Case studies at the Center
Continuing series...
Subject:
Corporate extranets: Invest in a well-planned corporate extranet
Learn how to automate any sales processes with Dextranet™
November 19, 2002
Case Study: Under many piles of paper RFP's (Requests for Proposals), N.R.I. Plastics of Vancouver, B.C. was taking sometimes up to three weeks to reply, a delay that could not be tolerated. The need was for an efficient corporate extranet to serve its customers. The solution chosen was Dextranet™, a versatile, powerful extranet portal system.
Corporate extranets increase global business
"We have proof now that we actually lost valuable business to our competitors in the
past because it took too much time to get our RFP's out," says Jonathan Hopkins, CIO and
head manager of IT systems at the plastics manufacturing company. "The solution we asked
for was addressed to three independant local IT vendors. We basically asked for an
Internet-based price quotation system for all of our products. The system had to be fully
secure, easily scalable and would integrate well with our in-house, existing invoicing
and accounting software we had been using since 1999. The whole system needed to run both
on Windows NT and UNIX, and was operated under two local LAN (Local Area Networks).
Additionally, the extranet would eventually migrate to Windows 2000 or a higher
platform when we were ready for it", adds Hopkins. Delivery schedules at the three
competing vendors were between four months and eight months, wich management at N.R.I.
judged to be too long.
"Not satisfied with any of those three proposals, we were referred to the people at the General Center for Internet Services Inc. (GCIS). We were told they were knowledgeable of extranet portal solutions and could be of help to us. A few days later, GCIS came in as a team and suggested we have a good look at Dextranet™, an integrated and fully scalable extranet portal solution developed by them, that can be used with up to 5,000 simultaneous users. We could now offer our 3,400 plus customers in Canada, the US and Europe faster service, at a much lower overall cost to us. That was in marked contrast to our outdated and slow, paper-based RFP process we had been using for the past 15 years. Since our successful launch date of Dextranet™, all our customers are now enjoying better service and more accurate delivery from all our RFP's. And as an added bonus, we are even saving time and money too", says Hopkins.
Corporate extranets help automate any sales processes
"From the first day Dextranet™ went live in our head office, it completely automated
all our sales processes. In the outcome, our accounting people discovered new ways of
saving extra money that we did'nt initially see", adds Hopkins. "Dextranet™ now
offers us an automated 360º view of all our sales processes". "And that is crucial
to us in the current business cycle", adds Hopkins.
As an initial test and prior to the deployment of the extranet portal, some customers in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario used Dextranet™ to submit real requests for proposals (RFP's). The goal was to expand the portal's use to additional customers and business partners in four additional provinces in the following weeks. The results were better than N.R.I. expected. Faster and smoother service was delivered to all parties and in all regions. Plus, in the end, all of them had lowered their internal costs. Dextranet™ was also appreciated by the twelve field sales excutives working from their laptops and portables both on their customer's premises and inside their vehicles. They cover all the B.C. / Alberta region and needed a rugged, trusted working environment that really delivered.
Corporate extranets: customers save a lot of time and effort
With Dextranet™ firmly in place, customers of N.R.I. Plastics no longer need to submit
tedious paper bid requests to the company via fax or conventional (and much slower)
regular mail. The extranet portal also replaces the time-consuming process of keying
information into the computer system, often twice, creating additional human
intervention, and, significantly increasing chances for data entry error.
The whole e-business project taught Hopkins to carefully check out the financial status of IT vendors and to leave extra time for project completion. "You must accommodate problems that shouldn't happen but will when you are interfacing multiple systems together," he says. "We are glad we did'nt choose the wrong vendor", says Hopkins. "Not only did GCIS deliver the whole, turnkey solution under three months, but they also came in with the lowest cost out of the four bids we had. They even flew in two training instructors to be certain our people would be up and running as soon as possible", adds Hopkins.
Corporate extranets: cost savings and increased ROI
"As a result, in a few branch offices, some existing employees were reaffected to other
duties, thanks to the elimination of dual data entry into two or more disparate
computer systems. Before, three order clerks were sometimes required to enter all the
data. Now, only one can do the same job, sometimes even faster. Payback and
ROI now comes from a combination of improved internal
productivity and additional sales revenue through all channels", says Hopkins.
"We are really happy with Dextranet™ and we appreciated the professional, one-on-one advice we got from the knowledgeable people at GCIS. The whole team of extranet experts really did a big difference and continue to make a substantial improvement in our sales numbers and much improved overall IT efficiency" says Hopkins.
See all the difference Dextranet™ can make in your company. Get more information by clicking here or contact us today. A dedicated team of extranet professionals will rapidly visit you in your premises.
Warning: All company logos and/or registered trademarks on this Web site are the
exclusive property of their respective owners or are under license by their
authorized affiliates only. The GCIS and CGSI logo and all Internet solutions,
software or related products and services offered on this Web site are the
exclusive property of the General Center for Internet Services Inc. (GCIS)
and its french counterpart, le Centre Général des Services Internet Inc. (CGSI).
| GCIS Home
| Portfolio
| Domain names
| Solutions
| Training
| Our technologies |
