TELUS: Case Study
Executive Summary
Leading Canadian telecommunications company TELUS has partnered with Acro Media Inc. since 2004, relying on StoreBox—Acro Media’s professional ecommerce solution—to sell cellular phones, consumer electronics, accessories and service plans.
Switching from an in-house ecommerce solution to StoreBox has resulted in increased national sales, reduced labor costs and improved brand exposure online.
The custom solution created by Acro Media handles unique inventory for different geographic areas, time zones and tax regions. The result is largely business-to-consumer (B2C), yet handles business-to-business (B2B), partner and employee purchases.
Setting
TELUS: Canada’s second largest telecom company, servicing more than 4.6 million clients across the country. Their PCS phone and data services are also accessible throughout the United States. In 2006, TELUS earned over US$8 billion; current market cap is US$14 billion.
The Challenge
Two years ago, TELUS Mobility faced multiple challenges in selling an ever-changing and expansive range of cell phones, accessories and services online. Their catalog included individual pricing, availability and taxation for 10 regions—in both English and French.
Dauntingly, the Web catalog’s static pages dictated that every amendment be hand coded. Changing one product’s price would typically take a person 3 days as they tracked down product pages for each language, region and category. Even with 6 employees assigned to the task, keeping their site up-to-date proved overwhelming.
Replacing their obsolete online store became a priority. However, when TELUS’s internal software team determined that a new ecommerce solution would take them a year to develop by themselves, they sought a contractor. TELUS chose Acro Media on the strength of our promise to deliver a uniquely customized StoreBox ecommerce solution, with a release-to-market timeline dramatically shorter than what they could accomplish internally.
Two years later, TELUS depended on Acro Media to provide the same quick turnaround for their Amp’d Mobile initiative.
Initial Solution
True to our word, Acro Media’s custom StoreBox solution was up and running in the quoted timeframe, much more quickly and at far lower cost than TELUS’s estimates of doing it themselves.
Our StoreBox solution features numerous storefronts bristling with features that address their every single requirement: specialized administrative functions, flexible pricing, inventory/catalog integration and content management systems. They provide TELUS with multiple advantages.
Advantage: Flexibility
Because a single database of products and services feeds all storefronts, any single change is automatically applied everywhere, and the amended item can be immediately published across all or individual storefronts.
StoreBox is infinitely customizable in looks and functionality. It meshes seamlessly with other Web representation (e.g. TELUS’s corporate site) giving users uninterrupted exposure to the brand. Likewise, its looks can be skinned and its functionality tweaked to conform to an organization’s unique requirements.
As a Web service provider, Acro Media develops a wide variety of solutions for a wide variety of clients. For any given need, Acro Media has the flexibility to shuffle resources between teams and projects in order to capitalize on skills and adhere to delivery schedules.
Advantage: Scalability
Naturally, you will outgrow your present solution. Acro Media’s software development strategy starts with scalability in mind. We know your first project with us won’t be your last, making it in our best interest to deliver a product that will grow with you and your success.
The TELUS Web store started as a proof of concept project. Within months it was handling millions of dollars in sales—and continues to expand to include new services and functionality. TELUS is able to capitalize on Acro Media’s software experience and build upon a reliable ecommerce platform that offers scalability for growth.
Advantage: Cost & Time Savings
By choosing Acro Media, TELUS spared themselves a year of costly development and left valuable IT staff free to concentrate on their core roles. StoreBox tools are efficient and easy to use, as proven by the fact that one TELUS employee now maintains all eight current TELUS storefronts, replacing the six individuals who were previously assigned the task of updating six storefronts.
While we are not at liberty to reveal the increases in their online sales, we can proudly divulge that since implementing their first StoreBox, the accumulated value of our work for them has increased approximately 700%.
On a daily basis, orders from the Web store are sent directly to SAP (enterprise management software) for fulfillment and then returned to the Web store to complete contract setup. StoreBox manages the order through all stages and tracks its progress. With a few clicks a clerk can determine if a payment was received, fulfilled, or completed. The Order Manager also maintains a copy of all Web correspondence, drastically reducing support and billing issues.
Advantage: Security
Acro Media servers are protected by best-of-breed Cisco PIX firewalls to block unauthorized data access.
TELUS administrators maintain firm control over content—access to backend tools is restricted to authorized personnel through a password-protected gateway. Administrators also control permissions granting access to specific tools. For example, a junior administrator could alter prices but not have the ability to publish them—a supervisor granted that permission could review the alterations and publish.
Advantage: Reliability
Downtime can translate into lost sales. TELUS enjoys peace of mind knowing that Acro Media’s telephone support is available 24/7. In the event of a technical problem, Acro Media is a call away. Acro Media provides all hosting and technical services and delivers on its 99.9% uptime guarantee.
To ensure that upgrades preserve our promise of error-free service, Acro Media maintains a mirrored development environment in which we thoroughly test all changes to the software before burning it in. Acro Media has the experience to know that the best place to catch and kill a bug is in the planning phase, before it goes live. By the time an upgrade sees the light of day, it has survived Acro Media’s barrage of quality assurance test methods.
Advantage: Customization
Acro Media continues to work closely with TELUS to implement real-world business processes into the online medium. Discount coupons—originally sent in the mail and redeemed in person at purchase time—are now emailed out and redeemed online. Programs for TELUS employees’ friends and families are now available via the Web through a secure storefront. Employees identify themselves with their employee number and have a yearly opportunity to purchase products and services at a highly discounted rate.
TELUS benefits from the automation and integration of their Web store in all aspects of their business. Marketing campaigns are launched and promoted to all storefronts simultaneously. Manual updates and processes that coordinated multiple departments are replaced by a nightly publish. Presentation of featured products and services—previously a laborious manual process—is now accomplished with a few clicks from a site administrator.
Advantage: Proof
TELUS will not continue to expand and invest in its Web presence without measurable results. They require specific information at specific times for specific managers and staff. Based on our initial analysis of their business needs, Acro Media ensured the crucial data was gathered, and then we created the information delivery systems. They featured the following:
- individualized dashboard for real-time Web reporting.
- downloadable reports in various formats with customized sorting, grouping and filtering.
- integration of Web analytics and breakdowns of customer buying habits.
Ongoing Partnership
Since the original launch of four StoreBox storefronts in 2004, TELUS has contracted Acro Media to develop additional Web sites/platforms. Acro Media is proud to have completed additional projects for TELUS’s corporate catalog, its fulfillment house, its Team Web Store (for internal employee purchases) and its Corporate Employee Purchase Program (provided for their partners’ employees’).
In addition, in 2007 TELUS partnered with Amp’d Mobile Canada—a provider of customized mobile entertainment, voice, information and messaging services, and the optimized phones capable of receiving them.
Although AMP’d Mobile Canada’s presence was short-lived, its products and services represented the cutting edge of mobile content provision: AMP’d owned a fully equipped production studio and prided itself on the originality and contemporariness of its youth-oriented content. In effect, because the Amp’d line targeted a more specific demographic of 18-26’ers, the look and feel of the AMP’d storefront differed greatly from TELUS’s own branded storefront– a testament to StoreBox’s design versatility.
Despite very tight timelines, Acro Media delivered the project to spec, on time and on budget—just as it had for TELUS on the original 2004 project.
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