Customised web platform delivers connection and collaboration for Brother and their trading partners
Brother Industries is a Japanese company producing a diverse
range of products including label, multi-function printers,
typewriters, tools, sewing machines, and many other
computer-related electronics. In the world of printers the Brother
printer company is known for its quality and reliability.
Brother International New Zealand has had a web presence for many
years and in 2002 integrated that presence with its internal ERP
systems to provide transactional capabilities with its business
partners. Although that happened some time ago, that collaborative
capability has only recently entered the mainstream of commercial
service offerings as service oriented architectures (SOA)
mature.
The Challenge:
When it came time to take the website to the next level, the
senior management of Brother had a simple vision - they wanted to
be techno-savvy! In fact one of the values identified in the
original RFT when Olympic took this project on board was that we
would build the transactional capability for our client - so that
Brother would be known as a techno-savvy company. And, for the past
decade we had helped our client move towards this ambition, however
it became time to elevate the game to a new level. Techno-savvy
implies leadership and leadership offers a path to even greater
market differentiation.
The Solution:
Thus, the webfront application that Olympic had designed and
supported the client with for over a decade, Trader, (which enabled
a rich intranet/extranet capability) needed to evolve to include
even more functionality. One of the key goals of the new platform
was to allow consumers and trading partners to connect and gain
access to the services and information they needed such as invoices
or stock levels. Partners could be given access to the system and
the Brother web team would be able to control login and access
rights of these users.
One of the main challenges that the system-design team faced was
that there were major technological differences in the two
different systems in use for the front-end public site and the
partner-portal. These two systems needed to merge so that trading
and portal functionality could be managed within the one
framework.
The Brother website was revamped so there was one technological
framework that was consistently used across all aspects of the
website. It was also customised to meet their needs so that
existing functions were carried forward in the new framework as
well as any additional functionality included.
The new website, with its flexible and rich content management
system, also meant that it was easy for Brother to manage their web
design ensuring it adhered to international
guidelines.
Results:
The result was a flexible, web-oriented platform that enabled
Brother to connect, support and collaborate with its business
partners.
This platform is managed internally, using state-of-the-art
technology that supports and retains retail and business users.
The platform does not rely on Olympic to facilitate business
innovation in the local market, rather it is self-sustaining and
requires minimal partner intervention, which is how we like it.
