Client business profile: Wadhsons Group of companies are manufacturers and distributors of apparel and accessories. They distribute their products in the European, Asian and South American markets.

Business Challenge: For the Wadhsons Group of Companies the process of getting the apparel and accessories designs approved was a time consuming process. This process was being conducted through emails, phone discussions, and sending actual samples to clients. There was enormous amount of time spent on this process before the manufacturing process could begin. Wadhsons wanted to streamline the system of getting client approvals and save cost and time involved in the whole process.

They decided to develop a website, which would provide information about their various products and allow their clients to choose the design and styles of particular type of apparel or accessories online and send the information to the Wadhsons through the website. The challenge was to build a dynamic data driven e-commerce site, which would be user friendly while at the same time would maintain visual professionalism.

SAI's Solution: SAI's detailed discussions and 'white boarding' exercises with Wadhsons team led to the development of the Wadhsons e-catalogue. This e-catalogue application acts as a complete storefront capable of handling a large number of transactions as well as storing and processing information about products and users of the system. Wadhsons client can ask for modifications in the design of apparels and accessories online and when Wadhsons receives these requests they make the necessary changes and upload the changed images of the product in the e-catalogue. The application can also be used independently for selling any kind of products on the Internet.

Technology: User-friendly interface was designed with graphics packages taking into consideration the Wadhson's unique requirements in color schemes and use of their logo. Active Server Pages (ASP), which specifies presentation and enables server-side scripting, was used to dynamically generate a product catalog based on the latest user defined products in the catalogue. The pages were created using the Microsoft Visual InterDev® Web development system, a component of the Microsoft Visual Studio® development system. The Microsoft Visual SourceSafe® version control system, another component of Visual Studio, provided version control and source code management. CDONTS was used for automation of Purchase Order Confirmation. The database tier of the solution consists of a server running Windows NT 4.0 Server and SQL Server 7.0 administration support for manipulation of catalogue of products, and to portray latest information. Shopping cart calculations of totals are done using complex stored procedures. There is facility in the application for user account storage and for storing cookies with user permission.

Client Benefits: SAI's past experience in creation of B-to-B/B-to-C websites proved beneficial to the Wadhsons. SAI was able to provide Wadhsons with critical inputs right from the designing stage to the final implementation of the website for the Wadhsons. SAI delivered the right business solution to the Wadhsons on time and on budget. Today, Wadhsons have managed to cut short the time in getting client approvals for the design of their apparels and accessories. This has lead to savings in both time and money for the Wadhsons.

Industry Relevance: The Internet is an ideal medium of information distribution because it reduces the time lag associated with publishing content and actually making it available to the users. This fact is recognized by many organizations that are making extensive and focused use of websites and e-catalogues to provide information about their products and services to their target markets. The Wadhsons website is an example of an online catalogue which has allowed the Wadhsons to reduce the time needed in getting approvals for designs of their product from their clients and has lead to savings in cost and time for the Wadhsons.