POD Exhibition Systems - Customer and Job Database
Project Type: Relational Database
Operational 2007 - Development Ongoing

Background

Our client is a value added reseller of a wide range of equipment. The client approached Building on IT for a product database, office systems and database driven web solution to enable them to manage their extensive and growing range of products.

Product Database

A key strength of this company is their knowledge of a wide range of equipment from a large number of manufacturers. The Product Database was needed to share this knowledge with all staff, enabling them to respond rapidly and knowledgably to enquiries from potential customers.

Price comparision between manufacturers is difficult because of a diverse range of discounting strategies. Also, many of the products have a number of options which can be included adding to the difficulty in quickly quoting on enquiries.

The Building on IT solution was to provide a flexible database framework enabling products to specified with differing pricing and discounting methods. Options can be added at a click of a mouse and prices for different quantities are available within seconds for the sales team to forward to customers.

Flexible Discouting Schemes and
Instant Quantity Pricing are a key
strength of the Product Database
Product Database data is used
throughout the sales process

Orders, Quotations and Invoices

The back office system builds on the Product Database by making the products available for adding to jobs and including on quotations, invoices etc.

By using the same job database for the various stages of a sale consistency is assured and analysis tools can be used to track the efficency and profitablity of the business.

Credit Card Integration

Credit card data can be entered directly to the system for on-line processing by Protx. In this way credit cards can be authorised while the customer is on the line and without recording any sensitive information.

Website Synchronisation

The product data is regularly synchronised with the hosted website so the sales staff see the same prices and products that the customers do.

A script uploads any changes with a single click.

The database automatically divides the product range among the 4 websites:
www.pod-exhibition-systems.co.uk,
www.pod-retail-display-systems.co.uk,
www.pod-outdoor-display-systems.co.uk and 
www.pod-information-display-systems.co.uk.