Electronic Commerce and Mary Kay Essay

Founded in 1962, bloody shame Kay (marykay. com) has about 1. 8 million consultants selling its cosmetics and fragrances in 34 countries. In 2008, the company had about $2. 4 billion in wholesale sales. As a company that has based its reputation on personal contacts through door-to-door visits and home gatherings, one might call in that Mary Kay would not benefit from EC. Actually, the opposite is true. Currently, more than 95 part of Mary Kays independent salespeople place orders via the Internet.The Problem The cosmetics market is very competitive, hardly it is growing rapidly, especially in developing countries. Mary Kay is nerve-wracking to capitalize on this trend. The Mary Kay business model enables rapid offset into mod markets. By the early 2000s, consultants found that more and more customers cherished to shop online. With a long and global supply chain and the contain to manage almost 2 million consultants, it was clear that automation was needed, but Mary Kays exi sting computer schema was old and lacked blade or e-commerce applications.Therefore, a major overhaul of the information systems was needed. Finally, it became clear that the take of social computing might provide a golden luck for Internet marketing by the company. The Solution Mary Kays IT incision is now split into three divisions e-commerce, supply chain, and back-office support. Because of pressure from the consultants, the restructuring focused on e-commerce. The companys goals and objectives were set based on industry lift out practices.Goals and objectives determine what, how, and when the company is operated, and these in addition apply to EC initiatives. Mary Kays EC solution included the creation of an electronic service desk that supports consultants in 30 countries in a standardized way. Mary Kay also introduced a global electronic ordering system, called Atlas, that allows the consultants to communicate with company w atomic number 18houses. An intelligent infor mation repository that dynamically maintains a logical model of the EC purlieu can be accessed by Mary Kay IT staff.Mary Kay and its consultants are also making extensive use of social computing. The following are any(prenominal) representative examples of how Mary Kay uses social computing The company posts job crack announcements on several sites, including MySpace Jobs ( classifieds. myspace. com/job). Movies and videotapes are available on YouTube (youtube. com) and on movies. go. com. several(prenominal) blogs are available, both for and against the company (e. g. , marykayandrews. com/blog). Auctions and fixed-price items are available for sale on eBay. Mary Kay provides a consultant locator on the Internet.All of these developments are supported by an extensive hardware and software infrastructure, including a receiving set remote management system at the 760,000 square-foot corporate headquarters, an extensive astray area network (WAN, see Chapter 8), and a large data c enter. approximately of the EC systems are used enterprise wide (e. g. , service desk, ticketing system for consultants attending events, and service requests made by consultants). Others are functional (e. g. , accounting, finance, marketing, and arsenal control).The company uses an intranet for internal communications as well as tons of other EC applications. In addition to providing better support to consultants, the EC initiatives produced other benefits, such as greater efficiency, reduced costs and downtime, and modify service. In terms of human resources, it enabled the company to handle its rapid proceeds without a substantial increase in staffing. The changes also have allowed EC personnel to focus on strategic tasks. Mary Kay found that its engineers and proficient people now have time to spend on new innovations.ReferencesBowman, Mary Kay, et al. Intelligent and firm currency conversion. U.S. Patent No. 7,747,475. 29 Jun. 2010.Meuter, Matthew L., et al. The influenc e of technology anxiety on consumer use and experiences with self-service technologies. daybook of Business Research 56.11 (2003) 899-906.Dholakia, Ruby Roy, and Nikhilesh Dholakia. Mobility and markets emerging outlines of m-commerce. Journal of Business interrogation 57.12 (2004) 1391-1396.Kay, Jeffrey, et al. Information objects system, method, and computer program organization. U.S. Patent No. 6,473,893. 29 Oct. 2002.Finn, Mary Kay, Karen Lahey, and David Redle. Policies Underlying Congressional Approval of Criminal and Civil Immunity for synergetic Computer Service Providers Under Provisions of the Communications Decency Act of 1996-Should E-Buyers Beware. U. Tol. L. Rev. 31 (1999) 347.