Information System Design

Information System Design

While databases are often used for eCommerce websites, they can also be very powerful for use within your business. We develop custom databases with a secure web interface which allows your employees to login and add/alter information; the information is instantly available to the rest of your employees. A great benefit is that everyone can access the same information at the same time; there is no need for one user to sign out so another one can get access.

This product is commonly called a Business Information System. A unified database such as this helps increase business efficiency and allows management to track employee and customer progress and success. It also ensures all sectors of your business can view and manipulate a central customer details list; which is perfect for creating highly targeted marketing campaigns.

Examples of businesses which benefit from a database like this:

Real Estate Agency

Get each agent to add their new client/potential buyers details retrieved at auctions and opens to the database. The potential buyer is exclusive to the agent who added them for the first 30 days. After that period the potential buyer is put into a client pool which is accessible to all of the estate agents within the agency.
The more information an agent can learn and enter about a client, the more accurate matches a client pool search can return when a new property becomes available.
Agents would be alerted when the client they are adding is already exclusive to another agent within the agency. This ensures agents aren’t wasting time double contacting clients.

Telesales Company

Track the sales of each employee to ensure they are meeting targets and pulling their weight. Commission based salaries can be automatically calculated based on the sales vs target ratio. It is important to restrict certain database information to managers and upper-management: Sales staff may only see their own sales and a rank against their co-workers. Managers would have access to all of the information and sales made by sales staff as well as being able to track sales made by cross-selling. Upper-management would have access to summaries without being confronted by the same data as the managers or the sales staff. This would allow upper-management to make managers accountable for their sales staff. They would also be able to view ‘profit and loss’ statements/forecasts which would be instantaneously calculated and updated by the database.

Retail Store

Track inventory in real-time which speeds up stocktaking and ensures you have enough products/supplies on hand at all times. Record the home address of customers and then send out special offers targeted on a post code range or a particular suburb. You could have the database select all the customers from the suburb of Kew and then display their name and address formatted and ready to be printed and stuck on an envelope or package.

Uniformity of information is also important in the unexpected departure of an employee as you keep their contacts and supplier information. Replacement staff will find it easier to adapt when they have all the information directly available to them via the database.

We can build a database and web interface to your needs, there are no templates involved and therefore there are no limitations on the complexity or specificity of your database.

How is the database accessed?

Put simply: our databases/information systems are a website which you can navigate through and request any information currently in the database. A good example of a database request in action is the Drive.com.au website where you can select car make, car model, year range, price range, extras etc. to slim down your results and find the car you’re looking for. As mentioned above, we will make the database as simple or complex as you desire.

You can decide to have your database accessible via the internet or only internally on your business network. If you choose to access the database via the internet you can allow your employees to login from anywhere with internet. I use secure MD5 encryption on passwords to ensure no unwanted people can access your database.

We can also create mobile login and employee pages which show simplified database information and can be accessed from a mobile phone or handheld device.

Price

Your database will be completely unique and the number of hours required to build it will be determined by the features and complexity you desire.

The minimum build cost of a database is about $1000. You will also require hosting, which we can provide, but you’re welcome to use your own. If your business does not currently have a web address (example: www.yourdomain.com.au) you can add one for $15 per year.

Adding new features to the database is easy and will often only take a few hours of coding time. Should you like to add a feature or make a change you can call or email us. We’ll clarify what you need and give you a timeframe and a price with a ‘pay now’ link to pay via credit card, PayPal, cheque or direct bank deposit.

Interested?

Please use the contact form to let us know what you would like your database to do.