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Case Study - Owl Barn
Background
Established in 1995, the Owl Barn Gift Catalogue is a mail order business based in Norfolk, England, which serves regular customers from around the world. The Owl Barn aims to keep their entire collection in stock, and will endeavour to ship customer choices from the catalogue as soon as possible.
The Owl Barn manages an e-commerce website and it is vital that they maintain a policy of maximum confidentiality and security regarding customer data and transactions made over the Internet.
The Owl Barns' Secure Server mechanism protects the integrity of any financial information a customer transmits through their site.
Problem and solution
Robbie Murray of the Owl Barn met RapidHost at a specialist Filemaker Exhibition seven years ago. At the time, The Owl Barn was a fledgling company, with no web presence, managing a database with Filemaker 3.
As The Owl Barn introduced their e-commerce site, RapidHost took over the central hosting of the website to ensure security and development of the site, but still had to transfer daily files of information from the central server to The Owl Barn's own server and vice versa.
In 2005, The Owl Barn upgraded their entire system to Filemaker 7 running from a dedicated server managed by RapidHost. Robbie Murray comments: "This was a quantum leap for us and RapidHost was integral in making the transition as smooth as possible".
The system upgrade meant that a single remote server could be accessed in real time from five different locations. Robbie continues: "We have a warehouse, a satellite office and various home workers, so it was great to be able to access one central database knowing it was live information we were accessing".
Outcome
The Owl Barn now uses Filemaker 8 and has a structure that will enable new satellite websites to be established from the same database and server as they expand their product ranges.
Chris Astridge, MD of The Owl Barn concludes, "For the past year, our fledgling web business has been fully integrated into our back-end processes, which proved to be a smooth and robust development. From the point of view of ourselves as an SME, the facility to access the remote server from any location allows us to involve outworkers for order processing at peak times, and management to interrogate, maintain and develop the system at any time (even on holiday!). As self taught developers, working in partnership with RapidHost ensures that when we get out of our depth, professional help is only a phone call away".
The Owl Barn Contact Details
The Owl Barn
Old School House
Wortham Ling
Diss
Norfolk
IP22 1ST
Tel: 01449 711032
Email: info@owlbarn.co.uk
Rapidhost Contact Details
Case Study - Diffuse Lighting
Background
Diffuse is a dynamic company which designs and produces high quality translucent porcelain lighting. Diffuse offers a Bespoke service and a range of lighting available from stock which is sold through their website. Clients include exclusive hotels, spas, restaurants, bars and private residences worldwide including Sheraton Poznan - Poland, Portopia Hotel, Kobe Japan, Haagen Dazs Korea/France, Costa Coffee - UK and Private residence of the Mayor of Miami - USA.
Problem and solution
Lucy Boatswain, Design Director of Diffuse Lighting and Young Designer of the Year 2004/05 comments: "Prior to working with RapidHost, our website was difficult and time consuming to update. It was therefore not regularly maintained was not meeting our clients needs. We were also keen to introduce the option to purchase products directly through the website".
The Diffuse web site is now supported by a bespoke FileMaker database to manage their products and customer orders ensuring integration with their existing PayPal account. RapidHost has worked with Diffuse to develop the custom web site from a template selected by Diffuse Lighting.
Lucy adds: "The style of our previous website is much improved by the work that RapidHost has done. It is now a far more professional site, easier for both Diffuse and our clients alike".
Outcome
Lucy comments: "RapidHost have worked alongside us to develop a website that is reliable functional and looks great. Their customer service and uptime provides us with one less thing to worry about.
"We are planning on increasing our worldwide customer base and we look forward to working with RapidHost in the future to ensure our customers can access the information when they need it.
Diffuse Contact Details
Diffuse Limited
1 Jubilee Lane
Langford
Bedfordshire
SG18 PH
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)1462 638 331
Fax: +44 (0)1462 638 332
Email: light@diffuse.co.uk
