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Guiding Essentials

The origins of www.guidingessentials.org.uk can be traced back to an act of goodwill and the donation of a transactional web site to Girlguiding UK, back in 1999. The site was donated by Shopcreator and provided a convenient channel for members and guide leaders to order ‘essentials’, such as uniforms and gifts.

Even with a limited portfolio of products and restricted revenue generation capabilities, the success of the initial web site led the Association to investigate further development of the online channel.

Russ Back, Girlguiding UK’s Web Manager recounts the initial project that transformed www.guidingessentials.org.uk from a site selling 20 ‘essentials’, into an online store , selling over 800 products and services online, supporting the entire catalogue range, including publications and branded goods, such as rucksacks, sleeping bags and outdoor catering products;

“The technology platform on which the initial site was built was scalable and enabled us to appreciably grow our e-business offering, without any interruption to service. The second generation site is seamlessly integrated into our branded portal, supports our successful brand development and continues to provide significant revenues.

With the new site live, online orders increased ten-fold to reach around 20,000 during 2003. In early 2004 when online sales hit £1m the Association decided to embrace further development – this time with the objective of delivering cost savings - through improving process efficiency.

“With front-end technology delivering such great results for us, we turned our focus to back-office processes. We knew that the manual processes for administrating and fulfilling orders were both time consuming and inefficient.”

After undergoing a requirements analysis exercise with the team at Shopcreator, a project to integrate back-office and front-end applications was implemented. The resulting solution – a robust, middle-tier intranet application to integrate stock management and order processing with the e-commerce platform - meets all of Girlguiding UK’s business requirements, is within budget and delivers advantages for both the Association and its customers. The headline benefits include;

1. Reduced cost
Integrated platform replaces manual data transfer between systems
Improved data cleanliness reduces duplicate correspondence and data errors

2. Increased efficiency
Real-time stock checking improves time to fulfilment
Quick-buy screen enables efficient large volume ordering

3. Improved customer service
Immediate online visibility of account details – even for first time web-users
Online account history for all orders placed, whether on- or off-line
Estimated delivery dates quoted online at time of order

The third generation solution now provides the Association with a far more efficient customer management process and the requisite customer service across the entire ordering and fulfillment process.

Russ Back continues, “The new solution provides the back-office efficiencies that we were looking for and also some great peripheral benefits too. For the third generation solution we have incorporated greater functionality; for example, a new ‘ quick-buy’ screen that enables our 68,000 guide leaders, to order multiples of up to 10 different stock code items on a single screen. This tool not only increases efficiency, but also encourages a greater percentage of purchases to be made through the web site, our most cost effective sales channel.The ability to implement this type of bespoke functionality to meet our precise business requirements is proving to be the key to our continued success.”

Simon Evans, Financial Director at Girlguiding UK summarises the success of the projects, from a business perspective; “Whilst providing a vital revenue stream for the Association, e-business technology has also given us the opportunity to achieve significant improvements in efficiency. Through being able to build on the solution in stages, we have been able to offer a much improved service for our members, whilst keeping control of our cost base. The technology has generated an excellent return on investment and continues to provide a solid platform for our future organisational development. ”