Sony

The Sony ExpressNet Application went live on Friday, July 7th, 2006 and within a few days had their first $100,000 in new orders placed on the site.  The application provides Sony with a Business to Business application for resellers in the Sony Business and Professional division.  The new site will allow over 500 resellers to enter orders for the Sony products which they sell to end customers.

Key features of the new site include:

• User authentication integrated with the Sony LDAP implementation (SiteMinder)
• Catalog browsing integrated the Sony SAP application and the Sony Product Information Repository (PIR)
• Contract based pricing and product inclusion/exclusion based upon each reseller’s contract with Sony.  Contract Information is fed daily from SAP.
• Requisition List capability (called “My Favorites” by Sony)
• Ability to “simulate” an order in SAP, providing accurate pricing and planned delivery information
• Ability to place the actual order in SAP
• Order History search and display, allowing users to search on all past orders in SAP, even if they were not placed in Sony ExpressNet.
• B-Stock and Price Book information
• Ability to create eSpots on most pages of the web site

Goals

Sony’s main goal was to reduce call traffic to the call center and allow customers to place and check their order status.  Sony’s secondary goal was to increase sales by making it easier to place orders.  It’s last goal was to attract new customers by having a more efficient ordering system (which is currently successful).

Solution

Sony now has a solution that allows customers to view all products online, and download a price sheet. Customers may also check their order status online, and get updates on the progress of their progress. This reduces the amount of time call center people need to spend on that aspect of their job- and thus allowing them to spend time on more value-added services.  The entire solution is automated, so when new customers or products are added to SAP, all the information seamlessly flows into WebSphere Commerce. Once again, allowing Sony personnel to focus on value added work, instead of simple maintenance.

By freeing up CSR’s Sony is saving money, thus increasing margin on each sale that is completed.  Additionally, their highly trained sales team can utilize their skills to serve more customers.

WebSphere commerce’s flexibility and scalability offered Sony the right incentives to choose it for its business.   With the ability to handle both B2B and B2C, it allowed them to have one core platform for all of their e-commerce solutions, thus reducing IT costs and staffing. Additionally, WebSphere commerce can scale to the size needed by Sony.

Shared Vision Group was the lead Systems Integration and Provider for the WebSphere Commerce - design, development and implementation.  SVG had delivered the project under the original timeframe and budget.