South African business is leading the way by purchasing goods and services online, because of the benefits it offers over traditional procurement channels.
This is the view of Bronwyn Patten, e-business manager at Dell, who says there has been a marked increase in the uptake of online purchasing in the past few months.
"An increase of 13.4% in Dell's online trade since August is a clear indication that an increasing number of companies are switching to online purchasing," she says.
The biggest uptake of Dell's online services is from new customers, says Patten, but existing customers are also beginning to make the transition. She says as much as 17% of Dell's customers are already doing all purchases online.
Although a broad range of companies make up Dell's online customers, Patten says larger companies are likely to reap the biggest benefits in terms of streamlined procurement processes.
In addition to enabling companies to research and compare products, as well as place orders when and where it suits them, Patten says Dell has proven that online purchasing can shorten the procurement process by up to three days.
"Online purchasing also enables companies to track the progress of orders and gives CTOs, IT managers and others involved in the procurement process role-based access to the information and purchasing reports they need," she says.
Patten predicts that e-business will expand within business and also into other sectors as more people become familiar with the benefits. She says the market is definitely evolving towards e-business as an accurate and more cost-effective means of procurement.
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