Kennys Bookshop & Art Gallery

6 . Outcome

6.1 Benefits for Customers

Once the new system is in place, the benefits to Kenny’s customers will be:

• Increased choice – The new system will allow customers to search and purchase a far wider range of Kenny’s stock and, by searching on OCLC codes, will allow them to find a wider range of titles that meet their needs.
• Decreasing costs – When the system is fully implemented, each item in Kenny’s stock will have an OCLC code and bibliographic record attached it. For a library, this means that they can simply purchase that record from the OCLC thus saving them having to create it themselves – an OCLC record may cost €1.50 but to create that record from scratch can cost in the region of €150. This represents a massive saving for library customers that may buy 400-500 books pa from Kenny’s.
• Registering wants – Clients can register their wants and, when that particular book is received, they are notified and presented with an option to buy.
• Use of the Kenny’s database – Other bookshops will be able to offer Kenny’s stock for sale by allowing their customers to search the Kenny’s database as if it was their own. If a book is found that the customer is interested in, Kenny’s can either ship it directly to the client or to the local shop for distribution.

6.2 Benefits for Kenny’s Book Export Company

• Release Cash from stock – Most importantly, the new system will increase the volume of stock available for purchase and therefore increase revenues and, ultimately, profit.
• Increased rate of cataloguing – With the new system, Kenny’s can double the amount of books catalogued each week and can therefore significantly increase output.
• Increase product available to customers – As more books are catalogued, customers will be able to see and purchase a far wider range of stock.
• Future proof – By designing a very solid back-end system, Kenny’s will be in a position to add new services to their customers in the future.
• Immediate profitability – The new system will be profitable almost immediately as Kenny’s will be able to offer a far wider range of stock for sale. • New markets – The new system will allow Kenny’s to take greater advantage of foreign markets by allowing foreign customers to have access to a far greater selection of their stock.

7 . Lessons Learnt

For Kenny’s there were a number of key issues that came to light:

• Hire a consultant – Initially, Kenny’s thought they couldn’t afford a consultancy like BSM. Ultimately, according to Conor Kenny they realised that “we couldn’t afford NOT to use a consultancy” - a 3rd party that really understands the issues is key. Until an organisation understands what the REAL issues are (i.e. not what it thinks the issues are), it can’t start looking for a solution to resolve them. The cost to an organisation for this consultancy can be substantial but, according to Kenny’s the outlay is definitely worth it.
• A safe pair of hands – It is imperative that there is a safe pair of hands in the company to look after a project like this – someone that can hold the reigns, understands the problems and can work with vendors to find a solution.
• Avoid bespoke software – Throughout the development of the requirements and selection of vendors, Kenny’s has been quick to avoid using software developers that may design applications specifically to meet the organisation’s needs. Instead, they opted for vendors with products that were off-the-shelf (standardsoftware available to anyone) and needed little or no development to make them work. This means that, in the event of something happening to the developer, another vendor will be able to support the system.
• Concentrate on the requirements – In order to find a solution, an organisation first has to identify what the problem is i.e. identify the requirements of the system. This process involves many members of staff and, in particular, those members of staff at the ‘coalface’, doing the job on a day to day basis.
• Bring staff on-board early - A process that is purely management driven is doomed to failure. While the management team thinks it understands the requirements, it probably doesn’t – they don’t do the jobs of the people in the organisation and can therefore have little idea of what exactly is involved in the day-to-day tasks of those employees. This process also helps to alleviate any resistance staff may have to the change that is implicit with the implementation of a new system.
• Be realistic about the costs – Organisations must be realistic about the potential cost of a project of this nature. It is easy in the early days to work out a budget that is far lower than that which will be required by the conclusion of the project. When Kenny’s put together the original budgets for its eBusiness project, the management team felt that the number was a little on the low side. Now that the costs have started to come in from vendors, they are realising that their initial instincts were correct.

Like a number of other organisations in the SME sector, this project highlighted a number of issues to Kenny’s – things they had to deal with before they found a solution that met their needs. “We’ve learned a lot”, commented David Lohan.

8 . Future Plans

The time, effort and budget invested by Kenny’s now means that the organisation will have a technology solution that should last them for a number of years. This foundation has been designed such that they can offer more services to their clients without having to outlay a large amount of budget:

• Wants list for libraries – allowing libraries (who are primarily customers for published books) to lodge a large wants list for out-of-print books with associated prices for each book. As those books are bought by Kenny’s and appear on the database, the libraries’ requests can be automatically fulfilled.
• Generating requirements lists – the Kenny’s database could interrogate client databases identifying what books (by subject, author or publisher for example) the client doesn’t appear to have. A collection could then be generated that meets the exact needs of that client.
• Virtual Shopping – Once Kenny’s has a solid database in place, the company will be in a position to open that up to other bookshops and online book portals around the world. Although the end customer will shop at their local bookstore or portal, they could well be looking at Kenny’s database of books.
• Targeted offers – Using the key words generated by each customer purchase and stored with their customer record, books that might interest them can be offered for sale as and when they are entered onto the database. This effectively means that Direct Mail campaigns targeted to each individual can be devised and deployed. This very targeted method of marketing will allow Kenny’s to build closer relationships with its customers around the world.