Microsoft Dynamics NAV News & Tips
Meeting the Challenge of E-Commerce Success

The Company

Perma-Chink Systems, Inc is the largest manufacturer of log home chinking, sealants, wood stains and finishes, wood preservatives and restoration products. If you are a log home owner, you depend on Perma-Chink’s products to protect your most expensive asset. Getting your order right is crucial.

Perma-Chink sells their products through specialty stores as well as directly to customers. They maintain close relationships with customers through various programs such as free educational seminars on the use of their products, and through a referral service for their distributors. The goal of Perma-Chink’s website, www.perma-chink.com, has always been to provide both educational materials and value and insight regarding their products.

The Issue

Eighteen months ago Perma-Chink expanded its website to accept online orders. Due to its success, Perma-Chink’s e-commerce order management team found themselves spending too much time doing the clerical task of transferring customer sales orders into Microsoft Dynamics NAV (formerly Navision) instead of managing customer relationships – the very thing Perma-Chink was founded on. This was especially noticeable on Monday mornings, after all of the weekend orders had been placed. Without assistance, Perma-Chink’s management was concerned that their e-commerce team would soon fall short of their customers' expectations.

The Solution

Perma-Chink has been using Microsoft Dynamics NAV since 1998 to operate their business. Dynamics NAV offers one of the most powerful integration toolsets in the industry, and it easily matched the XML technology being used by Perma-Chink’s e-commerce system. While many integration solutions provide complex, two-way communication between multiple business applications, Perma-Chink was looking for a solution that was simple, straightforward yet elegant, and could be implemented quickly.

Perma-Chink turned to ICS Support as an expert in working with the Dynamics NAV software. ICS Support and Perma-Chink were able to create a solution whereby every order entered on their website is exported as an XML document. Microsoft Dynamics NAV receives this document and creates a sales order.

XML, also known as Extensible Markup Language, has become the standard for business documents. Although variations exist, the basic XML document contains the business data as well as the definition of the data, making it an ideal mechanism to transmit information between dissimilar systems.

While this solution seems easy enough, the challenge of an automated system lies in its ability to handle exceptions. In this case, the challenge also provided the key to maintaining Perma-Chink’s vital customer relationships. All the solution has to do is alert the team that an exception has occurred and abort the import process for that order. Perma-Chink’s e-commerce team can then follow up with the customer.

Managing by exception allows Perma-Chink to provide outstanding customer relations while simultaneously growing their e-commerce business in a very cost effective manner. As Terry Hofricther, General Manager and CTO, puts it, “e-commerce is the future of this company.”

If you would like further information on e-commerce solutions for NAV, please contact Mike Packar, Integrated Computer Systems Support, at 425-284-5426 or mikep@ics-support.com.

 

Managing by exception allows Perma-Chink to provide outstanding customer relationships while simultaneously growing their e-commerce business in a very cost effective manner. As Terry Hofricther, General Manager and CTO, puts it, “e-commerce is the future of this company.”