"Have all my people paid-up for
the week? What! 81-k difference in collection? How many
haven't yet paid-up? Who are they ... how can I contact
them; how many people are operating in my business?"
Just a few situations for that multi-level marketers (MLMs)
face every-day.
The Client
An MLM agency from southern India launched an enormous
program to move virtual products through its network.
The products included domain names, E-mail IDs and dial-up
Internet access. In the beginning the network had 120
members. With the launch of virtual product retailing,
the networked population swelled manifold. Soon it became
a nightmare for the pioneers to manage logistics, accounts
and operations who, erstwhile, were using offline methods
and archaic stand-alone accounting software.
Thinking through ...
When approached, Net4India, with its team of business
analysts and software architects sat in a series of joint
sessions with the Client, brainstorming through the entire
activity process. Every step of the network activity was
documented under the heads of network progression method,
network SCM and nodal accounting practice. The discussions
evolved in a mandate to custom-build an application that
can be accessed through Internet in the spirit of participatory
as against centralized information submission.
The application was required to:
- Auto-draw 'Genealogy-Tree'
- Track activity at 'nodes and 'ends'
- Maintain member-account information
- Compute 'commissions' and 'payouts'
- Manage transaction history
- Generate MIS reports
It was borne in mind that the application should be easy-to-interpret
and cost-effective. At the same time compromising with
robustness and scalability was ruled out. Easy as it may
have sounded, the Net4India team was already gearing up
for deploying an application involving highly complex
business logic and data structure. The graphic interface
design unit was given the mandate to evolve a navigation-friendly
and fast-loading front-end for each segment of the application.
Technology
The application was delivered in 40 working days time
and was to be deployed on Microsoft Windows 2000™
platform. The application used the "black box"
structure of com components, 3-tier distributed business
logic and stored procedures in Microsoft SQL 2000. To
ensure total security, encryption of data at various levels
of data flow and authentication was provided.
End-result
Today, our Client is finding online MLM not only a more
pleasurable experience, but a beneficial one too. There
has been a turnaround in network expansion rate along
with significant drop in network maintenance cost. There
are fewer accounting anomalies and the system has performed
at near zero-fault tolerance. Net4India also provided
the Client a comprehensive infrastructure solution with
name space registration, hardware sourcing, server colocation
and systems maintenance.
The client is easily and comfortably able to concentrate
on the core business, leaving the logistics and MIS to
the software. His approach has become a paradigm and his
business practices a good case study to all those who
are still struggling to get a foot into this business.
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