They’re proactive in bringing even more improvement to the table, and they are creative. These things will help us differentiate our solution and our business. I’ve been extremely pleased with how De Villiers Walton has approached this engagement.

For more than 100 years Ideal Heating, has been keeping British homes warm thanks to its innovative range of boilers, controls and renewable energy solutions.

The group’s approach to innovation however, is not just limited to the products it designs and manufactures but is embraced by all parts of the business including, IT.

Ideal Heating’s ground-breaking implementation of SAP’s Web Channel Experience Management (WCEM) solution illustrates a company confident of its ability to apply cutting-edge technology to drive tangible business benefit and one keen to maximize the return on its’ investment in SAP software.

From a purist SAP perspective the implementation demonstrates the potential of SAP WCEM to the SAP user community not only as a web-shop but also as an e-commerce platform in its own right.

In short, Ideal Heating’s innovative approach to implementing SAP WCEM is significant because it:

• Proves that WCEM can be used as an e-commerce platform not just a web-shop
• Shows that it is possible to enable complex integration of WCEM with multiple external non-SAP systems
• Demonstrates that it is possible to enhance and extend the standard WCEM solution

In this piece, we look at the business challenges that led to Ideal-Stelrad selecting SAP WCEM as its’ e-commerce platform and its’ experience of working with the specialist SAP implementation services company, De Villiers Walton.

Ideal Heating's Challenge
Ideal Heating recognizes the importance of its’ installation partners in the sale, installation and servicing of its boilers through Installer Connect, a sophisticated incentive and loyalty programme accessed via a portal. Installer Connect (www.installer-connect.com) allows Ideal Heating’s installation partners to:

• Register the installation of boilers at customer locations
• Activate warranties for installed boilers
• Register installed boilers with the industry body, Gas Safe
• Ensure that the installation of boilers contributes points to the incentive and loyalty programme

Prior to the implementation of Installer Connect on SAP WCEM, the installation partners were required to login to and use three separate third party systems, a process prone to errors and omissions.

The group recognised that the installation and registration processes were complex and looked for solutions that would provide an enhanced user experience for both installers and end customers alike.

Ideal Heating required the Installer Connect portal to be a simple, stable, scalable solution that would support the installers with the registration of products, the activation of warranties and provide a channel for the group to manage and develop its relationship with its partners.

Following a review of a number of options and approaches to enhancing Installer Connect, the group decided to use SAP WCEM as the foundation for the solution.

Ideal Heating's confidence in SAP
According to John Glanville, IT Director at Ideal Heating, the group wanted, “a solution that exploited SAP where possible.”

Glanville continued, “We were very cognisant of the fact that any application that bears our name, has got to be first class and here for the long term.”

As a well-established SAP customer, Ideal Heating was naturally eager to realise the maximum value from its investment in SAP technology. In order to achieve this with Installer Connect, it was critical that the group could identify a solution that could utilise their core SAP systems and CRM in particular.

Glanville picks up the story, “For us, integration is the key and with SAP being at the root of our IT strategy having the opportunity to deploy a standard SAP module to crack this opportunity was really good. I was delighted to see a fairly radical enhancement to the web channel offering that SAP brought to the market.”

The Installer Connect portal has become an intuitive, user-friendly one-stop shop solution based on SAP WCEM. It is both scalable and maintainable and provides a powerful platform on which to build further functionality in the near future.

Talking of SAP WCEM as a platform for further enhancements John Glanville continues, “There is recognition that given this type of solution and the sophistication of our partners, we have to be in a position to continuously innovate and improve. Using a standard SAP solution particularly delighted me. I get confidence that we’ve done that and that we can move this thing on, all in the knowledge that IT won’t become a constraint.”

Selecting De Villiers Walton
SAP and itelligence, recommended De Villiers Walton to Ideal Heating. According to John Glanville, “We did have a look around at potential partners, but struggled to find any that were credible in this space. I have some confidence that when I get a recommendation from itelligence and SAP, that it comes with some authority. What we found was that De Villiers Walton was at the top of the tree and we look forward to working with them again in the future.”

During the project, Ideal Heating benefited from not only the functional and technical expertise of De Villiers Walton but also their flexibility, knowledge and capability to manage change. John Glanville continues, “They’re proactive in bringing even more improvement to the table, and they are creative. These things will help us differentiate our solution and our business. I’ve been extremely pleased with how De Villiers Walton has approached this engagement.”

The De Villiers Walton solution
The Installer Connect Portal is a one-stop shop for gas boiler installers. With this portal, installers can carry out three key business activities in a single step:

1. Register a boiler warranty on behalf of the customer
2. Register with Gas Safe to notify the work and request for certification
3. Claim loyalty points as well as having access to a wealth of new information such as new product offering.

Key features and project highlights:

• The Installer Connect portal utilises the SAP WCEM framework and infrastructure
• The project demonstrates that it is possible to enhance and extend the standard SAP WCEM solution.

Examples of extensions include:

• Single sign on from the existing Installer Website
• A single WCEM-based editable form that supports 3 different business processes
• Complex integration with multiple non-SAP systems
• Address validation via QAS integration
• Serial number verification via integration with a non-SAP external asset management system
• Product Installation Registration via integration with the systems of an external industry body in this case Gas Safe
• Award of loyalty points to the installer of the Product via integration with a non-SAP external loyalty management system
• Product, Customer and Warranty Registration in SAP CRM including a customer validation to check whether customer being registered already exists in SAP CRM
• Adoption of the existing Ideal web branding for the new portal
• On time delivery – a 4 month project duration from infrastructure planning and installation through to go-live
• Seamless transition to application support 2 weeks after go-live

The route forward
Having delivered a successful solution to Ideal Heating, the group, with support from De Villiers Walton, will look for further opportunities to exploit the investment and the WCEM platform.

John Glanville explains, “There will be a phase 2, 3, 4, and 5 but we just don’t know what they are at the moment. With having important business partners like installers, using our technology, we are sure we are going to need to continue to develop and improve and ensure that it stays at the top of the tree in the terms of what it offers along with the support of De Villiers Walton.”

Celebrating the success of the project John Glanville continues, “We are delighted we have been able to identify a standard piece of SAP technology to meet our requirement and to engage and collaborate with partners. It’s that joint development capability that has always provided the basis of our success. We can’t do everything on our own, so we would look in particular to an exceptional piece of technology like SAP WCEM and our engagement with partners such as De Villiers Walton that can truly deliver to promise in order to realise our success.”