Integration

"Three systems for the price of one".

Our client has a popular eCommerce site, mail order department and shops. They have three systems to manage them.

Why run three systems? All three sales fronts take orders, despatch orders and take payments. Imagine the power of a single integrated system. With all the information combined you significantly reduce your maintenance costs, improve management information and free up resources to improve business efficiency.

The solution was to develop a common database that held every piece of information that the company needed in order to process orders and monitor the business. The database is connected to a central internet server. This internet server contains special software that allows remote access to the data within.

A remote shopper has access to the product list and can request information and search for products. As they choose their products they are able to add them to their shopping basket. It becomes immediately clear that this is all the mail order operators do, so they use the same system. This has immediately saved the cost of a second mail order system.

When the order is complete the shopper goes to the checkout and then pays for the goods using a secure (encrypted – totally safe) credit card processing facility.

The order is now complete. A PC in the packing department comes to life and a screen displays the new order and all the despatch details. The order is packed and sent.

Meanwhile during the day the tills in the shops are busy. In the evening the tills are contacted by the central system and information about what was sold, at what time of day, in what volume is downloaded.

The commercial director sits at home that evening in front of the fire with his notebook PC on his lap and contacts the central database and prints off the days sales figures and muses over why soap sales peak at 10:00am every Wednesday.