Client Background
Large E-Commerce Company serves e-commerce businesses by connecting online retailers, suppliers, and consumers with a suite of tools to assist with inventory management, marketing, and supplier integration. Large E-Commerce Company works with a variety of successful e-commerce clients in building traditional and innovative solutions using application development, mobile technologies, and social media.
Challenges
Large E-Commerce Company often works with IT partners to develop effective technology solutions that meet the needs of their clients. One client, a jewelry manufacturer, required a feature-rich application that would allow their sales force to easily take orders from retailers and provide a number of other functions. After experiencing trouble working with their usual IT partner, Large E-Commerce Company used an online consulting service to find an additional party to assist with developing the challenging solution.
AllianceTek worked closely with Large E-Commerce Company to completely understand the objectives and challenges of their client. They listened closely to the client’s user experience and discovered functionality gaps and places where technology could reduce overhead and save time and money. AllianceTek defined these areas and compiled a requirements list that would drive the development of the application solution. AllianceTek created a dedicated development team to work closely with Large E-Commerce Company and the client that would update the other parties with daily development calls.
Solutions
The AllianceTek team used the iPad platform for their solution and coded it using X-Code and Objective C. The result was a robust, feature-rich application that transformed the work of the client’s sales force. Through an easy to use interface, users could display product lists with search and sorting functionality and swap the prices from the manufacturer and retailer to view the best seller product price.
The sales force could now add, increment, decrement, or remove products in a sales cart by selecting the retailer, and the supplier can view the cart summary by collection. The application enabled users to place orders in a database and add synchronized order data with the server by calling a web service.
Through the touch screen interface of the iPad, new retailers could easily be added and users could view retailers’ sales history to anticipate demand. The application also contained marketing tools, such as video demonstrations, slideshows, and other ways to engage customers. With offline functionality, even if users did not have an Internet connection they could still use some features of the application.
Result
With the new application in place, the jewelry manufacturer was quickly able to make effective use of the solution by Large E-Commerce Company and AllianceTek. The sales team was empowered with retailer and supplier information right at their fingertips so they could make faster, more-informed decisions. They could also reach new customers in new ways and retain existing customers with helpful marketing features of the application. Large E-Commerce Company found AllianceTek to be a reliable IT partner they could count on to provide expertise and resources to meet the demands of their client. Through their relationship, both businesses found mutual successwhich fostered an ongoing business relationship.
