IBM Software WebSphere
Consumer Products
Preca Brummel improves customer experience With a Smarter Commerce solution from Tecla
Overview Business challenge Deploying marketing and e-commerce applications on different platforms was becoming slow and costly for Preca Brummel, a medium-sized Italian childrenswear retailer – preventing it from investing money in more productive activities such as implementing the tools necessary for increased businessto-consumer activity and international growth.
Solution With the help of IBM® Business Partner Tecla, Preca Brummel implemented IBM WebSphere® Commerce, a Smarter Commerce™ solution that moves the focus to the customer by adding business-to-business and business-to-consumer functionalities. WebSphere Commerce allows the company to standardise and centralise its e-commerce activities, as well as providing a seamless, cross-channel service through well-targeted and customised marketing campaigns and promotions.
Preca Brummel is an Italian family-owned business which specialises in childrenswear and accessories and now includes four brands: Brums, Mek, Bimbus and Suomy. Founded in 1951 as a small textile workshop by Giovanni Prevosti and headquartered in Carnago, Varese, the group employs over 370 people and, after gaining significant market share in Italy, is now planning to expand its operations into the international market. Michele Prevosti, the founder’s grandson, is responsible for managing Preca Brummel’s IT division and encouraged the company to consider the promising world of e-commerce: “I have always believed in online marketing and e-commerce, and looked at it as ultimately the most comprehensive way to expand a business like ours to reach a broader customer base.” However, Preca Brummel did not have an online solution for its marketing and sales departments, and its old IT environment was becoming obsolete and unable to support the company’s business goals. “Our company has a distribution network consisting of retail stores, franchises and direct sales to end-customers. Our sales and marketing processes used to be fragmented, with specific systems for each of these channels,” explains Prevosti. “We used three different applications to manage our sales and purchase orders, and this was becoming increasingly costly, time-consuming and unproductive. We also lacked visibility into the entire customer supply chain.” Moreover, Preca Brummel did not have any tools to support businessto-consumer (B2C) marketing initiatives, which prevented the company from managing its campaigns, orders and sales to the end-customer. This scenario was unfavourable for the company, as it lacked insight into its customers’ needs, especially since B2C marketing was a key element in its international growth strategy. “We wanted to become more competitive and expand our sales to other countries. To achieve this, we needed to implement a more user-friendly platform that had advanced tools to translate our website into other languages, create well-targeted campaigns and promote our products to a variety of customers. This required a significant investment of money and time, which we could not afford if we continued to use our old marketing applications,” continues Prevosti.
IBM Software WebSphere
Consumer Products
The move to a Smarter Commerce solution Business Benefits •
Provided a fully centralised and standardised Smarter Commerce solution for online orders and sales.
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Helped save around €100,000 per year in terms of licence, maintenance and technical support costs.
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Accelerated the creation of online sales and marketing campaigns by 50 percent.
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Reduced the time taken to create and send purchase orders by nearly 100 percent.
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Enhanced one-to-one customer experience by significantly improving the user’s online experience.
Michele Prevosti’s ideas and confidence in online marketing led Preca Brummel to take a Smarter Commerce approach and implement a fully web-based solution to manage all of its sales and purchase orders – across all four brands and the entire distribution network. “We simply no longer wanted to support more than one application to manage our sales, so I started to look for the perfect e-commerce solution. After considering vendors such as ATG and Intershop, we opted for IBM WebSphere Commerce. This platform was exactly what we wanted: completely centralised, highly customisable and userfriendly. The most remarkable feature, however, was the opportunity that IBM WebSphere Commerce gave us to introduce B2C marketing. Being able to focus on the customer was something Preca Brummel had wanted for a long time.” IBM WebSphere Commerce allows Preca Brummel to use a single tool to manage all of its purchase orders, marketing campaigns and sales, and enables the company to boost the effectiveness of its advertising. The software also supports promotional activities based on the analysis of purchase orders and sales results, in order to improve the overall customer experience.
Harnessing Tecla’s expertise and support At the time of implementing this solution, Preca Brummel looked for an expert and efficient Business Partner. “IBM Italy itself suggested we chose Tecla, which it described as one of its leading Italian Business Partners because of its high level of expertise, committed support and technical knowledge of IBM products,” says Prevosti. The project started in September 2010, with Tecla managing most of the implementation. Carlo Visani, Founder and President of Tecla, explains: “We handled the implementation of IBM WebSphere Commerce and provided training and technical support to help the client become an independent user quickly and comprehensively. Thanks to IBM WebSphere Commerce, Preca Brummel can now rely on a single online tool to manage all its orders, sales and campaigns. We also helped Preca Brummel implement a B2C solution – fully supported by IBM WebSphere – which helps it to get closer to its customers and provide a better, more targeted service any time of the day, any day of the week.”
Achieving tangible benefits and business goals Although the B2C tools have only recently been implemented, Preca Brummel is expecting to see significant results from them in the near future: “The fact that we now have a B2C-enabled solution is amazing,” states Prevosti. “I am extremely confident that this will deliver the benefits we were looking for when we invested in this application.”
IBM Software WebSphere
Consumer Products
Solution Components Software •
IBM® WebSphere® Commerce
IBM Business Partner •
Tecla
“Thanks to the competent execution from Tecla and the advanced capabilities of IBM WebSphere Commerce, Preca Brummel has achieved all of its goals. Centralising online marketing and sales and introducing a B2C tool not only saves money and time, but also allows us to focus on the customer, enabling international business growth.” — Michele Prevosti, IT Manager, Preca Brummel
IBM WebSphere Commerce has already helped the company achieve several goals: the time taken to create and send purchase orders has now been reduced by nearly 100 percent, as the data is immediately available; in the past, it could take several days. Retiring the old, offline applications has also allowed the company to reduce licence, maintenance and technical support costs by around €100,000 per year. The time needed to create sales campaigns has also decreased by 50 percent, due to the higher flexibility and integration of the IBM solution with Preca Brummel’s SAP ERP environment. “Thanks to the competent execution from Tecla and the advanced capabilities of IBM WebSphere Commerce, Preca Brummel has achieved all of its goals. Centralising online marketing and sales and introducing a B2C tool not only saves money and time, but also allows us to focus on the customer, enabling international business growth,” concludes Prevosti. “What’s more, our customer satisfaction has greatly increased, thanks to the opportunity that IBM WebSphere gives us to customise our online service and move towards a one-to-one customeroriented perspective.”
For more information To learn more about how an IBM Smarter Commerce strategy can benefit your business, contact your IBM sales representative or visit: ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/smarter_commerce/overview
To learn more about products, services and solutions from Tecla, visit: www.tecla.it
© Copyright IBM Corporation 2012 IBM Italia Circonvallazione Idroscalo 20090 Segrate - Milano Produced in Italy March 2012 IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com and WebSphere are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation, registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. A current list of other IBM trademarks is available on the Web at “Copyright and trademark information” at: ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml. Other company, product or service names may be trademarks, or service marks of others. IBM and Tecla are separate companies and each is responsible for its own products. Neither IBM nor Tecla makes any warranties, express or implied, concerning the other’s products. References in this publication to IBM products, programs or services do not imply that IBM intends to make these available in all countries in which IBM operates. Any reference to an IBM product, program or service is not intended to imply that only IBM’s product, program or service may be used. Any functionally equivalent product, program or service may be used instead. All customer examples cited represent how some customers have used IBM products and the results they may have achieved. Actual environmental costs and performance characteristics will vary depending on individual customer configurations and conditions. IBM hardware products are manufactured from new parts, or new and used parts. In some cases, the hardware product may not be new and may have been previously installed. Regardless, IBM warranty terms apply. This publication is for general guidance only. Photographs may show design models. Please Recycle
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