| Element Six eCommerce Portal Case Study |
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The Challenge
Operating in 17 countries, Element 6 are currently the worlds
leading producer of industrial diamonds and industrial diamond
products. However new competitors enter the market, reducing costs
of manufacture, forcing the costs of their products downward and
decreasing profit margins.
In response to changes in the market, Element 6 have made a decision
to market and sell a significant portion of their product on the
Internet, thus increasing efficiency and service to their customers,
while also reducing costs.
The challenge facing Element Six was to identify an eCommerce
platform that is flexible enough to adapt to their unique products
and market, while being scalable and robust enough to become a
key trading system for a multinational organisation.
The Approach
The approach chosen was a phased approach which was designed
to implement basic on-line trading functionality in Phase 1, in
a short time-frame and on a limited platform. Later phases in the
project were to implement higher levels of resilience and increased
back end integration, but without throwing away investments made
in phase 1.
In addition the approach selected was to utilise a packaged solution,
rather than a complete bespoke development, both in consideration
of time to implement and in consideration of the cost savings that
this approach offered.
The Solution
The solution selected was based on IBM WebSphere Commerce, a
highly functional and proven B2B and B2C platform.
The Benefits
The use of the WebSphere Commerce package provided a number of
benefits:
- WebSphere Commerce speeds and simplifies the deployment and
management of differentiated e-commerce sites while maximising
performance, scalability and adaptability.
- In Element 6, Phase 1 of the project was completed in under
3 months, a significantly shorter timeline than if a bespoke
solution had been developed.
- The solution offers significant future scalability and resilience,
as evidenced by it’s implementation in other large scale
on-line trading environments.
- The solution delivers a rich, relevant customer and partner
experience by extending a common set of business services across
every point of interaction.
- It provides rich, ready capabilities for catalog and content
management, personalisation, e-marketing, guided selling, order
management and more.
As a member of the WebSphere product family, the solution provides
the industry's most complete middleware platform to provide seamless
integration of channels, processes and systems.
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