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INNOVATION
& DESIGN Home Page Architecture Brand Equity Auto Design Game Room SMALLBIZ Smart Answers Success Stories Today's Tip INVESTING Investing: Europe Annual Reports BW 50 S&P Picks & Pans Stock Screeners Free S&P Stock Report SCOREBOARDS Hot Growth 100 Mutual Funds Info Tech 100 S&P 500 B-SCHOOLS Undergrad Programs MBA Blogs MBA Profiles MBA Rankings Who's Hiring Grads | | FEBRUARY 13, 2002 FIRST PERSON By David Lowe Taking the Big Step Online Even as a tech innocent, I knew our business had to move beyond its ink-and-paper ways. Here's how we managed the shift to the Web
While we live in a culture that's more technologically advanced and e-savvy than ever, taking a business online remains a daunting task in the minds of many people. Going from the traditional "ink-and-paper" method of doing business to one characterized by servers, e-mail directories, and bandwidth can be a challenge for even the largest companies -- companies that can afford, to a certain extent, to make mistakes. Making the switch is even more challenging and risky for small- and medium-sized businesses. With fewer resources, the cumulative effects of downtime, steep learning curves, and cumbersome technology are felt far more acutely in a company of three than at an outfit with 3,000 employees. Large companies usually can absorb the costs of poorly made, poorly executed decisions. Smaller companies just don't have that luxury. HUNGRY FOR A FIX. The ancient wisdom about not doing your grocery shopping on an empty stomach also applies to taking a small company online. When I set out in search of technology that would ease my company's transition to the Web, I did a lot of thinking before going shopping. I didn't want to be wowed by the wrong technology due to hunger -- or a lack of planning and research. Headquartered in a small office and a warehouse facility in the garment district of Los Angeles, OPI Trading Corporation is run by three people, including myself, who have been providing retailers with quality apparel and merchandise since 1984. Our specialty is children's clothing, and most of our customers are small retailers. In 2001, in order to increase revenues, efficiencies, and customer satisfaction, we decided to establish a Web-based catalog. As a lean operation, we needed technology that was reliable, easy to learn, and simple to maintain. Since one of our main goals was to make it simple and quick for customers to view the latest specials and deals on our online catalog, we wanted to make it easy for them as well. GOALS AND PRIORITIES. Two key requirements emerged early in our search. We needed a reliable and sturdy Web hosting platform and an equally reliable catalog manager that would allow us to advertise and conduct product transactions in support of sales. Also, we needed a way to advertise our site through various search engines and an e-mail marketing program that would allow us to reach out customers. Shopping list in hand, I checked out a number of vendors, ultimately choosing Microsoft's bCentral, which was developed with small companies like ours in mind. As I see it, there are several benefits to the choice we made. Start with our customers, who appreciate being able to review our products online. They can actually see what they're ordering rather than relying on the descriptions we used to offer over the telephone. For us, it has saved time and money, and it has allowed us to deliver a higher degree of customer satisfaction. THEN AND NOW. Before we brought our catalog online, orders would come in through the mail, over the phone or fax, or via walk-ins. It took us two hours on average to verify each order. We all know handwriting is often hard to read, and faxes don't always come through clearly. The time we spent tracking down customers -- making phone calls to people in different time zones, for example, leaving messages, and then waiting for them to call back -- has all but been eliminated. Orders come in electronically, leaving very little room for confusion. And on the rare occasion when there is confusion, it can be resolved quickly in an e-mail message. We've also been able to offer customers tracking numbers for their orders in case they have questions, which increases customer satisfaction. Maintaining our catalog is simple. Posting and removing items takes a minute or two, giving us unprecedented flexibility in marketing our products. Drawing on the data-management capabilities of our system, we're able to organize and manipulate information, allowing us to sort and customize data based on any number of easily adjusted parameters. MOM'S A FAN. Our new and expanded e-mail capabilities have proven especially valuable. Before taking our business online, we would call those customers we thought might be interested in special offers. Now, by using the system's List Builder feature, it's simple and easy to send an e-mail about our latest offers, and to target those announcements at customers according to their interests and specialties. All of the above advantages match the expectations we had when deciding to go on line. But here's the ultimate test: Can your mother use it? In my case, that is more than an academic point because my mother and I work together. She's definitely not a computer expert, but after minimal amount of step-by-step instruction, she knew how to work with the technology and complete tasks in a fraction of the time it once took. What could be better? An Information Age catalog -- and a happy mother, too.  Lowe is the president of OPI Trading. Get BusinessWeek directly on your desktop with our RSS feeds.  Add BusinessWeek news to your Web site with our headline feed. Click to buy an e-print or reprint of a BusinessWeek or BusinessWeek Online story or video. To subscribe online to BusinessWeek magazine, please click here. Learn more, go to the BusinessWeekOnline home page  | | FEBRUARY |
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