Web development and the multi-channel approach

Strategic goals for 2009

• Gain a first hand insight into customer needs and experiences, integrating solutions from their feedback.
• Support our Knowledge Centres in India and investigate options for Knowledge Centres in other emerging markets.
• Enhance the web tools available to EDEs on our websites, ensuring they have the most relevant information in a timely manner and access to an online community of colleagues.
• Continue to improve search engine marketing in the US market in order to propel the level of growth in web sales.

Achievements in 2009

• Our newly appointed Chief Innovation Officer works with our dedicated customer experience team to ensure that we have the systems and solutions to meet our customers’ changing needs.
• We have opened two Global Technology Centres during the year led by our newly appointed Head of Technology Marketing and eCommerce. One in Bangalore, India and one in Chengdu, China to provide high quality technical support and services to our EDE customers around the world.
• We have continued to add new and innovative tools to meet the needs of our EDE customers, including eQuotes, an online quoting tool, and iBuy, an eProcurement tool for small and medium sized customers.
• During the year we undertook development of an eCommunity which has undergone customer testing and is expected to be launched in early 2010. The eCommunity will give EDEs access to their global colleagues, suppliers and experts on a variety of topics.
• Search Engine Marketing has improved throughout the year, driving our 23.5% increase in web sales.

Priorities for 2010

• Launch our eCommunity site for EDEs globally.
• Develop innovative design tools to assist small and medium design firms with their efficiency.
• Continue to make investments in our search engine marketing and search engine optimisation in order to attract new customers to our high service proposition.
• Expand the launch of our various innovative, self-service web tools to our global websites, ensuring our global customers have access to the same tools irrespective of where they are in the world.

The web is the preferred channel by EDE customers around the world, as long as it is in their local language, has a fast search, rich content and has tools that make their jobs easier. With more than 30 million page views per month, we continue to invest in best in class websites and tools to meet customers evolving needs.

With 27 local language, local content websites, we are able to communicate with our customers in the language that they prefer. Our websites are intelligent and will allow a customer to switch from English to their native tongue if they choose to do so. We have also worked with our technicians to ensure that our search capabilities are market leading. Engineers have specific ways of thinking and searching, and using the intelligence we have gained from our in-house technical specialists and our web diagnostic tools we have continued to upgrade our search function, which now provides a faster and more comprehensive search than some of the most recognised web businesses in the world.

In China and India we have dedicated teams of specialists, located in our very own Global Technology Centres, creating content for our global websites. Up to three gigabytes of information is available on each of our more than 400,000 products; this proprietary information is developed with our customers in mind. We include detailed product specifications, relevant legislative and environmental information, and three-dimensional images of the product.

We have also developed industry leading innovations to meet our customers’ needs. During the year we launched multi-channel order history which shows a customer’s history with Premier Farnell, no matter which channel they have previously used; eQuotes, an online quoting tool that provides fast and accurate quotes and easy access to converting the quote into a purchase order; iBuy, an eProcurement solution for our small and medium-sized customers, giving them flexibility over their purchasing procedures. We have also been testing our eCommunity with customers, developing new tools and ways of web working. The eCommunity will be launched early in our new financial year and will bring together EDEs from around the world, creating opportunities for networking, collaboration, advice and providing even more tools, to make it an environment where they can work on a daily basis.

The web has not only changed the way that our customers work, but it has also given us improved access to our customers in their natural setting. Web diagnostic tools allow us an unprecedented understanding of whether our websites are meeting the requirements of our customers. Our team of analysts receives data from our global websites which they review and distil and then make recommendations regarding our offering, pricing and capabilities, all enhancing the customer experience. This knowledge has ensured that we remain leaders in the web space and that any enhancements we make to our websites have an immediate payback.

The web has also improved the flexibility of our systems. Gone are the days when web orders had to be processed after receipt. One touch processing and more efficient operations mean that web orders are now sent directly to the distribution facility where they are picked, packed and shipped to customers. With automated processing we are able to reshape our organisation, freeing up available resources to support the areas where we continue to see growth.