CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
15 November 2005
Implementation Investments
Premier Farnell Cites Endeca Search and Navigation as Key Factor in Dramatic Online Sales Growth
Endeca announced that Premier Farnell PLC (LSE:pf) has cited its best-in-class Endeca search, navigation and merchandising solution as a major factor in the company's dramatic 32 percent-plus year-over-year online sales growth in the first half of 2005. Premier Farnell, the global marketer and distributor of electronic, maintenance, repair and operations and specialist products and services, selected and deployed the Endeca solution across its worldwide online sales channels in 2004 to give customers simple yet powerful tools to explore, find and purchase products from its online catalogues. According to recent research conducted by Premier Farnell the advanced features and capabilities of the Endeca solution account for five of the top nine overall Web site attributes considered most important by its online customers. Premier Farnell's search engine is available on the company's Farnell InOne and CPC Web sites, which serve UK, Europe and Asia Pacific, as well as US-based Newark InOne (formerly known as Newark Electronics.
With an extremely large and diverse product catalogue, as well as related product and technical documents, Premier Farnell faced a substantial-and fairly common-product information challenge: How to provide customers with a quick and easy means of exploring and finding highly specific products among millions of possible options. For example, the Newark InOne catalogue includes 2.6 million unique products, each described by an average of 30 different attributes. Compounding this challenge is the need to provide these new search solutions in 21 country and eight language combinations.
"All platforms come with some type of search technology. We used basic technology at first and then moved to a more advanced third-party product. But we knew all along we needed something much more powerful," said Rob Knight, group e-commerce director at Premier Farnell. "Our customers need to quickly find and select products intelligently by technical need or specification, not just by part numbers."
With Endeca's product catalogue search solutions, Premier Farnell is benefiting from:
• Integrated search and browsing: Guided Navigation dynamically categorizes products by common characteristics and attributes, creating intuitive navigation links for exploring information of interest and honing search results; integrates two most common ways of finding information into single, seamless experience; greatly reduces site and catalog management
• One catalogue, many views: Custom Catalogues feature eliminates overhead associated with building and maintaining custom versions of the product catalogues; create thousands of unique, customer-specific views of a single master catalog; provides distinct products, pricing and even custom branding for each unique business customer
• Dynamic product and content promotion: Dynamic Merchandising and Content Spotlighting capabilities facilitate cross-sell, up-sell and promotional opportunities specific to the individual's shopping session; leverages intuitive management tools to create, test and measure business rules that trigger product and content callouts
• Multilingual Support: Allows businesses to deploy Endeca Search and Guided Navigation solutions in any of 250 languages
• Integration of Contextual Content: Leverages Endeca's innate ability to integrate structured and unstructured content to offer related product datasheets, in the form of PDF files; gives customers the ability to search beyond parts and components, providing context and offering better support to new and existing customers
The result is a smooth-running online catalogue and eProcurement system, which has enabled even more rapid growth in Premier Farnell's e-commerce operations.
Knight adds, "The search engine has been very well received by customers and it is reflected in business growth. Web sales in our European and Asian business grew 41 percent in the first half of 2005. eCommerce is now in excess of 18.5 percent the overall Premier Farnell marketing and distribution business."
"Premier Farnell offers a classic example of the challenges faced by successful global, distributors as they attempt to carve out and optimize the online channel," said Steve Papa, founder and chairman of Endeca. "By working closely with Premier Farnell and by leveraging proven search applications and the combined experience of our Customer Solutions team, Endeca delivered a solution that is driving real business results for our customer."
Endeca Manufacturing & Distribution Search Solutions
The direct result of extensive work with dozens of leading manufacturers, suppliers and business-to-business catalogers, like John Deere, Arrow Electronics, Brady, Cabot Corporation, CDW, IBM, Mouser Electronics, and Sigma Aldrich, Endeca's Manufacturing & Distribution Search Solutions combine proven information retrieval applications with vertical services expertise. The solutions help manufacturers and suppliers boost parts reuse and strategic sourcing initiatives, improve customer service, drive online sales, and reduce costs by making it easier for people to find products, parts and components information. These include Product Data Navigator Solutions, Product Catalogue Search Solutions, and Website Search and Navigation Solutions, all powered by Endeca's next-generation search and Guided Navigation platform.
Premier Farnell plc markets and distributes electronic and MRO specialist products and services throughout the UK, Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. Premier Farnell operates in 21 countries and trades in over 100, with 5,000 employees worldwide The Group has a database of over 2 million customer contacts worldwide. Premier Farnell links over 3,000 suppliers to their markets, has a range of over 400,000 products and access to 4.3 million more. Listed on the London Exchange, Premier Farnell recorded an operating profit for the year ended 1st February 2005 of £73.8million on sales of £776.7 million
Companies within the Premier Farnell Group include Farnell InOne, CPC, BuckHickman InOne, Kent, Newark InOne (USA), MCM, an InOne company (USA) and Akron Brass (USA)
For further information, please visit http://www.premierfarnell.com .
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