Directa (UK) Ltd. is an Essex-based manufacturer and distributor of industrial products and consumables supplying a broad range of industry sectors including manufacturing, education and theatre. Directa is a sales-led organisation that has demonstrated steady growth through product catalogue selling, supported by a telesales function.
To support its future growth strategy and to provide better choice and access for its customers, the company has recently introduced a fully integrated and transactional website www.directa.co.uk. The site already has 10,000 products online with a further ten thousand to be added.
The key business driver of the new online channel was accelerated growth and in particular, growth from new business. Directa also wanted to cost effectively extend the product range and increase access to ranges of key brands.
The project was led by the recently appointed Marketing Director, Ciaran Crowley. Ciaran was previously Group Business Development Manager for e-commerce with RS Components UK, a part of Electrocomponents PLC, where his role was to deliver the growth strategy for the online channel rswww.com.
At Directa, he conducted a comprehensive business analysis of internal processes and possible business models and this provided a robust platform from which the online channel could be developed and integrated with existing channels.
A key requirement for Directa in selecting a development and implementation partner was the need for a non-technical solution that could be implemented and supported by existing resources.
One of my key drivers was the need for a non technical solution that had no requirement for IT staff or developers - we needed a strong ROI whilst keeping the cost of ownership to a minimum. In addition, there was a need for a system that could be implemented rapidly and a software partner that could provide 'added value' to the delivery process.
Ciaran Crowley, Directa Marketing Director
Directa selected Jadu, a leading web content management and ebusiness development company, as their implementation partners. The development approach involved extensive process mapping and technical planning by Jadu to develop a technical specification.
The system design and implementation consisted of four phases - design and installation of the Jadu system, scoping of integration, development and implementation, before testing and launch.
Suraj Kika, CEO of Jadu was involved in the technical process mapping and integration architecture design.
Directa are a successful paper catalogue based company with a range of products that traditionally do very well online - it made sense for them to move to an online channel and the non-technical simplicity and power of Jadu CMS and Jadu's Retail module delivered their business a suite of tools without heavy cost of a dedicated web team.
Suraj Kika, Jadu CEO
Having selected Jadu CMS suite, Directa and Jadu then began planning the integration required to process orders and check stock in real-time to their back office systems.
The key challenges in developing an online transactional business lay in integration of new systems with existing systems and the generation of a products database. Directa's business is based on legacy hardware called the Alpha - originally developed by DEC which runs on open vms. Jadu worked in collaboration with Trifocal software - Directa's IT specialists who developed the order management, product information and accounting systems, to ensure that live data could be fed into the Jadu Retail engine.
The second challenge was to create a product database. This was created from existing data and by importing information directly from their suppliers - saving weeks of product data preparation work.
Rollout of the system is planned over three phases, generating increasing product and brand coverage.
- Phase 1 - Ten thousand products available online, account and credit card ordering, and partial integration with back office systems. Online marketing and personalisation with intuitive search capabilities.
- Phase 2 - Over twenty thousand products online. Full integration of ordering and real time stock availability and nightly price updates.
- Phase 3 - Account level discounted prices and development of content in relation to specific customer types and industry sectors.
Jadu has worked with the Directa team to deliver a fully transactional web site within four months. It has also enabled a rapid business transition from a traditional catalogue only business to a multi channel online sales operations.
It's been a whirlwind of activity and I have enjoyed great support from the team here at Directa and our technical partners at Jadu.
Ciaran Crowley, Directa Marketing Director
Directa quickly saw an increase in the volume of orders and inbound enquiries driven by search engine marketing. Customer feedback has also been very positive particularly for items that are difficult to browse in paper catalogues with the order pad predictive text input and advanced search facilities making ordering easier. The ability to order 24/7 has also been useful with many customers finding products they were unaware that Directa supplied.
Suraj continued "The rapid implementation gave Directa an almost immediate payback. Having proved that their business can operate online without a major investment in technology and people, they can begin planning and building for their web-enabled future - powered by Jadu."
We have jumped in with both feet. Directa now has a fabulous web site with over ten thousand products available for customers to find and buy. I feel sure that existing customers will relish the additional convenience of online ordering. I also feel excited by the prospect, that even after thirty five years building our reputation, there is still new business to be had.
Dave Dennison, Directa Managing Director