Engineering
Success Story: How we beat Trend Micro and Norton at Officeworks
Apr 12, 2024
Cater to the needs of a changing distribution and retail environment and provide ongoing management and support for Kaspersky Lab’s Epay channel.
Information Tech matters
Provided infrastructure to cater to scalable demand from the Officeworks, JB HiFi, and The Good Guys Australian and New Zealand retail outlets.
Provided systems integration with Epay, MYOB EXO, EDI, and Vendor Connect.
Fully leveraged existing knowledge, protecting investments.
Business matters
Increased flexibility and scalability, ensuring future user demands can be met.
Delivered training to Kaspersky Lab Technical Support teams in Melbourne, Australia, enabling teams to benefit from an improved interface and simplified processes without experiencing problems from downtime.
Allowed the expansion of office automation, reducing manual data entry and double handling of data for reporting and administration purposes.
Overview
Kaspersky Lab has been named one of the world’s top four vendors of security solutions for endpoint users. Operating in almost 200 countries, the company employs more than 2,900 qualified specialists. Kaspersky Lab provides protection for more than 400 million users and 270,000 corporate clients worldwide.
Due to the changing retail environment, Kaspersky Lab and its A/NZ distributor, Hemisphere Technologies, joined together with Epay to create an avenue to take Kaspersky Lab’s retail products to market without any inventory costs to the reseller. The process would involve offering Kaspersky’s consumer products in a more efficient way, helping to significantly reduce distribution costs, namely through Epay Cards and Vouchers. These cards work in a similar way to pre-paid mobile phone top-up cards.
In comparison to software boxes consumers typically find on shelves at retail outlets, these cards require minimal retail shelf space and carry no monetary value until activated at checkout. Distribution, warehousing, and shipping costs are effectively nil in comparison, making Epay a lucrative opportunity to maximize revenue across the retail space.
This included integrating with Epay’s API and delivering back-end systems that would cater to each stakeholder and user within the project.
Challenge
Kaspersky Lab required the development of infrastructure needed to automate the manufacture, delivery, and end-user requirements. This included integrating with Epay’s API and delivering back-end systems that would cater to each stakeholder and user of the system, including Kaspersky Lab technical support teams, Printers, Warehousing, Shipping, Administration, Kaspersky Lab end-users, and integrating with Officeworks, JB HiFi, and The Good Guys EDI for ordering. Rigid security and encryption requirements had to be met prior to launching in the market.
Solution
The project was carried out using a two-phase approach. The first phase involved the rollout of paper receipt vouchers, which would be printed at checkouts using Epay’s POS hardware. These are no different from mobile phone pre-paid credit receipts.
The second phase involved a tight deadline of 12 weeks set by the retailer, Officeworks, from the moment of project ‘kick-off’ to an end result of placing with a thorough briefing, stakeholder meetings, Scoping Workshops, and the preparation of a formal Scope of Works and Software Requirements Specification with Kaspersky Lab and Epay. These discussions and documents outlined the following:
Product management
Stock management
Technical support
Redemption code creation
Printing coordination for cards
Automated activation of voucher codes
Batch activation of codes for cards
Ongoing management
User interface and user experience
User workflows
Admin workflows
In Phase Two of this project, Worldteam developed a secure and robust custom cloud application that integrated with Warehousing, Epay, MYOB EXO, and Officeworks software within the timeframe and on budget.
Worldteam offered training to Kaspersky Lab’s technical support staff to ensure their renowned end-user support would continue uninterrupted and without issues for end-users across the retail channel.
Results
Worldteam was able to work closely with the technical team at Epay and MYOB EXO Specialists to launch the application and provide the support required to manage the first stocked shelves by the deadline. Due to the project’s success, Kaspersky Lab was first to market and gained an advantage over other major competitors through Officeworks’ retail space.
Worldteam is now engaged in ongoing management of the application, including 24/7 support and Hosting with infrastructure partners at BulletProof Networks.
Worldteam has since integrated other key channels within this application, including the Kaspersky Lab A/NZ eStore, as well as ‘back-end’ registration and support of its Physical Retail Box channel and Give-Away Promotion Cards.
The project’s success has helped provide Kaspersky Lab with one simple system to not only manage stock but a system in which to manage the registrations required to provide technical support to its customers.
