Webstore Development

Development of the Synaro Webstore at Page Digital, Inc.

Situation:

Page Digital was an enterprise software provider that sold and supported business software for order entry, accounting, warehousing, inventory control, and manufacturing. The company was using older technology that had no Internet components and which had no capability for integrating an online webstore. One of Page Digital’s clients was desirous of building a website with e-commerce capabilities within a six-month timeframe. Existing competitors did offer this client e-commerce solutions in addition to their enterprise software options. It was evident that, in order to stay in business, Page Digital would need to bring Internet services into its family of solution offerings.

Action Plan:

• Built a design team and collaborated to lay out a prototype webstore system that could be fully integrated with the company’s back-end inventory database. Features would include webpages that were dynamically generated depending on what selections the customer made, the capability for instantaneous Internet purchases, an order status checking system, and dynamic generation of the “look and feel” of client companies’ sites coordinated with their own branding.
• Selected Lotus Domino as the platform upon which to build the webstore system; given the short timeline, it would be advantageous to modify existing functionality versus building from the ground up.
• Developed a project plan outlining all necessary tasks and identified milestones for on-time project completion, making sure to coordinate the webstore progress with the non-Web modifications and overall system implementation and training.
• After meeting the initial goal of delivering a webstore for the first client, the system was marketed to other non-webstore clients. In the interests of staying contemporary, assembled a team of programmers to continue making enhancements to the system.
• Once the business-to-consumer module had been completed, focus was directed toward a business-to-business system and successfully met a go-live deadline for IBM in servicing such large clients as Coca Cola and AT&T.

Results:

Successfully met the go-live deadline for the initial client, whose webstore is still growing to this day. The webstore design served as a model and is now in its fourth or fifth incarnation. In January 2004, Page Digital, Inc. was purchased by Island Pacific, Inc. (IPI) and is now one of the leading multi-channel software systems for retailers, cataloguers, wholesalers, distributors, and manufacturers. This design has enabled its owners to perform hundreds of installations each year.