Case Study 1

Global Business-Winning System for Major International Fragrance Manufacturer

A global speciality chemicals company, and one of the world's largest producers of fragrances, creates fragrances that are used in everything from bleach to after-shave. Central to their success is the innovative creation of fragrances to meet individual customer requirements and the ability to meet the increasingly global demands of their core clients.

The inability of their existing system to meet their changing requirements prompted a review of their business processes in a drive for improved customer response and efficiency. They wanted their systems to promote the teamwork required to enable them to compete at a global level, thus giving them a competitive advantage against their competitors. In addition, the demands of existing and potential customers required that they streamline their processes in order to compete effectively.

The flexibility and degree of world-wide cooperation needed for their business systems led them to redevelop their core business-winning system in Lotus Notes. The resulting Lotus Notes system receives sales briefs entered by sales people around the world. These briefs are then allocated automatically to the appropriate team for fragrance development and selection. The teams are able to invite specialists from the same site or other sites to participate in development. The facilities of Lotus Notes allow the development team to work collaboratively to a conclusion. During the development process, additional information can be imparted by the salesperson or other staff assigned to work on the brief. Timely action by relevant personnel is ensured using the workflow features of Lotus Notes. Finally, the results of the development are automatically relayed back to the original salesperson.

To maintain data integrity throughout the organisation, the system uses information from a corporate relational database held at a central site. Information in Lotus Notes is synchronised with the relational database. As well as providing core corporate data to the Lotus Notes system, this allows information input into Lotus Notes to be used in other systems.

The system has improved customer service by allowing an improved response. It enables fragrances to be developed to meet the demands of global customers. As a direct result of the new system, the company has been able to win new business and increase its attractiveness to existing customers.