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VLM
5 . The Project
5.1 The eBusiness Solution
The goal of the project was for VLM to build strategic long-term
partnerships with a number of large customers. Each customer would
have their own secure web site, tailored specifically to their needs.
It would contain customised templates for that customer’s marketing
material.
The way this system would work is as follows:
| 1.
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Customer
logs onto secure web site |
| 2. |
Fills
out template, e.g. for a new property that has come on the market |
| 3. |
Inputs
number of copies required and the address to which they are
to be delivered |
| 4. |
The
full-colour printed documents are delivered and customer is
billed electronically and the whole process is managed automatically
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Compare this process with the typical print process (Diagram 3.1),
and you will notice, there is no interaction from VLM. The customer
does the job of building the document and proofing it online. Not
only does this speed up the ordering process, but it also ensures
that VLM never make a mistake in interpreting the order.
Although VLM was primarily targeting the estate agent market, customers
still differed substantially from one another. They therefore needed
to build a system that would match each individual company’s
way of doing things. They started off with a core system that would
have approximately 80% of customers’ requirements; the other
20% were designed specifically for each new customer. Bank of Ireland
is an example of how this customisation was achieved. Purchases
in the bank had to go through their SAP system (see ERP sidebar)
and as such required a purchase order number to be issued before
an order could be started. In order to do this, the VLM programmers
had to write software that integrated with SAP. While this software
was written specifically for Bank of Ireland, it can now be offered
to other customers running SAP.
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