E-commerce business practices in Orion Energy Systems- advantages
The modern business environment is quite complex and requires business managers to adopt business strategies that can help firms thrive in the market. Firms compete for customers in the market. Therefore, the ability of a firm to thrive in the market depends on its ability to adopt and enforce modern business technologies since these technologies have been found to be critical in business positioning. As presented in the case, Orion Energy Systems is a company that has hastened its business pace through the adoption of the e-commerce platform in enhancing its business practices.
Having molded its business practices around the production of sustainable and cost-effective energy solutions to business firms, the firm has focused on broadening its business through the adoption and deployment of e-commerce in promoting the marketing of its products and services. The focus on e-commerce was informed by the increase in the demand for the products and services provided by the company, thus the company realized the need to increase efficiency of its sales force to successfully reach and serve customers in an effective and efficient way (CWR Mobility Website, 2011).
According to CWR Mobility Website (2011), the e-commerce platform in Orion Energy is based on the CWR communication tool from the Microsoft Dynamics CRM company. The tool enhances sales management and sales experience by the marketing team of the company. The aim of the CWR tool is to automate the sales functions of Orion through enabling the sales team to access the sales accounts and contact information. The tool also enables the sales team of the company to access a substantial amount of information on all the prevailing opportunities in the market. The sales persons of the company can conduct sales while in any location since the adoption of the tool. This implies that the tool has increased the pace and the rate of efficiency with which sales activities can be conducted by the company. This is actually one of the needs for embracing e-commerce in business. With the tool, more sales transactions can be made by the sales team at any given time (CWR Mobility Website, 2011).
The other important factor in relation to the adoption and enforcement of the CWR tool is that the tool has opened up space for supervision and monitoring of sales by the management of Orion. The managers can monitor the sales and trigger follow-ups where necessary through the CWR Mobile CRM. Customer follow up is a critical exercise in the sales functions; thus, the more the capacity to monitor sales is enhanced the more a business is bound to fully engage more customers. With the deployment of the CWR Mobile CRM tool, it is easy to satisfy customers through tracing them and quickly responding to their demands and concerns. This results in the increase in the amount of sales, leading to the realization of higher profit margins (CWR Mobility Website, 2011).
Technical solution
It is important to explore some of the features of the CWR tool and the ability of this tool to enhance sales. CRW has been one of the key partners of Microsoft in the realm of business-to-business applications development. From the case, it can be noted that the CRW can run on diverse platforms. This implies diversity and the large scope of utility. The functionality of the CWR Mobile CRM is enhanced through the coding of the tool with diverse software to enable it work on different devices. This means that the tool can be used on diverse mobile devices that are used by the sales team (CWR Mobility, 2011).
CWR Mobile CRM has been tailored to take advantage of diverse user networks that are used by different mobile platforms. The software can be used on iPhones, Windows mobile and Blackberry, among many other mobile devices. Another critical feature of the CWR Mobile CRM emanates from its ability to fully provide offline capabilities. It can be argued that this is the main differentiating and positioning factor for this e-commerce solution. Most of the e-commerce tools or business solutions depend on the availability of network. These tools cannot function in the absence of data connectivity. Thus, the CWR Mobile tool device can be deployed at all times in all places, including places that exhibit data connectivity problems like flights and factories. This is an outstanding feature that makes the tool most suitable in modern marketing practices (CWR Mobility Website, 2011).
CWR Mobility has partnered with Microsoft Company in order to enhance the provision of effective mobile solutions to customers. CWR Mobile CRM tool is one of the tools or mobile solutions that have been provided out of the partnership between CWR and Microsoft. The aim of the partnership is to foster the provision of advanced information technology tools to customers through the deployment of the technology development strengths of the two companies. CWR Mobility exhibits strength in mobile device innovations and renowned expertise in the provision of mobile solutions in the market. On the other hand, the strengths of Microsoft are in the devise of cloud services and technical support for information technology devices.
Microsoft is the provider of the software that is used in different mobile devices. The strengths of each company are promoted in the partnership that has been established between the two companies (CWR Mobility, 2012). While the e-commerce solutions that have been provided by the two companies seem to be beneficial to businesses, the most critical question that ought to be answered at this juncture concerns the overall benefit of this partnership to the two companies.
From a strategic point of view, the provision of joint e-commerce solutions out of the partnership of the two companies enhances advertisement of the two companies. The weaknesses that are in each of the individual solutions are covered as the two companies amass their efforts on developing collective e-commerce solutions for businesses. Customers focus on the single solutions that are developed out of the combined efforts of the two companies. This enhances the image of the company based on the customers’ assessment of quality in the single solutions. The cloud computing solutions that are provided by Microsoft are advertised in the joint solution CRM mobile solutions that are provided and adopted by companies across the world. However, it should be noted that the payoff that comes from the partnership can only be sustained if the companies continue to thrive in the market through enlargement of the market for the joint-applications that emanate from the partnership.
CWR’s product as an extension of Microsoft Dynamics
According to CWR Mobility (2012), CRW has kept evolving in the provision of information technology solutions. Some of the products that are developed through the CRW technology platform are availed in Microsoft Dynamics CRM solutions, like the CRM Mobile. The capabilities of CRW are in the provision of Microsoft Dynamics CRM user experience in a range of mobile applications that are found in individual user mobile devices. Access to CRM data is supported by the CRW application. The application provides background for information technology solutions, irrespective of data connectivity. A lot of features are embedded in the applications.
These include automatic synchronization of the background, ability of the application to integrate with the local mobile devices that are available in the market, and mapping and navigation capabilities among other technical features. Some of the information technology features on the applications include a multiplatform, server grid architecture, zero i-Touch software update, and the multi-tenant supporting environment. Most of the CWR applications are supported by the Microsoft dynamics CRM (CWR Mobility, 2011).
The CWR Mobile CRM server has been integrated with the Microsoft Dynamics CRM application platform. The integrated application is then availed to diverse mobile phone devices. The best thing is that the application can enable mobile device users to work without network connection. The users of this application can be synchronized with the office with ease. The CWR Mobile CRM gives the users an application for each mobile application. The users can still derive utility irrespective of differences in mobile devices. These devices include iPads, iPhone, Microsoft Windows, and Blackberry mobile phone devices. Extensive customization helps Microsoft Dynamics and CWR get feedback on the applications and respond to the technicalities that arise in the course of using the tool (CWR Mobility, 2011).
References
CWR Mobility. (2012). CWR mobility powers Microsoft Dynamics® CRM Mobile. Web.
CWR Mobility Website (2011). Orion energy moves light years ahead with Microsoft Dynamics and CWR Mobile CRM. Web.
CWR Mobility. (2011). CWR Mobile CRM 4.2 for Microsoft Dynamicsâ„¢ CRM. Web.