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Classic Marketing show SME's the way.
1 Overview Classic Marketing Limited (www.classicmarketing.ie) was established in 1986, as a corporate gift consultancy. Today this 100% Irish owned company employs 18 people, over four divisions: Classic Marketing, Classic Redemptions, Classic Golf and Classic Widget, with sales exceeding €5m in 2001. In 1996 Classic Marketing Limited became the first gift specialises to achieve ISO 9002 accreditation and in 2001 it was awarded the Excellence through People Award. The company’s client list now includes Ireland's leading financial institutions, pharmaceutical companies, building societies, food and drink companies, government agencies and sports and leisure businesses. The services they offer to their clients include: · Corporate gift consultancy. · Redemption schemes and fulfilment. · Golf event management and specialise golf merchandise. · Stock, source and distribution facilities. · Database management and reporting. Classic Marketing is Bank of Ireland's largest supplier of corporate gifts and merchandise. In 2001 Classic Marketing was invited to attend a supplier meeting with Bank of Ireland. At this meeting the bank outlined that it was implementing a SAP system for control of their purchasing and that all suppliers had to provide a web-based catalogue ordering system for their products, in order to maintain their status as a supplier. The catalogue was to be hosted by the supplier and contain Bank of Ireland specific content (i.e. select catalogue items and prices agreed with the bank). 2 The Requirement As a result of their meeting with Bank of Ireland Classic Marketing required an online catalogue that could be accessed by bank employees using a web browser. The bank wanted their requisitioning staff to be able to access the catalogue from the bank’s e-procurement system, the Enterprise Buyer Professional (EBP) component of SAP, by ‘punching-out’ through the bank firewall. The requirement was that once the user had gained entry to the catalogue they would then be able to browse, search and order from the 1000+ products. Upon completion of an order the product data would be returned to the SAP Module using the Open Catalogue Interface (OCI). Orders would not be placed on the Classic Marketing’s site. After approval of the order (within Bank of Ireland) a purchase order would be raised within SAP and the order would be transmitted to Classic Marketing by email. Classic Marketing investigated a number of e-procurement solutions before deciding on the bespoke development of 3 Procure Technologies’ Multiserve Catalogue solution. Classic Marketing contracted 3 Procure Technologies (3procure.com) to build and host their online catalogue. The web-based catalogue ordering system was successfully implemented and integrated into the Bank of Ireland EBP/ SAP system. Classic Marketing Case Study 3 The Solution Classic Marketing commissioned 3 Procure Technologies to implement a secure and robust eprocurement system accessible to the two involved parties, namely Bank of Ireland and Classic Marketing. The solution involved the customisation and integration of a supply system to Bank of Ireland's EBP SAP model using the Open Catalogue Interface (OCI). The solution has two aspects. On the supplier side it allows staff within Classic Marketing to update product display, pricing and promotions on a daily basis. On the buyer side it supports browser-based order creation from catalogue, existing order templates or off-catalogue ordering, as well as requisitions generated from other applications. Because the site supports the display and purchase of over 1,000 products, it was essential that the solution supported a variety of intuitive search capabilities including hierarchical catalogue navigation, keyword search and parametric search. The solution also incorporates an addline product offering, allowing Classic Marketing to offer convenient shopping to Bank of Ireland's purchasers. 3 Procures Multiserve Catalogue solution system developed by 3 Procure Technologies for Classic Marketing is a robust solution allowing for effective control of end-to-end procurement processes and supply-base management activities. The developed site delivers significant cost savings by improving sourcing capabilities, orderprocessing efficiencies and contract compliance. It has user-friendly functionality and a highly scalable, open standards-based architecture. 3.1 The Catalogue and EBP Interface The requirement was that all login information would be encoded within the requesting EBP’s URL query string allowing for automatic login and identification. The query string would contain the returning URL required for re-entry into the SAP module. The Open Catalogue Interface (OCI) is the interface between the catalogue and the EBP component of SAP. The catalogue interface consists of two separate sections: · The outbound section, which defines the information being sent from EBP to the catalogue application. This includes information such as the catalogue URL and logon data. When the user selects a catalogue the Bank’s purchasing application (EBP) redirects the browser to the catalogue using the catalogue URL defined within the outbound section of OCI. The browser then displays the homepage of the catalogue. · The inbound section, which consists of the information being sent from the catalogue application to the EBP application. This section contains data on the items selected in the catalogue, such as the item description, quantities ordered and prices. The catalogue generates an HTML form that is sent via the browser to the Bank’s purchasing application (EBP). 3.2 The User Experience After accessing Classic Marketing’s online catalogue the user is presented with a welcome or home page from which they can select the category of product that is of interest.
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