Case Study

We were engaged by the CEO of the value variety store chain Alworths while they were preparing their business plan, prior to opening any stores. We have established a strong working relationship with their team and this has spawned three project initiatives:

• building and deploying reconditioned personal computers to Alworths' specification for their Head Office
• creating a virtual reality store in video and pictures to help explain the proposition to sceptical landlords
• building an interactive corporate website

Each project was delivered quickly and cheaply and was well received by the client.

Office Equipment

Alworths has an unusually systems literate senior management, who had a clear vision about the infrastructure they would need to operate their rapidly-expanding store chain efficiently. They chose Futura's state-of-the-art EPOS, Back Office and Merchandise Management solution to operate alongside a promotional signage solution from leading systems integrator Episys Ltd, using their Retail Enterprise Suite. They worked with the vendors to establish the processing power needed for their central systems to run at their Head Office. They opted for Windows XP desktops with processors of 2.4GHz or more with a minimum 1Gb of memory and sought quotations for vendors to build 20-28 identical units.

WWW Group was able to fulfil their requirements by rescuing equipment scheduled for environmental disposal, cleaning, adapting and rebuilding it. We agreed with Alworths that their offices should have reconditioned tower systems under the desks but new keyboards, mice and screens on the desktop, giving them the best of both worlds. The solution (comprising 28 system units) was delivered in under three weeks and included:

• IBM NetVista 8015 mini-tower computers with a standard, unique Alworths build
• Microsoft Certificates of Authenticity for Windows XP Pro 1-2 processors, re-activated and registered with Microsoft
• Matched pairs of 500mb SD-RAM memory chips to the vendor's original specification, also 'rescued' from disposal
• full systems documentation, including a complete set of drivers, documentation and applications on disk for support
• a full itemised asset list including serial numbers natched to Microsoft COAs and on-unit asset labels
• brand new 17" SVGA TFT monitors with a year's warranty along with new 104-key keyboards and wheel-mice
• delivered with cables and installation instructions for the in-house engineer
• every computer burn-tested in our QA labs and confirmed fully working
• the total cost per seat was just £100

Virtual Reality

A key challenge for the new company was to convince landlords that they had a viable proposition that would be able to pay the rent and that would improve shopping facilities in the town. Where an established retailer can point property owners and suppliers to their existing stores, this is much harder for a start-up, particularly in the depths of recession. We worked with the Alworths team to develop virtual reality images of the interior and exterior of the premises they were keen to secure as their flagship store, compiling the finished images into an electronic gallery on-line, a pair of High Definition videos and a traditional photo album.

CEO Andy Latham found the libraries helpful both in winning over sceptical landlords, saying 'The video proved to be the breakthrough we needed, helping to explain that we're not a downmarket pound shop and showing that we have a clear proposition. Quite simply, without the video we wouldn't have a store in Didcot. The Virtual Reality also helped us to clarify the final look and feel for the finished store, without the cost and time to do it and redo it until we got it just right.'

Alworths.com Website

We worked with Alworths to translate their corporate i.d., brand guidelines and business plan into a website, building a site template and agreeing a navigation structure. We worked with their in-house team to gather assets for the website, re-using some content that they had already created and topping up with photography, graphics and video content from our Publishing and Artwork Origination division at 3D and 6D Pictures Ltd. We published a draft site for review within a week of receiving the commission and got sign-off within twenty-four hours.

The site is hosted on our Unix platform and the interactive features, including store-finders, on-line job applications and feedback forms were taken up by members of the public within hours of the launch. We are working to train the Alworths team to take some of the regular maintenance in-house, allowing them to update product information, banners and news stories for themselves to keep costs to a minimum. Our toolset allows us to set up templates that allow clients to make the changes to specific content safely from a standard web browser without risking the integrity and performance of the site.

Operations Manager Andy Hayzelden says 'We've had some great leads through the website, which has helped to put us in touch with new suppliers and high potential store manager candidates. I check the on-line feedback regularly and it's already influencing what we do and helping us to grow the business and give the best possible customer service. We're in the process of adding references to the website on our till receipts and encouraging customers to tell us how we're doing.' Visit Alworths.com

You can visit an Alworths store in Amersham (Buckinghamshire), Didcot (Oxfordshire), Evesham (Worcestershire), Warminster (Wiltshire) or Wokingham (Berkshire). For opening hours and maps of the stores please click this link.