[ic] Interchange, Is it right for me?

[Mike Heins]

Quoting Jason Osborne (jason@sohonetworks.cc):
> Hello, I was wondering if anyone can help answer a few "will this product
> fit what I need" type questions. Thanks in advance for all your time and
> help. Interchange is definitely an excellent product and has an exciting
> growth potential and I hope that over the next few months I can learn how it
> operates. But, anyway, I'm just rambling.

Doug and Christopher have already answered, so I will just hit one
basic thing.

> 
> The Preface: I have a customer who sells a certain product on TV and the
> phone. They do not want an e-commerce site that allows customers to purchase
> their product online because the sales reps in the company manipulate the
> price for each customer to sell them the product. They do however need a
> system that integrates a payment gateway, accounting software such as
> quicken, an inventory system, and a shipping system together. They want an
> easy to use intranet site that allows the rep to enter the price for a
> product that the customer has agreed to pay, insert the customer's
> information and authorize payment via credit card and online check, allow
> the customer to visit their site and check the status of the shipment, keep
> inventory current, and print shipping labels for ups.
> 
> On the admin side, the managers will need the ability to determine sales for
> each rep, group, and company. Data for each sale will need to be kept in
> case a charge back occurs, they will need to integrate this with a
> accounting package, and be able to set a minimum price for each item.

Interchange could be made to fit many of these things, but I don't know
that it is the best solution. Yet the best solution doesn't come straight
to mind. It is a CRM application you are talking about, and I am assuming
you have thought of the big boys like Siebel and Oracle.

I find that the key to these types of systems is:

    1. They have to be fast -- people hate using slow systems. Interchange
       can be pretty fast, but it isn't the same as a GUI like Gnome
       or Windows. Or a character-based application -- there is a reason
       you still see those all over the place.

    2. Product information needs to be tightly integrated with what
       your customers see on the web site. If they are seeing one thing
       and hearing another from the sales reps, this is bad. Interchange
       would be good for this.

    3. They have to be pretty intuitive, or you must have very good training
       to use them. 

    4. They have to be adaptable enough to change to meet needs that are not
       apparent at the beginning of the project. This is the only reason
       I am not saying "don't use Interchange". It is very, very, adaptable
       when used properly. The adaptability is the weak point of the CRM
       systems, and their lack of it is why most of the CRM integrations
       I have seen miss their budgets and schedules by wide margins.

All of these are pointed toward adoption -- any reasonably well-designed system
can be excellent when properly used, but the key is adoption by your users. If
the users are balking at using the system, for whatever reason, the cost of
adopting the system can be more than the project will bear.

All of the bullets you mention can be built into an Interchange-based
application. Payment gateway is a breeze, pricing is no problem, generating
shipping labels would be easy.

Integration with an accounting system depends more on it and its
import and export and real-time query capabilities than Interchange --
Interchange is made for import/export and is comfortable with just about
any interface. Ditto with inventory; remember that the key point for
inventory is in the warehouse and not at the sales desk.

As to reports, if you are going to be using an accounting system, that
should be under its control.

Bottom line, the most important thing is the overall system design.
The implementation platform is secondary to that.

-- 
Red Hat, Inc., 3005 Nichols Rd., Hamilton, OH  45013
phone +1.513.523.7621      <mheins@redhat.com>

Being against torture ought to be sort of a bipartisan thing.
-- Karl Lehenbauer