Porterhouse Limited

6 . Implementation

Hosting

Initially Porterhouse thought it would host the website in-house with a leased line and proxy server etc. However, after some investigation the company decided it would be better to have the site hosted offsite by a third party. A hosting company called First Derivative in Newry was recommended by QBIKS. First Derivative had the advantages of being the cheapest hosting company available at that time and also was located nearby which would be useful in the event of a hosting problem. First Derivative is hosting the site for IRP1k per annum. This involved an upgrade to Porterhouse’s file server.

Integration issues

Enterprise Ireland thought that the website should be integrated with the existing textile network system but it was not possible to integrate it with the Order Processing software, which was DOS-based. Orders are typed in manually to this system. The company does not mind having to continue with this manual work as even if the orders went automatically to Sales Order Processing, it would be necessary to have someone look at them for any potential complications as the manufacturing process is very complicated. Therefore it was not a problem for Porterhouse that the systems did not integrate fully. A confirmed order received over the Internet is given a “W’ at the end of the customer number to indicate that it originated via the web.

Timeframe

The project started in January 2001 with the intention that the website would go live on 1st April. However, the eventual live date was 15th May. There were two weeks of problems that caused a delay towards the end of this timeframe, mainly to do with the domain name.

Domain Name

Porterhouse initially registered four domain names:

• Boynevalleyweavers.com
• Weaveoftheirish.com
• Irishweave.com
• Irishgift.com

The company had already registered Porterhouse.ie but decided not to use this for the website. The brand Weave of the Irish had already been promoted in the US and was well established there so after much discussion it was decided to use this one for the URL (Uniform Resource Locator) of the website.

This domain name had initially been registered with a UK company called Active ISP and it was necessary to have it ‘pointed’ to the ISP (Internet Service Provider) in Newry, a task that seemed easy but that ended up taking a lot of time and causing delays. The email facility was also affected during this time.

Resource

During the implementation, Porterhouse committed the following resources for a percentage of time to the project

• Matt Doolan, Managing Director 40%
• Dermot Marron, Financial Controller/Project Manager 60%
• One administrative resource 100%

It was decided not to employ a full-time dedicated resource.

Now that the site is up and running, the resource committed to it is 30% of one’s person’s time. It was initially thought that this would be sufficient but as the company gets more involved in eBusiness, a full-time person may be required in the future

Technical access within Porterhouse

The following technical access is available within the company:

• 20 workstations
• 18 people have email addresses
• 4 people have access to the web, in:
• customer service
• sales
• accounting
• managing director

If Porterhouse introduces e-procurement at a future stage, two further people will require Internet access.

Promotion

Porterhouse selected 400 customers for promoting the new eBusiness solution to and emailed 345 of them as follows:

• End April:
  A professionally printed, colour postcard announcing the launch of the website was sent out
• Early May:
  A letter was sent giving username and password with details of how to log in etc.
• Early September:
  A questionnaire was sent out asking for feedback on the new customer ordering solution