eOne Group, IBM Collaborate For The SMB
Omaha, Neb.-based eOne Group signed on as part of IBM's ISV Advantage Initiative for the SMB in 2004 and relies on the vendor's marketing and technical assistance to help it flourish. The company was founded in 1999 by CEO Dan Watson and President Bob Noren and specializes in Web application design and development for small businesses looking to take their products and services online.
The ISV's flagship product is an e-commerce suite called eOneCommerce, and its customers range from gourmet food vendors to sporting goods stores to motorcycle accessory shops. The Java-based software will run on any operating system, making it an easier sell to a variety of small businesses.
"We do have some large clients, but our sweet spot is the small and medium-size company. We get to work with their executives, and we feel like we can help implement change in their organization. We're a small company ourselves, and we know the challenges of being a small company," Noren said.
Keeping that narrow focus helps eOne Group stay successful. "We only do one thing, and we only work on our own software. We have deep domain knowledge of commerce and how it should be done. We don't try to be everything to everybody. You won't find us installing SAP or PeopleSoft or writing a package that doesn't do what we do. We bring deep value," Noren said.
And EOne Group's customers agree.
Jim Simon, executive vice president and chief marketing officer of Pear's Gourmet, an online gourmet foods and coffee retailer, came to eOne Group to improve the 90-year-old company's Web site when he acquired it two years ago. At the time, it had poor ordering capabilities and was only operating during the weeks before Christmas. Simon wanted to take the Web site online full-time.
"A year ago, we were basically just launching our Web site. We didn't have three or four years in planning—we had a few months. EOne provided a relatively speedy solution," Simon said. "Another thing that's a key to our whole business is not just the presentation to the consumer, but what happens on the back end. EOne was able to integrate the shopping technology into our accounting software."
EOne Group's software keeps track of inventory, generates picking slips for packers, creates shipping labels and sends shipping confirmation to customers. The process used to take up to 10 minutes per step. That new efficiency paid off in 2005 when Pear's Gourmet was featured on "The Dr. Phil Show," bringing in tens of thousands of orders, Simon said.
"If we didn't have these systems in place, we would have had to reject the opportunity from Dr. Phil. This year we're hopefully going to do that again, and we're sending out over a million pieces of direct mail this year that are going to take people to the Web site," Simon said.
EOne Group also has transformed Sandhills Powersports, a retailer of motorcycle apparel and accessories. Before going online with its own e-commerce site, Sandhills was selling its wares through eBay, said Ben Anthony, president and CIO of the Bassett, Neb.-based company.
Since adopting the platform in June, Sandhills has doubled its revenue and been able to expand its product line.
"It's very flexible, and a lot of times flexibility is key because you're not locked into something. Every small business runs differently, and particularly in a small business, you like to be very flexible," Anthony said.
For eOne Group, being able to work with IBM has brought it both marketing dollars and name recognition, upping its profile with potential small-business customers, Watson said.
"We're a small company so I leverage IBM resources, kick around ideas and come up with campaigns and figure out how we're going to do it," he said.
Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM, on the other hand, relies on small ISVs like eOne Group to get its technologies into the small-business market.
"Quite honestly, you can't go to a customer and say, 'Hey, do you want to buy my computer?' You need a solution. [The] preferred route to market is to work with ISVs that are bringing solutions to market that customers want," said Rich Hornor, alliance manager with for the developer relations group at IBM.
"We do a number of things to support eOne and make them successful, and when they're successful, we tend to be successful," Hornor said.