A Case Study on Catalog Data Processing for a Large Furnishing Firm in the US

The Customer

A rapid boom in the growth of online B2C websites has resulted in the rise of demand for data processing services like order tracking and information processing. A number of companies prefer to outsource partial or complete data processing requirements. Flatworld Solutions is one the major data processing service providers in the current market.

We have established our presence in the market by providing customers with a wide range of data entry services. One such customer who has outsourced their data processing services is the oldest and largest furnishing firm based in the US. The customer has a wide network of suppliers and a huge customer database.

The Challenge

The customer intended to utilize Flatworld Solutions' data processing services to update their database by processing a number of catalogs. When the customer was on the verge of outsourcing this requirement, it already had an in-house team which carried out this task. However the customer needed a team from Flatworld Solutions to concurrently carry out this process as this was the key phase of the entire business cycle.

The prime objective was to improve the productivity rate and speed which was already set in motion by the customer's in-house team. The customer thus intended to complete the backlogs and manage the overall process better. This was one of the most challenging tasks since our team needed to get familiar with the complexities in the business process, comprehend the business process from scratch and execute high levels of productivity and competence.

The Project

The customer sells furniture to a number of vendors in the market. Every supplier sends a variety of catalogs to the customer periodically. The information from these catalogs needed to be updated in a central database residing on an AS400 server. The key components of the project were -

To establish remote connectivity via checkpoint secure remote VPN software and IBM emulator to connect to the server
Transfer of information from the catalog to the server on a text-based interface
The content from the catalogs needed to updated in three distinct phases which included an approval process from the customer
Shipping or scanning catalogs through FedEx for data input

The Solution

After a series of discussions with the customer, Flatworld Solutions was able to establish connectivity using the checkpoint secure remote VPN software and IBM emulator. This was a secure connection, hence the phase of discussions related to security and connectivity ended here. Forehand experience in dealing with these tasks provided the customer with an easy and fast solution.

We also formulated a dedicated team of 10 professionals lead by a project leader to enable knowledge sharing and communication during the training period. In the next phase of training the entire team was trained on the three-step data updation process from the catalogs.

The complications involved in the trial-run of the project were so huge that after a series of continued efforts, we were able to update information from the catalogs completely on to the server. The live run began soon after the successful completion of the trial run.