Using E-Commerce to Reduce Administrative Expenses of...

There are a number of ways in which e-commerce can be used to reduce the administrative expenses of the bricks-and-mortar facility. The degree to which these savings can be achieved is dependent on the degree of integration between the two sides of the business. Intermediation is offering the e-business information through the bricks and mortar provider. This has little cost-saving potential. Remote users are unlikely to have any interest in walking into our physical offices and dealing with people directly. The only particular benefit would be if our physical staff have unused time and resources that can be applied to lending service to the online business. Even with that, there would be difficulties in training and priorities. More value is possible with disintermediation. In this scenario, bricks and mortar customers utilize the online services. This can be done to streamline administrative costs for example offshoring some of the bricks and mortar staff. In addition, if the courses can be integrated there is significant room for cost savings with this tactic. A scenario that can be envisioned is where an offline student can access course materials online, including online tutoring and online peer to peer features, allowing for the enhancement of the bricks and mortar learning experience. Such integration would allow for fees at the bricks and mortar to increase because of the new value added to the program, but at little incremental cost since the technology and online