McCarthy Call-A-Car: Powered by ColdFusion

Despite global pessimism vis-`a-vis business to consumer (B2C) initiatives, McCarthy Online has been successfully transacting business on the Internet virtually since the inception of its Call-A-Car hotline.

Holding up the recently revamped and upgraded (to ColdFusion version 5) site as proof that e-commerce works in SA, McCarthy Online CIO, Marthinus Strydom, believes the secret to success is an integrated strategy allowing participation using new and old economy mechanisms.

"Although Internet business volumes were low initially, January 2001 saw sales on the Web site reach almost 50% of total sales for the first time," he notes.

With monthly sales from both sources having exceeded 700 units this year too and the current average hovering well over 600, Strydom feels justified in believing B2C e-commerce has a rosy future in Africa.

Wynand Kunkel, IT manager of McCarthy Online`s e-business and communications division, Eliance, and prime driver of the B2C initiative, attributes its success primarily to the scalability of the technology behind the Web site. "When we initially considered a Web site to complement the telephone operation, we examined Microsoft ASP technology but concluded that it did not make business sense to go that route when using Macromedia ColdFusion could cut development time by half and also offer simplified management functionality."

Another issue key to Kunkel`s decision was return on investment. "If you pay a certain amount for a technology or product, you have a right to expect at least that much benefit to accrue to the business. ColdFusion essentially pays for itself manifold times," he says.

From a design point of view, Strydom says the approach of examining the existing dealership model and integrating it into a well thought out Web site has paid off. "Callacar.co.za offers what is effectively an electronic front-end to the existing distribution model. And as such, it adds value to the supply chain," he says.

Jeremy Matthews, MD of local Macromedia distributor, Dax Data, describes this experience as consistent with that of successful B2C sites locally and abroad. "As long as the underlying business processes are in place and working correctly, there is no reason for an e-commerce initiative integrated with those processes not to be successful," he says.

Kunkel agrees and blames the so-called Dot.Com crash on lack of foresight on the part of the venture capitalists, bad business plans and ineffective distribution models. "People often say that successful e-commerce sites are defying the odds and are doomed to failure.

"What they fail to understand is that e-commerce is merely the manifestation of an enabling technology. And that, without a coherent business plan and an effective distribution model, any business is doomed to failure."

Referring to the McCarthy Group`s annual report, Strydom cites growth in sales of 55%, of which the Web contributed over 40%, as proof that B2C e-commerce can, and does, work.

"A Webvan case study I saw a few years ago stated that `the world is moving towards .Corp retailing because it is simply too costly for pure-play Internet companies to replicate existing infrastructure`. In many ways, that assessment helped McCarthy On-Line to develop a successful e-commerce strategy," he adds.

Kunkel concurs but reiterates his belief that technology choice has had a part to play in the site`s success. "The ability to react quickly to the changing market dynamics is crucial to the continued success of the Call-a-Car business. ColdFusion technology is the difference that allows us to keep pace with customer demand and ensure that our Web site is online when it needs to be, 24x7x365," he adds.

"We have found no other solution that allows us to develop as quickly, enables us to scale by simply adding servers and doesn`t require major rewrites as it grows. ColdFusion allows us to keep the business rolling, secure in the knowledge that, even if we want to change to different operating systems or databases, redevelopment will not be needed."

Matthews says this view is consistent with the international experience. "Autobytel.com is a US-based site in the same business as Call-a-Car. With a network of over 5 000 dealers and having helped over seven million [American] consumers, Autobytel exemplifies the growth path made possible by ColdFusion technology," he notes.

Originally constructed using rudimentary but functional forms created with HTML and Perl, Autobytel soon recognised the need to move from static to dynamic pages. Doug Nottage, director of advanced technology at the company, reported that it rejected solutions such as Delphi and JavaScript because they were too hard to learn and selected ColdFusion because it had what was needed: a rapid development environment, scalability and ease-of-deployment.

Strydom says organisations operating in the B2B or B2C space or intending to move into it should consider the correlation between time-to-market and profitability. "The shorter your time-to-market, the more profitable you are likely to be. That, in any business, is the bottom line," he concludes.