Five of a Kind

Client: toysmart, Waltham, MA
Business: Web-based toy retailer
Project: To build a Web toy retail business with complex supply chain automation software
Consultant: Yantra Corp., Acton, MA

2. Ingram Micro, Inc.

A Winning Attitude at KPMG

In early 1999, Gary Wingo, vice president of operations and planning for the eSolutions Group at Ingram Micro, knew he had a problem.
"Our customers were complaining," says Wingo. At issue was Ingram's Web site: It was not up 24 hours a day, seven days a week; the search function was slow and inefficient; and navigation through the site was confusing. "The Web was our lowest volume channel and we knew this needed to be fixed," says Wingo. And he knew Ingram could not do it alone.
"We did the usual three bids," he says. The winner this time was not one of the hot new Web consulting firms that is setting Wall Street on fire, but a familiar old name in consulting and accounting.
"KPMG had the right attitude," says Wingo. Keyur Patel, chief strategy officer at KPMG, attributes his success in part to being bold. "We came in and challenged their business model. That's what sold them."
What Patel did was challenge Ingram's vision of itself as simply a distributor. "We told them that they were not taking advantage of their size to leverage
e-business," says Patel. "We advised them to build an information infrastructure that allows customers to use Ingram's Web site as a project management tool."

Patel also challenged the established ways of his own firm. He knew that Ingram wanted to move fast, and that the old ways of long technology implementation engagements would not work.
So he built a new organization. "We took 35 people from KPMG and built an independent e-business unit." The result was a nimble company called Metrius that exists as a separate entity inside KPMG. Patel is today the CEO of Metrius.
It was clear from the start that the Metrius way would be different. "We signed our first contract with Metrius in February 1999," says Wingo. "We went live with our new Web site on May 31."
And billing was not the usual time and materials. "Payment was fixed price and tied directly to meeting deliverable deadlines," says Patel.
The success of the engagement has earned Metrius and Patel a good deal of respect within KPMG. "The Big Five are fundamentally still accounting firms," says Wingo, "so they tend to be very paranoid about change. But Keyur has done so well with Metrius that they simply leave him alone."

Sidebar:

Client: Ingram Micro, Inc. (www.ingrammicro.com), Santa Ana, CA
Business: Global distributor of computing equipment
Project: To revamp an ailing Web site that was not keeping up with the competition
Consultant: Metrius, a KPMG company created specifically for e-business strategy and implementation

3. Charles Schwab

Viant's Disciplined Approach

Charles Schwab is today largely recognized as a trailblazer in the dense wilderness of Web consumer investing, but in mid-1998, company officials realized they had been ignoring another potentially fruitful segment of Web customers — institutional investors.
"When I took over in August 1998, I saw that we had a major reengineering job ahead of us," says Richard Freyberg, senior vice president of services for investment managers' technology at Schwab.

In particular, Freyberg wanted to give his investment manager customers the ease and convenience of Web access: Web forms to open new accounts, Web trading, and Web tracking of new and existing accounts.
"The bad news was that I had inherited a technology organization that had been accused of fumbling the ball on past projects," says Freyberg. But there was good news as well. "We had some rare luck," says Freyberg. "My technology people wanted to do it. The business people wanted to do it, and there was money to do it."
And there was a consultant up to the task. About nine months prior to assuming his new role at Schwab, Freyberg had met the founders of Viant Corp. "At the time, I just wanted to get to know them," he says.
They made an impression. When it came time to put Schwab's 5,800 investment manager customers on the Web, Freyberg called Viant. "It took some time for us to figure out what they wanted," says Andrew Toal, client partner at Viant.
But Schwab liked Viant's approach, and particularly liked the fixed price model. "We got a fixed price contract," says Freyberg. Then he adds: "It was an expensive one."
"We do things in phases," says Toal. "The initial work is always the envision phase. It was there that, together with Schwab, we ran workshops, set priorities, and built a road map."

It was an 18-month road map that was particularly attractive because it had a guaranteed arrival — and a guaranteed fuel price. "Viant has a good, disciplined approach," says Freyberg. "They make sure a project finishes."
The contract was fixed price and called for three implementation phases of three months each. "They were on time, except for the last one that was two weeks late," says Freyberg. "That is fabulous for a project of this scope."
He also says that the investment managers, Schwab's institutional customers, are happy. "We went live in October, and the response has been very positive."
And Viant, true to their promise, has already moved on. "We made sure that knowledge transfer was occurring throughout the project. We have turned it all over [to Schwab]," says a satisfied Toal.

Sidebar:

Client: Charles Schwab and Co., Inc. (www.schwab.com, www.schwabinstitutional.com), San Francisco, CA
Business: Financial services
Project: To bring Web convenience to Schwab's institutional customers
Consultant: Viant Corp., Boston, MA

4. Land's End

Berbee Blazes a Digital Trail

Lands' End was testing the idea of selling over the Internet at least two years before everyone started using the "e" word.
"We had already seen that the Internet was a good way to communicate with our customers," says Ron Frey, Internet research development manager at Lands' End. "So, in late 1993, we started experimenting by letting America Online users look at our catalog." It was enough to convince them. "We decided to build a Web site, and we went live in 1995," says Frey.
In those days, Frey says, the ready-made tools that are commonly available today simply didn't exist. "There were some unique challenges. We needed help, so we partnered with Berbee Networks."Berbee had already done some work for the company in beefing up its networking infrastructure. Berbee had not as yet, however, ventured onto the Web."We started looking at the Web, and decided we could do something with it," says Tom Mish, engineering development manager at Berbee. "So when Lands' End told us they wanted an e-commerce site, we were ready to go."

One of the biggest challenges turned out to be content management. Today, software companies such as Vignette Corp., of Austin, TX, supply content management packages for e-commerce Web sites, but Vignette was barely a gleam in the eye of the venture capitalists back in 1994.
"Berbee wrote the content management piece for us," says Frey. Content management, he explains, is crucial because it is what keeps the site current and preserves the look and feel of the Lands' End catalog experience for customers who visit the Web site.
Security was another major issue. "We had to convince the customer that giving us a credit card number through the Web was just as safe as giving it to a phone agent," says Frey. "We couldn't have done this without help. We would not be where we are today without Berbee."
Where they are today is $61 million in Internet sales last year, with a projected increase of 250 percent this year. "There has been major acceptance by customers," says Frey.

In the case of Berbee, there were no elaborate RFPs — just two companies on the leading edge. "This was in the infancy of the Internet," says Mish, who is quick to underscore how there existed a certain chemistry between the two. "We like clients who are willing try something different, even if it means we have to stretch a bit."

Sidebar:

Client: Lands' End, Inc. (www.landsend.com), Dodgeville, WI
Business: Catalog and on-line clothing retailer
Project: Take a successful catalog and phone order business to the Web in the early days of the Internet
Consultant: Berbee Information Networks Corp., Madison, WI

Brand Awareness at US/Web

Two years ago, the powers that be at staid, upscale Williams-Sonoma decided that e-commerce was something they could live without. That was then. In a dramatic turnaround last year, the board got e-religion.

But their first attempt suffered setbacks, and the top e-commerce executive at the firm resigned. So the board turned to Shelley Nandkeolyar, a former marketer of consumer packaged goods who had just finished a successful launch of Levi-Strauss's Canadian e-business.
As the new vice president of e-commerce, one of the first things Nandkeolyar did was look for help. He sent out RFPs to 15 consulting firms. "After reviewing the responses, we picked three firms to come in and make a pitch," he says.
Although the company wanted to move quickly, feeling was strong that the first phase should serve as a test. "We decided to put our bridal and gift registry business on-line first," says Nandkeolyar. "That accounts for about five to seven percent of annual revenues."
USWeb/CKS was one of the three finalists. "We were up against some stiff competition for the bid," says Krishnan Menon, managing partner at USWeb. "IBM Global Services was one of the other finalists."
Menon pulled out all the stops. Since the initial engagement was for the bridal registry business, the pitch book was in the form of a wedding album. "We also gave each attendee a little wedding cake, and we had special rings made with the USWeb and Williams-Sonoma logos."
No doubt the cakes helped, but what won the day, according to Nandkeolyar, was the perception that USWeb really understood the Williams-Sonoma brand. "The USWeb presentation was logical, systematic, and detailed," says Nandkeolyar. "But it isn't just about technology or who has the most bells and whistles. Our Web site is simple, a very Zenlike experience. We needed a consulting partner who could make the technology communicate our brand."

The bridal registry site went live in June. Then, in November, the entire business went on-line. The results surpassed all expectations. "We did $1.5 million on the general e-commerce site in the first month," says Nandkeolyar.
The secret to winning bids for e-commerce engagements, according to Menon, is to look beyond the technology. "We had to show them that we fully understood the technical details of e-retailing," says Menon, "but that was not enough. A company like Williams-Sonoma is a powerful brand. Brand perception is what keeps them in business. It was important for them to know that a potential consulting partner understood this."

Sidebar:

Client: Williams-Sonoma, Inc. (www.williams-sonoma.com), San Francisco, CA
Business: Upscale Northern California–style retail outlet, specializing in cookware, kitchen linens, and specialty food items
Project: Williams-Sonoma needed to take its retail business to the Web quickly, and in a way that preserved the look and feel of their stores
Consultant: USWeb/CKS, San Francisco, CA