QVC

Affiliate Relations / Research

QVC, Inc., headquartered in West Chester, PA, has been in the forefront of the electronic retailing revolution that has swept the United States. Founded in 1986 by Joseph M. Segel, who created The Franklin Mint, QVC has become the number one televised shopping service in sales and profits in the United States.

QVC, which runs live programming 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 364 days a year, reaches over 70 million U.S. homes. In 1999, more than 70 million packages were shipped to customers as a result of more than 111million phone calls, leading to over $2.8 billion in sales.

QVC, which has successfully exported its concept to the United Kingdom and Germany, employs more than 140 buyers who are responsible for the channel’s ability to introduce about 250 new products per week. The company offers everything from jewelry, healthcare products and clothing to electronics and National Football League-licensed merchandise.

The company was quick to embrace e-commerce, introducing iQVC in December of 1995. At the end of 1999, the QVC web site averaged 131 million hits, 45 million page views, and 2.3 million user sessions per week.

Excellent Value

As QVC grew, it became clear the company needed a way to store, view and disseminate important documents. After exploring a number of systems that ran well into six figures, QVC chose Inmagic’s DB/Text® WebPublisher.

"DB/Text WebPublisher is a great value," said Millicent Gaskell, a senior librarian in the company’s information center.

"DB/Text WebPublisher gives us the functionality of a much higher priced system," said Holly Rutkowski, Vice President of Information Services.

DB/Text WebPublisher’s functionality is epitomized by its ability to index text, photos and video. QVC stores text and photos on DB/Text WebPublisher, and soon plans to do the same with video. That will mean the staff can quickly pull together needed information because the multimedia elements will all be on one system.

User Friendly

While the librarians received some training on DB/TextWorks® (which provides the underlying structure for DB/Text WebPublisher), DB/Text WebPublisher is so easy to use that employees don’t require extensive training.

"DB/Text WebPublisher is remarkably easy to use," said Gaskell. "While we needed the help of MIS to install the product, we are the only department that is allowed to add things to the web without consulting MIS.

"Every other department has to obtain approval from MIS and get them to do it. In fact, MIS has started to funnel projects our way because they see how easy it is to mount things on the web with DB/Text WebPublisher."

As a result, the Information Center has more control over its information resources, and MIS has more time to spend on other tasks.

"Once you get familiar with DB/TextWorks," said Linda Gross, a librarian in the information center, "it is just so simple to add databases to DB/Text WebPublisher."

"I enjoy the great flexibility that DB/TextWorks allows in database design," says Ann Kralik, a senior librarian in the information center. "For instance, it’s easy to rename fields, add new fields, or change field definitions. We’re not locked into the initial textbase design or dependent on MIS for programming."

Myriad Applications

Some of the applications QVC has implemented on the Intranet with DB/Text WebPublisher include:

• Qfacts database (used primarily by the public relations and marketing departments and includes information such as how many packages QVC can pack daily ((over 300,000)); how much floor space their distribution centers have ((1.8 million, or the equivalent of 39 football fields)), and how many phone lines are available in their three call centers ((6,360)));
  
• Affiliate Relations database (indexes and stores images of the company’s contracts with cable television companies that carry QVC programming);
  
• Research Information System (RIS) database (features bulleted lists of facts used by studio hosts). Corporate Archives database (holds document images of anything QVC has ever published such as postcards, brochures, annual reports);
  
• Logos database (contains QVC and vendor logos for use as on-air graphics);
  
• Video database (is an index of video stories done about QVC -- such as by the Today Show -- as well as important footage from QVC telecasts);

QVC has contracts with cable companies that carry their programs. The Affiliate Relations group administers this function. In the past, when someone in Affiliates Relations needed to refer to a contract, they used the hard copy.

When DB/Text WebPublisher was introduced, the Information Center created an Affiliate Relations Contract database, and had the contracts indexed and imaged. It has been a big success within the company.

"The contracts are valuable documents," said Gaskell, "and they were being handled so much by so many people, they were beginning to deteriorate. With DB/Text WebPublisher, we can make them available to just the people who need to have access to them. And we can preserve the original."

Research Information Systems

On-air hosts need to be well versed on a variety of subjects. Say, for instance, a host is doing a show that features the apparel of a National Football League team. The host needs to know about the merchandise, but they also need to know a little bit about the history of the NFL, the team, and perhaps something about a few of the players.

The Research Information System was converted to DB/Text WebPublisher for just such an occasion. It includes bulleted factoid lists, which gives the host appropriate background information.

"Some of the hosts are more tech savvy than others," says Gaskell. "But with DB/Text WebPublisher, they can find the information they need quickly and easily."

Which, when you think about the amount of information that is flowing through a company with 10,500 employees, is a good thing.

 

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Revised: 03/19/04