| Intelligent
Business Directory for a Leading Supermarket Chain |
| Client
Case Study |
| With more
than Twenty thousand product categories and a thousand suppliers,
the Supermarket chain decided to go online and step into Electronic
Commerce. |
| Situation |
| A
leading supermarket chain, has numerous franchises and branches
located at different parts of South India. With wide range of product
categories and suppliers, the supermarket franchises found extremely
difficult to keep track of the product codes with attributes. This
made them difficult and time consuming to place orders with the
head office of the supermarket. |
| Objective |
| The company
needed a solution that would let them to view product details with
sufficient attributes and subsequently place an order with the supplier.
MCD-ECOM knew that this would only happen by connecting the Head
office of the supermarket with its franchises electronically. |
| Solution |
| MeCOM
utilizes standards
based technologies from Control Data, one of the global leaders
in Electronic Commerce technology. We offer Electronic Commerce
Services via our nationwide network called MCDNET. The solution
is based on Control Data’s Electronic Commerce Server, the
TRANSACTION FRAMEWORK, which is installed at our various EC Centers. |
| With
the creation of Business community, a virtual marketplace is established
with head office of supermarket as a Hub company and its franchises
as Spoke companies. Web interface is designed to display product
information with facilities to search information with different
keywords. Web pages include all forms of information such as text,
graphics and photographs. This will be stored in the X.500 Directory
and Oracle database of the Transaction Framework, in addition to
all the email addresses of the hub and spoke companies. |
| Franchises
log in to the MeCOM
Hub via dial-up or I-NET. Information on the Web can be accessed
by the franchises by logging into the Transaction Framework by any
browser on a PC. The franchises can also transact by e-mailing queries
on the product. |
| Following
are the major advantages of the solution : |
1.
Facilitate franchises to obtain on-line product
information
2. Initiate Electronic
Commerce operation
3. Streamline operations
4. Provide user-friendly web interface |
|
| The
second phase of the solution allows the supermarket chain to move
into a full fledge electronic commerce which involves a complete
business transaction, from a Purchase order submission to Goods
receipt, and Invoice generation. |
| Results |
| Web
based application offers franchises to check for the product information
and subsequently query electronically. The solution allows the supermarket
to dramatically reduce the operation and communication costs. Early
indications show that the Company is saving valuable time and money.
|