By Hazimin Sulaiman

Imagine coming home after that long two week vacation and having your groceries delivered right at the doorstep as you arrive. This saves you a trip to the grocer and gives you some time-out after your trip. That might sound too good to be true; but Tesco.com with the help of Ivis Group (IVIS) a London multi-channel provider also based in Technology Park Malaysia has actually helped make this a reality way back in 1996.

At Tesco.com, not only can you buy groceries, you can also buy home furniture, phones, appliances, PCs, toys and can insurance; just to name some. Leveraging on partner relationship management as a driver for marketing channels for multi-channel retailers such as Tesco, IVIS can make any retailers' presence felt on the Internet. IVIS' solution drives more customers to their retailers' websites by partnering with affiliate networks and shopping comparison sites. In return, they pay a cost-per-click-charge per lead or sale generated.

Tesco.com sends over 30 different product data feeds to up to 15 online partner networks, including affiliates and shopping comparison sites every day. Before IVIS came into the picture, the Tesco IT department were experiencing high levels of resource demand from the business users managing the process. Tesco.com wanted to improve the ROI from its online marketing programme and empower business users to batter manage partners.

"The challenge is to ensure that multiple online partners are supplied with accurate customer-oriented product information according to their disparate requirements. Additionally, products must be included or excluded quickly according to price competitiveness, availability and CPC level", says Qusai Sarraf, chief executive officer, IVIS Group.

In most companies to expedite matters, according to Qusai, this dynamic, marketing-driven process is handed to the IT department. However, if a company's business-driven system is not agile enough, it might fail to respond quick enough to changing market conditions. This can lead to very dissatisfied customers, brand damage, lost sales and increased marketing costs.

The IVIS solution? The award winning Sonetto Channel Information Management (CIM). Sonetto CIM, enables a business to manage, control and publish all information across multiple channels. Sonetto CIM magically takes a single feed and customises the information for each channel in a multi-channel environment. Being connected to other product or pricing systems, it ensures dynamic, accurate and real-time information is delivered to every channel.

Chart shows how Ivis’ solution helps retailers, partners and customers to buy and sell specific products and services.

In April, 2007 IVIS received the prestigious MSC status and opened an e-Business and a R&D centre in Technology Park Malaysia, Bukit Jalil. "We are immesely proud of being awarded the prestigious MSC status by the Malaysian Government. This allows us to further strengthen our offerings to our customers- providing rapid technology development with the same quality standards that they have come to expect from IVIS Group in the UK," said Qusai Sarraf.

www.ivisgroup.com