.net development

Case Studies \ Web Centric E-marketing Assessment Toolset

To implement a B2B B2C strategy, Igenti Inc. required a Web centric marketing and assessment solution for its clientele, including - restaurants, automobile outlets, and corporate houses. The objective was to provide an interface that clients could use to market their services and allow customers to shop online, without incurring extra costs in setting up a dynamic Web portal and managing its operations. Igenti teamed with Icreon to develop the Igenti Family of Products, entailing Web marketing, assessment, online shopping, and other modules. As a complete package of customizable plug-in modules, the Igenti Family of Products brings cost-effective Web marketing for Igenti's clients to explore and manage their customers, globally.

Customer Profile

Igenti Inc. is a marketing consultancy organization, based in Florida, USA. It is a member of the Igenti Group, which started operations in 1996. The group has ventured with Fortune 500 companies to provide Web-centric marketing, hiring, and career counseling solutions.

Business Requirement

Igenti Inc., observed the need for effective marketing of services for owners of restaurants, automobile outlets and restaurants. As a marketing consultant, Igenti wanted to provide a solution that its clients could use to attract larger number of prospective customers, while incurring minimal costs. To capitalize on this concept, Igenti conceived the idea of a Web-based solution that would allow clients to communicate with their customers and facilitate customer interaction. The solution had to be developed as a comprehensive set of interoperable modules with in-built capabilities to identify prospective customers, generate and send customized newsletters to customers, process orders online, and monitor online transactions. These modules would provide Igenti clients with an online presence, where they would be able to highlight their services and allow customers to interact with the online system for shopping and other services.

Business Driven Solution for Effective Web Marketing

Technologies used in developing this application are:

Igenti Inc., required a solution that would provide its clients with a cost-effective solution to manage their marketing operations and generate higher sales. They intended to develop a three-way solution to manage marketing operations for clients, who in turn, manage their customers, proactively. The entire cycle was highly sensitive because Igenti needed to meet the requirements of its clients and the market they were targeting. A customized Web-based application was required, using which clients could market and support their products. In addition, the application required features to allow clients to customize the interface as per their business requirements. The solution would prevent costs, usually incurred on setting up and maintaining expensive Web portals, to carry out marketing operations. Additionally, it provides features such as, online assessment, shopping cart, and order processing capabilities.

Igenti teamed with Icreon, to develop this solution with business-oriented features to meet the requirements of Igenti clients and their customers.

Igenti and Icreon required a solution that would effectively exploit Internet-based solutions for marketing the services of Igenti clients including restaurants, automobile outlets and corporate houses. There were two facets to this project - Business-to-Business (B2B) and Business-to- Customer (B2C).

Due to the complexity and vastness of the project, we prepared an extensive prototype for the solution. The prototype helped us in establishing the requirements for the project and understanding their perception of effective Web-centric marketing.

Once Igenti approved the prototype, we designed the backend database using SQL Server 2000.

Thereafter, the development of the first front-end module, the Igenti ManagerT began, followed by Igenti SuiteT and Igenti OrderT modules. The entire development process underwent rigorous testing based on parameters such as defect detection, adherence to market standards and client requirements along with time tracking techniques to meet the specified timeframe.

Igenti Manager is the administrator module used by the Igenti staff and consultants to manage client relationships and perform other functions for the Igenti Suite module such as, enabling the Igenti Suite for individual clients. The module is responsible for managing Igenti client channels, monitoring reports for client transactions, configuring marketing policies, adding and removing customers from the e-mail list of target customers. Igenti Suite is a collection of sub-modules used by Igenti clients and consultants to manage various activities such as customization of marketing elements and creation of target lists. One Igenti Suite system or channel is assigned to each client. The sub-modules available with Igenti Suite include the market, assessment and Opt-in modules. Igenti Order is a plug-in module available with Igenti Suite. It is used to provide online shopping services to customers. The focus of this module is to provide target customers an easy shopping experience through secure channels. Customers can purchase gift certificates and pre-paid vouchers from an Igenti client. Gift certificates and vouchers are marketed to customers through client e-mail communication available in Igenti Suite. The Igenti process model is displayed right.

The entire process is explained using the following hypothetical example.

A customer receives a newsletter from Pizza Hut, an Igenti client, for purchasing a gift certificate offering lunch for two people at Pizza Hut. The newsletter contains a link directed to the Web site where the customer can purchase the gift certificate. The customer decides to buy the certificate and places an order with Pizza Hut. This order is processed and stored in the database. In this process, the Igenti Suite will be responsible for creating and sending the newsletters; the Igenti Order is responsible for processing the purchase order and Igenti Manager handles the payment structure to be followed after the final sale.

The Igenti modules are available on the front-end and have been developed using ASP.NET. The backend is developed using the SQL Server 2000 database. XML Web services form the business logic layer. The entire setup is integrated using .NET and SOAP XML. This enables the system to work on a common platform using Internet standards and services.

We developed Igenti modules over the .NET framework. The architecture for the module is based on a 3-tier model. The technical architecture for Igenti is displayed below.