Basta Parsons

2 . Problem Definition

Although Basta had a supply network consisting of 3 manufacturing bases located in Sligo, Birmingham and Wolverhampton, and a growing network of customers, they still relied heavily on using the fax for communications. The volume of paper circulating throughout the company was growing at an alarming rate. Inefficiencies in communications were coupled with an ever-expanding product file. Constant product innovations and the acquiring of new companies sent the content of the product file spiralling almost out of control.

Basta decided to look for a more efficient means of communicating, both between offices and factories, and to its base of customers. To assist this process they firstly decided to ‘email-enable’ all their office employees in Ireland and the Britain. In parallel, Basta wanted to offer an online ordering service for all customers to speed up the process. This would also allow Basta to gain a competitive edge whilst streamlining their internal systems.

Due to the acquisition of the two British companies, they were faced with the looming prospect of integrating three different computer systems, used to control their manufacturing operations, in Ireland with two different systems in Britain. Basta decided to operate with just two systems, one in Britain and one in Ireland. The company chose to keep the more advanced system in Britain, as one site was already networked and email enabled and discontinued the other. Once that process had taken place, they had to prepare for integration with the manufacturing systems.

Starting with Ireland, this process proved to be something of a nightmare. Basta had its own internal product files with no coding consistency for products or product sub types – it appeared to be quite random.

The site was to be aimed at Basta’s top customers who provided the largest volume of business. Employing the 80/20 rule, where 80% of their business came from 20% of their customers, Basta was to target the top 10% of their customers with their web offering. Any new customers would be able to sign up to the service at the flick of a switch once they themselves had become web enabled.

Basta decided to build a Business to Business (B2B) web site. This meant that the site would be set up in such a way that only shops and similar business customers could buy directly from Basta. Consumers could not do so, and would thus have to continue buying from the shops. This was important to them to secure and maintain good relations with their business customers. However, Basta also designed the site so that at a future date, it would, if necessary, be capable of selling direct to the end consumer. Basta wanted to avoid being vulnerable to price squeezes by over dominant customers. “If one of our large customers, started to look for unfair price discounts or threaten to take its business elsewhere, we would be in a good position to switch to a consumer model,” explained Peter, “this form of protection- offering goods directly to the customer – could dissuade our retail customers away from unrealistic bargaining tactics”.