ExclusiveBooks.com is powered by Estrin
E-business can look delightfully simple if you confine your imagination to the world of digital products, but it's a whole new ballgame when, as Exclusive Books did, you want to add the 'click' to an already highly-successful 'brick' business.
Steve Esselaar, business manager at Exclusive Books, explains: "The internet revolutionised sourcing specific titles, editions, and so on. The launch last year of our on-line bookstore was also a big hit, not only because of our strong brand and established position as the leading bookseller in South Africa, but also because our customers love to browse and compare - it's an integral part of the pleasure associated with buying books."
So everything online seemed to be hip and happening. Value was being added to the core business. Orders rose and kept on rising. Customers loved the new service channel. Valuable human resources were freed from time-consuming trawling through the many websites devoted to the 4.5million titles currently in print. But from that point in, the challenges started to grow like mushrooms in fertile compost.
Developing a system to handle direct payment for customers who wanted all the benefits of an on-line bookstore but didn't own, or want to use, credit cards became an urgent priority. "You won't succeed on-line if you don't at least meet - and preferably exceed - customer expectations. You have to respond to customer demand if you want to retain their business," comments Esselaar.
Fulfilling ever-increasing volumes also started eating up the business benefits gained. Choosing the right combination of stock availability, price (in different currencies of course), location, speed and cost of delivery proved labour-intensive, highly prone to human error, and extremely difficult to consistently deliver the desired results.
"When you consider that the sales price has been agreed when we accept the order, it became critical to have an application that would show operators which search result offered the best deal - for both customers and the business. Factors such as speed of supply and willingness to accept split orders can affect costs dramatically."
Dealing with all the issues - and several stand-alone systems that had evolved over time -- arising from damaged stock, wrong or incomplete orders, payment points, picking errors, packaging, and delivery, meant Exclusive needed to hire five additional staff - just to meet current levels of demand. The repeated human intervention required throughout the 'back office' chain of events presented far too many opportunities for costly mistakes.
The company considered fitting with packaged solutions such as MicroSoft's BizTalk 2000, but Uri Estrin, COO of Estrin Software, ultimately provided the most compelling solution.
Estrin recalls the results of his investigations: "Integration offered the key to resolving many issues in different systems and processes in the back office. This strategy, apart from delivering more accurate and reliable information, and greater efficiencies and economies of scale, also made better use of Exclusive's existing resources, so the company avoided substantial upgrade expenses."
The project has since become a smoothly-operating reality and Esselaar is frank in his admiration for the Estrin approach to technology solutions: "We couldn't be more pleased. Estrin Software transformed Exclusive into a real dot.com - not just another mail order outfit.
"We're proud to announce that we are now 100% accurate throughout our supply and fulfilment operations. The team at Estrin software took the trouble to really understand our business so the project ran like clockwork. They also produced some truly pioneering solutions in pursuit of integrating information management throughout the entire process."
It wasn't all hi-tech and gee-whizzery, though. Providing an alternative payment method, a subject often fraught with difficulty and expense, was solved by allowing customers to pay directly into Exclusive's bank account using their chosen method of payment, followed by scanned capture of the faxed deposit slips. Simple, huh? Security has been beefed-up throughout the business by applying the very latest word in encryption to all financial transactions.
So what are Exclusive now sporting under the hood? Estrin details the spec: "A single, central information point and sophisticated enquiry applications provides operators with tools - such as hand-held scanners - to better assist their customers."
For example, an inquiry on a customer order will detail the customer's profile, the title(s) ordered, if a purchase order has been raised and with which supplier, which of the titles have been received or when they are due to be received, which have been dispatched, shipping details and billing details.
The procurement engine ensures that staff routinely make the best buying decisions according to business rules that have been developed with Exclusive. The challenges of fulfilling orders on a 'first in, first out' basis have also been met.
"The system not only automates many functions, but works as a tool to manage the business and its resources and ultimately provide better customer service and support," adds Estrin.
Now that customers are informed proactively, daily queries have dropped dramatically. "A customer who is told that his book has, unfortunately, arrived damaged but has been re-ordered, is the model of saintly patience and understanding compared to the customer who has to ask what has happened to his eagerly-awaited book," comments Esselaar wryly.
Automation also plugged the gap of the three biggest timewasters: ordering; receiving; and picking. Staff are now free from many repetitive tasks, creating time - and energy - to manage their responsibilities more effectively.
Esselaar adds; "Doing it right first time, all the time -- and in less time -- has relieved the need to hire more people. Morale soared as our accuracy rate climbed and we are confident of our ability to handle increasing online orders -growing by over 100% every year - because the solution is totally scaleable."
If the present is now perfect, the future is even more attractive for Exclusive. Esselaar concludes: "Exclusive is now able take on new business projects that we couldn't consider before as we didn't have the human or technological capacity.
"Getting it right online is also creating its own stream of new business opportunities - the results of a new CRM initiative with our Fanatics Book Club will be filtering through to our site in the next few months." Sounds like the Exclusive site is one to keep watching.
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