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The Uttermost Company selects PLMresearch for eBusiness Development
 (download pdf 98K)

For immediate Release

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[1] 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[1] 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.

Contacts:

 

Mark L. Withington
(800) 310-3992
http://www.PLMresearch.com
Netscape/AOL IM: PLMresearch
mwithington@plmresearch.com

Mac Cooper
(540) 483-5103
http://www.uttermost.com
mcooper@uttermost.com

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[1] Open source refers to a development and distribution model that promotes design stability and cost by making a software program's source code – the "human-readable" computer code before it is compiled into "machine code" - freely available to outside programmers. This process fosters “global collaboration” amongst developers, allowing them to critique the code and contribute their own enhancements and bug fixes.

Contact PLMresearch, info@PLMresearch.com