"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.