The Uttermost Company selects PLMresearch for eBusiness Development
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Plymouth, Massachusetts and Rocky Mount, Virginia – The Uttermost
Company, an industry leader in wall décor and portable lighting, announced
today that it has chosen PLMresearch, a leading
Small to Midsize Business (SMB) eBusiness consulting firm, to develop its
Internet based customer service portal system. The Portal will facilitate
the administrative needs of Uttermost’s sales channel by providing an online
“self-service” customer service representative accessible anywhere, anytime
via a standard browser (e.g. Internet Explorer™ or Netscape™).
“Current phone, fax, face-to-face, and snail mail customer service processes
have (or soon will) become too intense and slow to accommodate the business
demands of our sales channel and Uttermost’s sales expansion plans into the
future”, commented Mac Cooper, President of The Uttermost Company. “We thought
that administrative processes such as taking and entering orders and servicing
the customer requests associated with these actions was an area ripe for
automation. PLMresearch demonstrated how this could be done in a cost effective
way via the Internet”, Cooper added, “they focused on our business and business
processes – cutting through all of the technology buzzwords and marketing
chatter – and outlined an easy to follow development path to get us where
we want to be.”
The Portal will be available to retail consumers so they can research product,
use a dealer locator to find Uttermost dealers, see Frequently Asked Questions
(FAQ), view suggested complimentary items (cross-sell) and place order directly
upon approved dealer’s websites. Additionally, Uttermost’s wholesale dealers
will be able to access a complete, up-to-date catalog with wholesale prices;
read useful retail selling information, access a best seller list and suggested
complimentary items that have sold well in their region; obtain their sales
order history/status and place new orders on the factory.
Uttermost’s independent sales representatives will also have access to the
Portal, which will list their sales history as well as the sales history
for each of the representative’s dealers. Additional feature will include
the ability to place new orders on the factory, create ad hoc “personalized”
catalogs, and place Hold For Confirmation (HFC) orders. PLMresearch has
already successfully deployed similar technology at O.C. Representatives
(http://www.OCReps.com) a New England based
furniture sales representative firm established in 1952.
“Basing the development on an open source platform, PLMresearch will develop
a portal that will meet the Uttermost's requirement at a fraction of the
cost typically associated with such an effort”, explained Mark Withington,
Principal of PLMresearch. “Unlike traditional shrink-wrap software licensed
products, open source provides coding stability along with the flexibility
for customization that, until now, has been available only to large enterprises
with equally large budgets. Used in conjunction with PLMresearch’s Rapid
Development Methodology (RDM) Open source development is an excellent alternative
for the SMB to base their mission critical applications.”
The Uttermost Company intends to unveil its Customer Service Portal toward
the end of this calendar year
About The Uttermost Company
The Uttermost Company is the largest manufacturer of framed
mirrors servicing retail stores in the United States, and one of the largest
manufacturers of framed prints, decorative plaques, oil reproductions and
lamps. The name Uttermost is taken from Acts 1:8, and expresses both a personal
belief and the company’s marketing plan to spread the gospel and sell its
products "to the uttermost parts of the earth".
Founded in 1975 by Bob and Belle Cooper, Uttermost is still
100% family owned today. Its culture is founded on the concept of mutual
respect for all of its partners in business: from the person in their plant
running a mitre saw to the retailer who selects and merchandises that perfect
mirror, “we’re all dependent on each other”.
Today’s Uttermost has grown to include over 300 employees
at the factory in Virginia, 120 sales representatives and thousands of retail
partners throughout the world. Its growth is primarily due to their commitment
to three things–superior service to retailers, maximizing the value of its
products, and treating its employees and sales representatives as partners
in business.
About PLMresearch
PLMresearch assists midsize enterprises evaluate, design and deploy cost
effective eBusiness initiatives - Internet technology that automates their
current inter-business processes.
PLMresearch works with its clients to help them understand how the Internet
can leverage their current internal IT systems such as Enterprise Resource
Planning (ERP) and Materials Resource Planning (MRP), to accelerate sales
and marketing channels, promote product design collaboration, foster materials
sourcing and facilitate supply chain management.
PLMresearch is a privately held company founded by Mark Withington in 2000. It
is a virtual organization of principles whose background covers application,
database and web design, security, systems administration, and business process
consulting.
The company is a strong advocate of the open source movement and is a frequent contributor
to the foundries and forums of the packages that it uses. It feels that
the flexibility and low cost that open source provides promotes vendor
independence and therefore reinforces PLMresearch’s position as a trusted
technical advisor to its clients.
