Bristol and West plc

eCentric Media's consultants provided lead development in the full project lifecycle on the first two phases of an object-oriented, client/server mortgage application processing system, incorporating both workflow and image capabilities for Bristol & Wests' lending services group. The production system constituted a partitioned NT Client/DB2 MVS Server architecture using Staffware workflow components and Tower image software and interfacing with the Equifax credit scoring product suite. Our consultants' were instrumental in developing this system, which was declared the 1997 Winner of the Information Management Awards; the premier industry recognition of excellence and innovation in the management of business information and knowledge in an e-business environment.

British Sky Broadcasting Group plc

Our consultants are currently working with BSkyB to upgrade its contact centre operations in Scotland. BSkyB is a large consumer-facing organisation with millions of customers, varied products and services, multiple methods of communication with the customer, complex business processes and legacy data stored in a variety of stand-alone systems. As a result of this incredibly complex environment an extreme CRM solution has been required and eCentrics' developers have been leading the integration Chordiant's 5.1.2 infrastructure with new front-end billing and telephony systems, and back-end sales systems, field management systems, marketing systems and customer databases. BSkyBs' investment in this new CRM software and processes will directly assist in improving the company's customer retention rates and support its aims of increasing its digital customer base and raising annual revenue per customer to Ј400 by 2005. eCentric's project team has been instrumental in ensuring the successful completion and release of critical project phases in BSkyB's Ј50m CRM programme, that has already helped the digital broadcaster achieve its growth target of 7million subscribers by September 2003, 3 months earlier than anticipated.

GadgetWizard.com

GadgetWizard.com, a mature eBusiness built on a customised osCommerce framework running on Apache WebServers has appointed eCentric Media as its sole technology partner. Applying best practice eCRM philosophy, eCentric Media is reviewing GadgetWizard.com's entire online operations, working towards improving the integration of the payment and security systems, and employing a customer centric view to achieve a better customer retention and increased view to sale conversion rate.

Picture Research Solutions

Picture Research Solutions is a premier supplier of aerial, commercial and industrial photography. Renowned for the quality of their images, they regularly supply photographs to daily newspapers, architects, town planners, calendars, books, magazines, utility services and many more besides. The company approached eCentric Media for much more than just an eCommerce system. With a complete library of over 28,000 images – each weighing in at nearly 5mb, it was clear that some consideration not normally applicable to a basic off-the-shelf store was necessary. eCentric was awarded the contract on the basis of a proven history of systems integration and eCommerce skills. The key requirements of the solution were: - To automatically produce images at a variety of resolutions, in a variety of formats, including self-service download. - To protect all images displayed on screen bigger than a thumbnail. - To extract the IPTC encoded information that describes and catalogues the images from within the images themselves as a basis for the store’s product database. - To provide complete cross-referencing and search facilities. - To promote and highlight images matching current newspaper stories. - To allow secure payment by credit card or purchase order. - To build the complete solution in 3 months and on a limited budget. eCentric selected osCommerce to provide the basic shopping cart functionality. This open source solution proved as close-fit out of the box as possible, providing all the usual eCommerce features such as shopping cart, secure payment, order processing and so on. The team selected the GD image manipulation API to handle the site’s re-imaging requirements and MySql as the database to power the store. The site is built in PHP and runs on a hosted Linux server. A team of 4 people extended and modified the osCommerce framework to incorporate the additional functionality required by the store. Such work included the provision of RSS news feeds, the addition of the purchase order module and the modification of the database schema and product pages to support the unique display and cross-referencing requirements of the site. Batch process scripts were crafted which cycle through any newly uploaded high-resolution images and automatically create the 5 additional sizes required (2 additional download resolutions and 3 additional site display resolutions) transferring the IPTC encoded information from the source image as required. In addition to resizing, a script was also created which automatically watermarks any new display images with a transparent copyright symbol. A final batch process automatically extracts the image’s title, description, keywords, categories and mucm more from the source image’s IPTC information before building and inserting the new product into the store’s database. eCentric also provided initial drafts of all site copy and undertook the search engine optimisation and submission. Finally, eCentric recommended IXWebHosting as the host for the site and negotiated an unlimited disk space plan on behalf of the client. The solution was delivered on time and on budget.

The Stationery Office

The Stationery Office (TSO) is the publisher for the UK Government and Parliament. The company maintains the catalogue of all official publications from Her Majesty's Government which contains some 450.000 titles. To enable improved resource discovery via its website search facility, The Stationery Office required our consultants to assist in the linkage of a new graphical user interface to a search engine application programming interface.

TV Licensing

TV Licensing required a CRM solution that would enable its call centre staff to provide license payers with an efficient and reliable service. Contracted by Bull Information Systems, on behalf of the BBC and Envision TV Licensing consortium, eCentric Media's professionals developed and integrated a new TV licensing system to incorporate a database for processing queries, handling applications and payments, issuing reminder notifications, despatching licences, and managing marketing campaigns. The system combined a Java generated interface with a Tuxedo transport layer communicating with an object-orientated business layer using an Oracle back-end database.