Brief Description of BUSINESS-PROCESS Provided by the Suggested Commercial System. (Portal). (For the “Euroset” company)(not personal, matches any company). 12.09.05
1. Risks. Your shops are not ensured against terrorists in Russia after September 11. It?s no use to recon upon at least 10 percent per month, while you run the risk to lose 100 percent every day. That is why you should not stuff the warehouses, but order that exact quantity of the goods, that you and your clients need.
2. It is very difficult to add features and to rework big, sophisticated systems AFTER they were created and started up (the whole system ? your portal ? will be hanging). That is why I tried to involve the maximum of ?commercial opportunities? in it and to make it full-scale to the limit.
3. The system was specially developed for the businessmen and for the management of the company. That?s why the structure of the system should be close the real Russian market, including the stuff of participants, the language of various texts (such as hints or instructions) and known commercial abbreviations. It is called ?consumer properties of a good?. It is the only way for the businessmen at start-up level of the Internet to work with your portal easily.
4. Actually, the System is an ?Internet-community? (or Internet-state) for a big sales company. The community consists of your retail shops, your wholesale consumers, your suppliers, your retail consumers and your competitors.
All of them are supposed to be able to BUY as well as to SELL their goods (accept the suppliers, who are allowed to sell only, and accept the retail consumers, who can buy only).
In order to process (to filter) the information faster, the users are registered in the System as members of different ?user groups?.
The businessmen and administrator from your central office are registered separately ? they obtain special rights as well.
5. While registering in the System, every user gets two passwords. The first one is for managing HIS ?PRICELIST? and the second one is for managing HIS ?ORDER for the GOOD?. He can edit his orders and pricelists anytime under his password (accept the suppliers and retail consumers who have pricelist and order accordingly). Our ?pricelists? and ?orders for goods? are of SINGLE TYPE. They consist of ?model titles?, 6 ?prices? (?retail? minimum and maximum, large ?volume? (min and max) prices and small ?volume? (min and max) prices), ?quantity?, ?date of delivery? for the pricelist (?preferred date of delivery? (the date when you need to receive a good) for the goods order) and service columns (?hide a line?, ?delete a line? etc.) A single and very simple, comprehensive type is absolutely necessary for having ability to COMPARE ASSORTMENT of various ?pricelists? and ?orders?, which is needed very much by business. So you can visit our special web-page and choose (BY NAME) there any shop, bulk store, your supplier?s warehouse or your competitor?s storehouse, you are interested in. And when 0.1 second after you?ve pressed the button passes, the system will collect from the chosen pricelist and show only the models that are present in your ?order?. More so, you can choose from the same web-page (BY NAME) up to 10 different ?warehouses?. And after you press one button, the system will filter information and after 0.1 second it will return the models from the chosen pricelists that are present in you ?order?. Taking into consideration that ?orders? and ?pricelists? may contain hundreds or even thousands of items, we see that the ability of holding fast assortment comparison of ?pricelists? and ?orders? lets decrease the system loading hundreds times. The efficiency of the system cannot be overvalued. You shops (or wholesale clients) are provided by opportunity to ?investigate? your stores very fast, ON-LINE and BY THEMSELVES (of course, if they have rights to do so), to choose necessary goods and to order them immediately. Furthermore, the system lets your businessmen process ?orders? from your clients hundred times faster and more efficient. So, you will need fewer businessmen, who will be working much more efficiently.
6. It is also very important that it is almost impossible to make mistake while managing ?pricelists? and ?orders?, due to many instructions and hints that point at the mistakes (for example, wrong type, or some model?s minimum price occurred to be put bigger than its maximum price etc.). There is also a very important fact, that your client can choose models for the ?order? out of whole database. He can choose models, which are not yet included in his ?pricelist?. So, the client?s ?order? can be much bigger than his ?pricelist?.
7. There is also a term ?goods basket?, which is used for transferring goods from one warehouse to another.
8. What actually happens ? is that every user obtains his genuine e-shop ? an e-shop with unique possibilities. You can use fast geographical search. The system is already equipped with list of states and towns (you can add or edit ones). Moscow and Petersburg are provided with ?metro? stations and ?markets?. While registering new users you have to specify his location (choose it from a list) at the level of TOWN, METRO or a MARKET.
9. It is necessary to provide every client with ability to receive the MINIMUM quantity of the most needed information FAST and EASILY. That is why; the system is plentifully stuffed with MANY CLEAR ?COMMERCIAL FILTERS?. Filters are: ?date/time of delivery?, ?geographical position of a warehouse?, ?customs?, ?type of registry in a system? (a shop, a wholesale customer, a competitor etc.), ?pricelists? or ?orders?, ?retail price?, ?wholesale price?, ?quantity?, ?brand?, ?model title?, ?consumer properties of a good? (color, size, weight, kind (narrow, vertical etc.)). All the filters should be precise and clear for businessmen. They should be of single type and be working on different pages of the portal. Smart allocation of the filters will decrease real loading of your portal hundred times. So, each of your clients (you have hundreds or thousands of them) will need to make much less quantity of ?clicks?. It will help your businessmen to work more efficiently. As a result ? you will need less quantity of them.
It is also very important, that a businessman could have ability of visual comparison of goods parameters (?prices? for example) on different conditions (different geographical zones for example). For instance, you have to make decision about transferring goods from Hamburg to Vladivostok. First, you need to compare the prices. So, you should set the filter to choose models from different ?geographical zones? ? That?s how same models from different geographical zones will appear on one page. Further, you can filter the information on and on. This is a very easy and obvious opportunity. And it is able to simplify and fasten any of your analytics, which will fasten the process of making prospective commercial decisions. And of course, it will decrease the loading of the system. There is no commerce when there is no comparison.
10. Besides, we?ve got a unique and comprehensive scheme of handling FILIATIONS. For example, one of your wholesale consumers in Vladivostok has brought up real filiations (sellers) in Nahodka and Khabarovsk. He himself can easily register them in you system and transfer some goods from your assortment to them. These will be genuine shops, which will be able to make ?orders? (they will also obtain 2 passwords after registration). But what if your shop ? a wholesale consumer in Vladivostok ? is going to buy goods from Vladivostok, Moscow, Hamburg and Kotka? (Depends on BETTER terms and prices.) Very easy: the client registers 4 (or any other quantity) of its filiations-buyers (4 ?orders?, registered in different places), then he fills in the needed models, prices, quantity and date of expected delivery.
Furthermore, if you (the central office) would like to know, what all of the users, registered in the system, need in Hamburg, you choose (filters) ?orders? and ?Hamburg? and press one button. Them you find more specific filters ? brand, price, user etc.
If you want to know, what your users sell in Hamburg, you choose (filters) ?pricelist? and ?Hamburg? and press the button. Further on more specific filtration is also available. So, the client can organize (according to the restrictions provided by you) ?chains of e-shops and e-warehouses?. It is comprehensive and demonstrable for you and for him.
11. Your ?pricelist? contains the column ?date of delivery?. So, your ?order? has a column ?preferred date of delivery? (the date when you need to receive a good). If the column is empty, it is considered that the good is in the warehouse (or the good is needed now). You may also keep two or more records with the same model but different dates of delivery. They will be placed one position below the other as if these models are different. If you happen to input two equal dates of delivery for the same two models, you will get warned about possible mistake. The same will happen in case any other mistake in the way of filling ?pricelist? occurs. Special filter will allow you to set desirable time period. And the system will pick out of pricelists models, which date of delivery is out of that period.
12. Same happens to the ?order?, but ?date of delivery? is called ?preferred date of delivery? (the date when you need the good). You can also keep two or more same models but with different ?preferred date of delivery?. If you happen to input two equal ?preferred dates of delivery? for the same models, you will get warned about possible mistake. The same will happen in case any other mistake in the way of filling ?order? occurs. Special filter will allow you to set desirable time period. And the system will pick out of ?orders? models, which date of delivery is out of that period. (So you see that the ?pricelist? varies little with an ?order?. The actual difference is title.)
13. Every system should have ?user interface? (to be used by outer users) and should have ?service interface? (to be used for system administration). Despite user?s access will be restricted for that (administrators only will be allowed), I tried to make its work clear and transparent for businessmen and for management. The ?Service interface? contains entitled ?buttons?, so that everybody could understand. The ?buttons? manage service pages. Their design is also very easy and clear to any businessman. This is made for purpose ? in order to be independent from programmers and administrators and in order to let the management control their work with our system. Titles of ?service buttons? are: ?customize classifier?, ?customize characteristics? {consumer properties}, ?import pricelists?, ?manage users?, ?manage models?, ?customize producers (brand)?, ?view statistics?. This is quite enough to manage a web-site. If any other technical features are needed ? they can be easily added to the existing list.
14. Russian ?secondary market? is highly developed. It is to be considered and is to be used. We call them ?competitors?. They have large pricelists; all of them are of different type (Each of them uses its own ?goods classifier?). You cannot use or process these documents, while they are not converted, because all of them are of different type. That?s why an additional special program of correspondence of your pricelist?s classifier with your competitor?s one is to be developed for each competitor in our system. You need several seconds more to transfer their pricelist to your system of a suitable type. Further on, you will be spending couple of seconds to renew it. After you received the pricelist, you can manage it as if it is your pricelist, or any other pricelist of correct type. You can filter it or compare assortment (for 0.1 second) with your ?pricelist? or your ?order? etc.
So, you can, for example, choose 10 most interesting competitors and the system will spend 0.1 second and will return models, which are in your ?order?. This is very important and made in order to prevent you clients from buying the good, you don?t possess by the very moment, from you competitor. So, you can urgently order the missing good to your competitor (for your shops or your clients).
Besides, your prices shouldn?t differ much from the prices for similar products of your competitors. Only our system provides you with opportunity to control this ratio. It is quite enough to superpose the assortment of your pricelist on, for instance, 10 pricelists of your major competitors. The system will need 0.1 second to filter the information and will pick out of competitors? pricelists only models, which are in your pricelist also. Of course, same models in the report will be placed together (with all the parameters such as price, quantity etc). Further on, you may filter the report by these parameters.
Commercial risks are also estimated the same way ? at the level of most close interaction with real market and are minimized.
15. Certainly, the system was created so that the access to information was restricted to users, who were not supposed to acquire this information. It is restricted by passwords and not only by them. For example, your retail and wholesale consumers should never have access to your competitors. Retail and wholesale customers shouldn?t also see the information concerning your suppliers. Retail customers should see your shops only. Wholesale ones should have access to your bulk warehouses and retail shops etc. So, any of such restrictions are available (as well as restrictions upon the region ? the clients are allowed to see information, concerning their region only etc. Any of such restrictions may be set up.)
16. Commercial risks are decreased when, for example, you process your ?orders? from the shops in Vladivostok and you know not only the kind and the quantity of goods, you need today, but you know AT WHAT PRICE you need it. You also know what goods and at what price you will need in a week (2 weeks, a month, 2 months etc) straight from the tin. This is the most precise forecast for delivery of goods, best attached to real local commercial conditions. One more important thing is that if these commercial conditions eventually start to change, you will see it immediately and will be able to CORRECT the delivery of goods to your shops and clients REAL-TIME, FAST and BEST-WAY. You shouldn?t fill the warehouses with illiquid products and stuff your clients with unneeded goods.
17. By the way, due to the ability of your clients to investigate the assortment of your warehouses real-time (of course, if they are allowed to do so), your clients may correct their ?orders? themselves, and they may replace temporary missing in your warehouse goods with similar ones (by demand), which are in the store now. It is very important for business and nobody but them can do it.
18. Taking into account that your usual e-mail may get viruses (receive them from outside), we?ve developed our inner corporate e-mail, with is not so functional, but without viruses. It is fast and easy.
19. Very important thing: EVERY working page of the system contains instruction (HELP) about how you should work with it. The upper menu will also show you the instruction and descriptions of the system. The ?site-map? (upper menu) is very demonstrative. It explains the working of the system step-by-step starting from registration.
20. The system is compatible with any of ?bookkeeping? or ?corporate? system. For being started, our system needs to import the list of your shops from your corporate system (is needed only once). Pricelists are attached to cash registers and are managed the same way as in your corporate system. If you like the way and frequency, pricelists in your corporate system are renewed at ? you may do the same in our system. (By default our system renews pricelists automatically real-time according sales and transfers of the goods.)
21. Of course, we?ve developed opportunity to duplicate some most important things. In particular, if a client, for some reasons, cannot fill his ?order?, the ?order? will be created automatically, according to the ?sales analysis?.
22. The ?Data Base? of the system is based on ?Oracle?. The design is coded in HTML. Actually, the system can be easily tuned into other similar programming languages. System opportunities and program interface will stay the same.
23. The system has already been tested for 1000 (one thousand) of your filiations of total assortment of 1 million positions (specially generated for that). One of not very powerful server stations was used (Dual-Processor Pentium 4), bought 2 years ago for 10 thousand USD. Evidently, the upgrade of hardware will increase the power of the system much.
24. The system had been working in Internet as a portal for different companies for 6 months. It still contains real (but outdated already) pricelists and ?orders? of known companies. All the businessmen and management of companies, who were demonstrated the system, noted the high level of it.
25. Full demonstration of the system (your ?Internet-state?) and its opportunities requires 3-5 hours. Brief demonstration will take 1 hour. The system can be demonstrated to any general manager or businessman, who knows Internet at the level of e-mail.
26. The system requires 2-6 ordinary programmers, who may support it simultaneously (due to simple user and service program interfaces).
27. There were made hundreds of iterations of the system design, kindly advised by respectful businessmen.
28. Corporate systems (?bookkeeping systems?) like ?Sap?, ?Oracle?, ?Columbus? (Microsoft) and others were created in 1980-ties. They have much been outdated morally by now. There were no Internet, no powerful computers then. The sales analysis was the only possible way to forecast, what your clients need. But now this forecast is not correct. Market overtrading, different kind of bargainsales and frequent ?car lotteries? (which happens world-wide nowadays) make sales analysis unsuitable for any forecast because it will lead to stuffing of your warehouses with illiquid goods. This position is evident for any businessman, but not for a programmer. Programmers can code under your management or your requirement specification. They cannot create anything themselves, including ordinary e-shop. They copy everything from everywhere. You will see it if you deprive them from Internet and offer to pop down their ideas about the market on paper (They do not know anything). That?s why all the e-shops are similar. Bookkeeping systems are similar as well, because they are also copied ? one from another. Unfortunately, the programmers cannot develop them or chain them to contemporary reality. Furthermore, you are advised a fully raw product, which is to be rebuilt under your needs by a couple of ?commercially unlettered programmers? instead of complete system ? full-functional working ?internet-state?, which is to be little bit adjusted for you (such as our system). Of course, no use to expect any good results from ?bookkeeping systems? like that. The official statistics proves only 10 percent of such systems work properly (Please see article ?Glance and Misery of IT+? http://russian.pavel.ubicon.ru/?p=24#more-24 )
Believe it or not (you may always check it out), but all the programmers are ?COMMECIALLY UNLETTERED?, including your programmers, the programmers of “Sap”, “Oracle”, “Columbus”(Microsoft) and even my programmers. ?Bookkeeping? (?document management?, ?personnel?, ?accounting? etc.) is very simple and is clear even to ?commercially unlettered programmers?. That?s why plenty of companies promote identical bookkeeping systems (they copy them one from another).
Despite the advertisement and promises, they have nothing in common with real ?commerce?. Their ?fake commerce? is based on ?sales analysis?, which is a part of ?bookkeeping? rather then ?commerce?. But ?commercially unlettered programmers? cannot ?produce? (or copy) anything more sophisticated than ?bookkeeping? and ?sales analysis?. By the way, copying should be smart also ? you should copy only new and best (?old stuff? is copied usually). The commercial management should control this process also.
Respectfully, Pavel Karpov (general director and the developer of http://www.technobazar.ru/ ) (tel. 985 766 67 87)
Please visit http://pavel.ubicon.ru/ for more detailed description of my system.
P.S. That is how ?Sap-R3? system was reported by former chief business manager of ?Eldorado?. The system has a very complicated program interface. It is impossible to teach the ?regions? to work with it. Probably, it was being improved by so many people that most have already forgotten, what they were improving? (Same problems are faced with by other similar ?bookkeeping systems?.)
After ?Technosila? started ?Axapta? up, the system didn?t have a single filter. By now, even this easy ?bookkeeping system? has become very much overloaded.
?Columbus? threw the blame on incorrect specifications requirement. Such way of behavior is usual for them. The client appears to be wrong always. Who wrote the specifications requirement (????). Wholly incompetent programmers, who have washed out in time, did it. They forgot to ask the businessmen about what they need. Same happens at start up of similar ?bookkeeping? systems in other companies. Systems are still overloaded.