salary information, allowances, deductions, net pay, insurances, compensations and reports related to the accounts of the employees. Customized payroll systems from Cambil Software Cambil Software, with their experience in ERP solutions will be able to assist its clients with customized payroll software. Payroll processing systems are no more a luxury which is in proportion to the size of a company, but a requirement. Cambil Software offers its clients with payroll solutions that will be a value-add for the client-organization. These programs are cost-effective and will help reduce the total ownership cost. It helps in reducing the costs associated with the running, printing, distribution and management of all the reports and records involved with the payroll department. Cambil Software will analyze its customer's requirements and design a package to comply with their needs. It will also help install the package, train the personals involved on how to operate it. Consumer-to-business (C2B ) Consumer-to-business (C2B ) is an electronic commerce business model in which consumers (individuals) offer products and services to companies and the companies pay them. This business model is a complete

reversal of traditional business model where companies offer goods and services to consumers (business-toconsumer = B2C). This kind of economic relationship is qualified as an inverted business model. The advent of the C2B scheme is due to major changes:

Connecting a large group of people to a bidirectional network has made this sort of commercial relationship possible. The large traditional media outlets are one direction relationship whereas the internet is bidirectional one. Decreased cost of technology : Individuals now have access to technologies that were once only available to large companies ( digital printing and acquisition technology, high performance computer, powerful software)

Consumer-to-consumer
Consumer-to-consumer (or C2C) electronic commerce involves the electronically-facilitated transactions between consumers through some third party. A common example is the online auction, in which a consumer posts an item for sale and other consumers bid to purchase it; the third party generally charges a flat fee or commission. The sites are only intermediaries, just there to match consumers. They do not have to check quality of the products being offered. Examples of C2C

eBay Craigslist Amazon.com

This type of e-commerce is expected to increase in the future because it cuts out the costs of using another company. An example on how it could change in the future from Management Information Systems, if you are driving around in a car, someone having a garage sale can transmit to your GPS advertising their garage sale. This will reach a larger population than just signs.

No quality control No payment guarantee Hard to pay for using cheques, ATM cards, etc. but in the future this is likely to change.

Universities C2C are becoming more popular amongst students in universities because these are large communities in the same geographical region that are low on money. So they are looking for deals very often and these kinds of websites offer this. Universities themselves set up places for students to sell textbooks and other stuff to other students, you can even advertise that you are subletting your apartment. An example of this from above is Tiger books and Dalhousie University Classifieds, both of these are put together by the school itself for the students.

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