Logitech VIP Distributor Portal

Logitech designs, manufactures and markets personal interface products that enable people to effectively work, play, and communicate in the digital world. Founded in 1981 in Schwitzerland, Logitech is now the most renowned name in the market of input devices.

To conduct business activites and improve the communication with distributors, resellers and merchandisers, Logitech wished to launch a partner relationship management (PRM) portal. This portal, known as VIP, was to allow Logitech to oversee and manage the various business flows and sales channels, while offering the business partners a centralized interface to place their orders. As Logitech Germany was highly satisfied with the PRM solution we had delivered earlier, the European division hired us once again to realize this project.

The platform utilizes the proven, robust J2EE-based shop-engine component of our Channel-Star system, which ensures outstanding reliability and performance. Being highly customizable, this engine makes the portal available in 4 countries and 4 languages, with localized price lists, currency and taxation rates.

An SSO (Single Sign-On) feature enables registered users to access both the VIP content and an existing asset site at a different location (Logitech Channel Network); this solution is to avoid unnecessary duplication of databases. Once registered, users are offered a broad array of services to choose from: getting informed on new promotions and offers, using the shopping cart and submitting orders, requesting POS and demo items, contacting Logitech and a lot more. A context-sensitive help facilitates the navigation on the portal. According to the reports, 10% of the partners are active and regularly engaged in various online transactions.

There's a loyalty system implemented that allows the affiliated retail stores to be awarded. The 4 wholesale distributors receive monthly reports from their retail partners, whose sales-thru data is used as basis to count the bonus points they are given. (Each purchase deserves bonus points but countries and product classes are differentiated.) Having gathered a certain amount of bonus points, retail partners can trade them in for various POS and demo products.

The submitted orders are forwarded directly to the delivery service provider via a Lotus Notes client; this ensures immediate order fulfilment and accurate stock-keeping.

A rich text enhanced Content Management System enables Logitech staff to maintain all portal content, update price lists or commit other modifications. The CMS requires no technical skills to use. The press releases and news items are generated automatically from Logitech's internal PR-database.

This project took us 4 months to accomplish.