Tuesday, August 21, 2001
A new e-commerce web site has helped a plastics sheet manufacturer increase sales, said Duane Jebbett, President of Rowmark, Inc., Findlay, Ohio. Key reasons for the improvement include the fact that the new site provides anytime, anywhere ordering for distributors around the world and expedites delivery of sales leads. The company’s original site provided product information, but didn’t allow for live interaction. In order to improve communications with distributors, Aardvark, Inc., also of Findlay, was hired to build an interface to the company’s back end systems so that distributors could enter orders and collect sales leads. "The new web site has greatly improved our ability to communicate with distributors located around the world and we have seen a noticeable improvement in our business as a result," Jebbett said.
Rowmark is the number one producer of flexible plastic engraving materials in the United States and markets their products throughout the world. The company’s products primarily consist of ABS and acrylic sheet that are extruded and decorated in many ways These sheets are engraved by local sign shops using either a router or a laser machine to produce signs, plaques, labels, tags, gifts and many other products. With 16 product lines and thousands of color choices, Rowmark offers exciting options for both interior, exterior applications. Rowmark also offers a full line of products and equipment for dye sublimation, a process in which heat-activated inks change into a gas and bond with polyester or acrylic surfaces.
Early versions of website
In the mid 1990s, Rowmark was the first company in its industry to develop a web site, which originally was used solely for the purpose of providing product information to distributors and customers. In the late 1990s, the company upgraded its site to make it easier for visitors to download information by providing quick access to material specs and colors, technical information, sales tools and a gallery of how-to ideas for potential applications. Up to this point, however, the site focused purely on one-way communications. When Jebbett became President in 1998, he began investigating alternatives for expanding the site to allow authorized external users to interface with the company’s back-end business systems. "It was clear at that time that e-commerce was going to revolutionize the business world and we wanted to be at the forefront of our industry in taking advantage of the opportunities that it presented," he said.
Jebbett recognized that Rowmark didn’t have the capabilities on staff needed to develop a website of that level of complexity nor was he interested in taking the time and resources needed to build such a group. So, he looked for a company to partner with that could provide both leading-edge web design skills, as well as the ability to understand and build linkages to legacy systems. They picked Aardvark because of the company’s unique combination of technical and creative skills that allows them to deliver a complete solution from a single source. "We talked to other web designers," Jebbett said, "but Aardvark was unique in their ability to marry creative content generation, with technical connectivity skills to provide a complete package needed to marry our business systems with a first class web presence." Aardvark, Inc. refers to this specialized capability as C2C (content to connectivity).
Developing the e-commerce system
Greg Burton, Web Services Manager for Aardvark, said that the first step in the project was developing an understanding of Rowmark’s existing business systems which consisted of order entry, manufacturing, inventory, and accounting applications developed using the Progress database. Burton and other developers at Aardvark first cataloged these systems then they worked with Rowmark’s sales team to understand exactly how distributors interacted with Rowmark. All parties presented ideas on how the interface of the website should work. Jebbett pointed out that the company’s distributors throughout the world varied widely both in the their computer skills, business backgrounds and experience with Rowmark.
The conclusion was that the best way to serve the company’s entire distributor base was to provide two different ordering systems. One would be targeted at the most experienced distributors and would allow them to quickly enter SKU numbers and quantities, dramatically reducing the time required for the ordering process. The other would lead the distributor through the ordering process step by step, making it easy for the less experienced distributors to select and order the right products. Burton and his team constructed both ordering tools using Microsoft tools on the front end including Windows NT server, Internet Information Server and Site Server. They wrote custom code in Visual Basic to write the orders into the back end system. They also gave distributors the ability to view their order history.
Streamlining sales lead tracking
The next step to be addressed was the sales lead tracking process. In the past, sales leads were distributed first to Rowmark sales people who decided which distributor should be assigned to follow up on the leads. One problem with this approach was that the leads had to pass through multiple parties that were often busy with other tasks, often leading to significant delays. In addition, some distributors were concerned about the subjective methods that were used to determine how leads were distributed among them. The Rowmark and Aardvark Team decided to address both of these concerns by electronically distributing leads over the web. Now, administrative staff at Rowmark enters the leads into a database where they are immediately available to any authorized distributor. The combination of making the leads available over the web and giving any distributor the right to follow up on leads has dramatically reduced the time involved in the sales lead cycle. Most distributors now check the site on a regular basis for the purpose of seeing new leads This has the related benefit of encouraging distributors to become active users of Rowmark’s website. Another benefit of the new approach is that the amount of administrative time needed to manage the sales lead process within Rowmark has been substantially reduced.
Jebbett said that the new site has already had a noticeable impact on sales. "We now can provide product, pricing information and accept orders at any time of the day or night," he said. "This makes a big difference, especially for foreign countries and different time zones that make it difficult to have coverage for business. For example, the other day we took an order from a Chinese distributor overnight. In the past, the distributor would have had to send us a fax or an email and wait until the next day for a confirmation."
Aardvark's Role
Jebbett added that Aardvark played the crucial role in the success of the website. "They contributed both a vision, the skills and tools that were needed to make it become reality," he said. "Aardvark has pioneered the concept of marrying creative and technical skills to generate real-world returns from the potential of e-commerce. On this project, Greg Burton was the technical lead and Lynn Childs played a critical role from the vision and creative side. Aardvark’s enthusiasm and positive spirit kept the project on track from the project kickoff to the go-live date. We continually rate our vendors on a number of criteria and they consistently rank at the highest level. We are proud of what they have done and the impact that it has had on our business."
The next step in the development of Rowmark’s site, according to Jebbett, will be providing distributors with real time inventory information. "This will be a major step forward because at the present time the only way for distributors to determine whether an item that they need is in stock is to call one of our customer services representatives. The advantage of providing in-stock information on the web is that they’ll be able to immediately see that we might not have their first choice and search for an alternative that may work just as well. This capability is under construction and the prototype is currently being tested by one of our distributors. When it comes on line, it will provide another first in the Engraving industry and another example of how Rowmark is taking a leadership position in using the web to better serve our distributors and customers."
- Cris Glenn
Back to Publications
