End User Report – Analysis Supply Chain
in the installation and customisation of
e-commerce solutions as well as a reputation Improvements for the customer and Wip also pointed out that Life Technologies
for reliability,” said Christian Wip, Life customer feedback has a real-time interface to its Oracle E1 ERP
Technologies’ IT director, e-business. “This With the help of Infosys, we have introduced systems, so when customers log onto the
criterion narrowed the field down to a few an on-screen survey window that appears website they see not only real-time pricing but
key players in the market, and Infosys was each time a customer places an order. also real-time availability. “They therefore know
chosen as one of the key implementation “We leverage constructive customer immediately whether a product is in stock or
partners on the basis of its experience in the recommendations to make the customer whether it’s on back-order,” he said, adding:
field of implementing e-commerce packaged shopping experience as enjoyable and “The reason customers are required to log in
design applications and the strong partner convenient as possible,” said Wip. “One is because we are a large company with
relationship with Sterling Commerce.” Wip example of an area that has been very well distribution centres around the world. So,
added that Infosys’ proven expertise in a received by our customers is in our custom based on the location of our customers, we
number of other IT-related areas also opened configured goods. We sell several products can check the availability of a product within
up the possibility for future projects. In that comprise multiple parts that need to be their particular region. Most of our stocked
addition, Infosys was one of the most cost- individually selected in order to arrive at the products are received by customers within
competitive solutions and service providers end product. The configuration engine is one 24 to 48 hours. Although the basic capability
on the market. The newly implemented of the new features of our latest e-commerce of allowing customers to determine stock
Sterling Commerce e-commerce solution for solution, and is very different compared to the availability hasn’t changed, our latest
invitrogen.com went live in June of this year. legacy platform. Although some customers e-commerce upgrade improved the messaging
around this availability function. Therefore, it’s
Training strategy now easier for customers to see whether a
Life Technologies undertook staff training for product is available for immediate shipment.”
the e-commerce system in-house. Wip pointed
out that the company’s in-house technical Looking ahead
writers wrote the user manuals containing Because the Internet is evolving quickly Life
frequently asked questions and quick Technologies is always planning to further
reference guides. “These manuals were enhance its e-commerce system and is
used to train our customer service reps actively working with Infosys on the next set of
and in-house users and supporters of the enhancements. “We always want to offer new
e-commerce system,” he explained. products, new capabilities, enhanced
functionality and generally leverage the latest
Importance of e-commerce capabilities that the web offers,” commented
E-Commerce is a critical channel for Life Wip. “This is a very fast-moving landscape,
Technologies. “Although we can take orders so we will be in a continuous enhancement
by phone and fax – and have a dedicated
Christian Wip, IT director
cycle for the foreseeable future. For example,
e-business, Life Technologies: “We
customer service department for this task –
always want to offer new products,
one of the things that our usability studies
the majority of the orders we receive come via
new capabilities, enhanced
and customer studies have found is that
the Internet from customers in North America,
functionality and generally leverage
search functionality is very important,
plus a significant number in Europe and Asia the latest capabilities that the web particularly for companies like ours with very
Pacific as well,” said Wip. “So, from a sales
offers. This is a very fast-moving
large catalogues. We sell almost 50,000
channel perspective, the Web is key.”
landscape, so we will be in a
catalogue products and around 8 million
continuous enhancement cycle for
the foreseeable future.”
genomic products that can be ordered
Technical changes and through the web. When the product offering
enhancements gets this extensive, navigating down the
Wip continued: “With our upgraded had become used to the old system, overall we hierarchy is just not realistic. Search
e-commerce system, Infosys has helped us have received a good response as customers capabilities have evolved considerably over
to introduce new and improved functionality, are now able to configure products in a more the past few years and we are actively
much of which has resulted in a brand new efficient manner.” working on the next generation to optimise
and enhanced user experience on the the overall user experience. In addition, the
customer-facing side. We have also Wip added that another enhancement enables ability for us to recommend products to our
transitioned to a new technology platform customers to see what is in their shopping customers that we feel might assist them in
that we feel is much more scalable for the cart more quickly. “So, rather than customers their experiments and processes will be
future growth of our company. We run the having to visit a separate page to view the further enhanced in an effort to optimise the
Comergent system on Linux as our platform, basket, they now immediately view a summary discovery process. Giving scientists that shop
with Apache Tomcat as our web servers. We of the basket via drop-down each time an item on our invitrogen.com website additional
use Oracle as our database and all the code is added,” he explained. “This means one less recommendations around complementary
is written in Java J2SE, so we believe we are click for the customer and further speeds up products to complete their experiments is
using state-of-the-art, best-of-breed technology.” the transaction.” high on our priority list.” circlesolid
www.logisticsit.com
MANUFACTURING
October 2009 &LOGISTICSIT
27
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