|
|
|
|
|
       |
 |
|
|
Wine Club Case Study, Part Two: IT Takes a Village by Alex Woodie Technology companies can be very hesitant to work together on a job for the obvious reason that they'll have to split the money when they're done. However, when three companies came together last year to build a new customer management system for the Gundlach Bundschu winery (click here to read the story, "Sonoma Winery's CRM Push Unearths New App"), the result was a satisfied customer, a new application to take to a developing niche market, and a Beacon award from IBM .
The Wine Club Advantage is an online Lotus Notes/Domino application that allows wineries to track their customer behavior as well as providing a Web site where wine club members can get special deals. The Gundlach Bundschu Winery contracted with Tech Frameworks of Santa Rosa, California, to build it, which Tech Frameworks did by further refining a pre-built Domino application called Business In A Box that was developed by Emerging Technology Solutions (ETS) of Denver, Colorado. When the Gundlach Bundschu went live with the Wine Club Advantage last fall, the winery reported that it was driving new revenue in addition to making it easier to manage members. It didn't take long for the people at Tech Frameworks and ETS to realize that the customized app could probably find use in the 10,000 other wineries that are estimated to be working in the country. The wine-making industry has been slow to adopt information technology, said Dean Reiber, vice president of sales and marketing at ETS. "Some of the progressive wineries and some of the larger wineries are already starting to use it," he said. "But for some of these wineries, just having a Web site is a huge step up." But the use of technology among wineries is definitely on the rise, said Mike Ochoa, the founder and president of Tech Frameworks, and the main developer of the Wine Club Advantage. "If you look at the history, there's quite a bit of small family farms," he said. "The majority are midrange business people that aren't very technically savvy yet, but they recognize the needs. It's an emerging market." Together, Tech Frameworks and ETS saw that they had the potential to break into the winery market with an easy-to-use CRM Lite application that could improve the customer and member service without breaking the bank. Tech Frameworks proximity to California's wine country gave the duo the inside edge, while ETS's experience developing commercial applications brought additional credibility. To really seal the deal for the technologically challenged wineries, the companies wanted to offer a totally bundled hardware-software solution with the application pre-installed. However, Tech Frameworks didn't have the hardware expertise or the position in the channel. "We said, 'What we need to do is get IBM involved,' so we went to the Netfinity group," Reiber said. "IBM recommended that we talk to Key Information Systems. That's when we contacted Pete." Pete Elliot is the director of marketing at Key Information Systems, an Woodland Hills, California, systems integrator that has experience selling xSeries, pSeries, and iSeries, and is a reseller for Vision Solutions. Elliot said that, in addition to hardware experience, Key's marketing prowess was an essential element that the company brought to the table. To help sell the Wine Club Advantage, Key developed and executed a direct marketing campaign. The recessed economy wasn't the only reason Key was attracted to the deal. The potential market here, or a "niche within a niche," as Elliot put it, was wide open for the taking, and ETS and Tech Frameworks were willing to work out an equitable deal so all three companies got their fair share. "Normally, as the biggest company, we would want the whole thing," Elliot said. "Now, here are three companies willing to take smaller pieces in order to open up a very unique market. There are niche markets out there that need to be looked at in a different way." It's very normal for two companies to come together. "But three coming together and putting their guns down at the bar and saying we're going to do what we can do to move the market, that's the interesting thing," Elliot said. Reiber also acknowledged that the three-way partnership was an unusual way to bring a solution to market. "Typically, one group handles sales, and one group handle the technology component. What we found was each company had its strength outside the solution itself," he said. "It was just a great fit." The Wine Club Advantage has sparked interest in about 18 wineries that are considering purchasing the software, but this is very first sales cycle for the software, so it's too early to tell if is a success or not. The unusual partnering of technology companies did draw the praise of IBM, however. In February Big Blue awarded the three companies with a Beacon Award at the PartnerWorld 2002 event for the way in which they've all worked so harmoniously together. Perhaps Tech Frameworks, ETS, and Key Information Systems have provided a beacon for other software vendors to follow as they address customer requirements that they can't fill by themselves. "It takes a village, a group effort of skill sets," Elliot said, acknowledging the term coined by Senator Hillary Clinton in reference to child-raising. "A layer of collaboration is required now more than ever."
|
Editor
Contact the Editors |
|
Last Updated: 6/5/02 Copyright © 1996-2008 Guild Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved. |
ASNA