Sealing The Deal
In 1947, after seeing slow sales in stores, Tupperware discovered that consumers needed someone to explain how its then-novel container sealing system worked, and the Tupperware home party concept was born. While the company has added Internet and kiosk sales to the mix, the independent sales consultant remains its primary sales channel. In the United States alone, more than 100,000 consultants are registered on Tupperware's site, and the company claims nearly one million consultants worldwide.
Communicating with a sales force that large demands a robust infrastructure, but by 2004, U.S. Tupperware IT executives felt its existing application set wasn't living up to the job. Consultants would be required to log into separate systems to place orders, download product information, view promotional material, track customers and communicate with other members of their sales teams, among other functions.
"We were having various issues with the speed of e-mail delivery and the flexibility with which we could post information to the site, and the fact that it was not integrated with our existing Web systems," says Phil Smart, senior manager of application development, Tupperware.
Tupperware's goal was a single sign-on that would enable access to all documents and applications for which a particular consultant was entitled, as well as easy connectivity to a consultant's team members and the supervisory hierarchy.
An Issue of Flexibility
Flexibility was a core concern, since users employ the tools in a number of different ways depending on their style of doing business. One may be heavily paper-and party-oriented, for example, needing to perform a lot of material downloads and entering large volumes of orders at once. Another might have a more electronic relationship with his/her customers, sending out e-mail blasts and completing transactions online via his/her own e-commerce site. A user-intuitive interface was also essential, to avoid training costs for such a large and geographically diverse workforce.
Minimizing IT support was another priority, as was ensuring the ability to easily scale up as needs expanded. The company might need to add as many as 5,000 new consultants in a month -- or even a week.
"We wanted an integrated Portal and Office suite that included e-mail, calendar and files," says Smart. Tupperware chose Oracle Collaboration Suite, including e-mail, calendar and files functionality, and chose Oracle Portal to replace its existing portal product, integrating with its Web order entry system. "We already use Oracle for web development and as our ERP, with some customization, so that was an important factor in the selection process."
Just prior to the implementation, Tupperware rolled out Oracle Real Application Clusters and a Linux Grid infrastructure, replacing more costly HP servers. That will allow Tupperware to scale up cost-effectively as more functionality and users are added. Tupperware is considering the future addition of Web conferencing, real-time collaboration, SMS messaging in addition to other collaboration modules.
Storage needs are also reduced, since the company can now store single copies of relevant files.The architecture also enables Tupperware to support up to 2,000 concurrent users in its order entry application -- a must to allow consultants to enter orders before end-of-month sales contests -- and several thousand concurrent portal users.
New Infrastructure Appears
Following a pilot, Tupperware implemented the new infrastructure in September 2004. While Tupperware makes support available online, consultants helped each other through the transition through correspondence on discussion boards.
Today, consultants are able to use the tools to support the way they do business and transact all their needs though a single source, improving their productivity. For example, a team leader can create a series of pages viewable only by other team members, or send out e-mail simply by entering "my team" in the address line. Consultants now each sport a @tupperware.com e-mail address, boosting brand awareness, and Tupperware's IT support is reduced, both from a time and
cost perspective.
"It's a unified workspace for our independent sales force," says Smart. "They have one single sign-on to access all their information." According to Donna Tesmer, director of IT, Tupperware, "We believe that enabling rich collaboration and communication across all levels of our sales force is critical to Tupperware's continued leadership. The Oracle products have enabled us to reduce overall costs with the ability to push portal updates to employees, resulting in improved response rates and reduced IT support for maintenance."