Compu-Shack Electronic is with over 250 employees the biggest German network solution provider, supplying more than 10,000 dealers in Germany and other countries. A subsidiary of Ingram Micro AG, the company uses VivaIP in its catalogue production and direct marketing.

Compu-Shack Electronic is with over 250 employees the biggest German network solution provider, supplying more than 10,000 dealers in Germany and other countries. A subsidiary of Ingram Micro AG, the company uses VivaIP in its catalogue production and direct marketing.

Top products and years of Know-How make Compu-Shack in Germany a strong and reliable partner in all matters of network technology. Not without reason, the company was several times elected Best Distributor of the Year by dealers.

As the »networker« of the distributors, Compu-Shack offers a comprehensive service concept, supported by the four pillars of Distribution, Solution, Production and Marketing. Compu-Shack offers a complete package for company networks from one supplier. The service offer ranges from project development, technical support and telephone hotline right up to IT training and certification, all according to the special requirements of the customer.

Its many publications form a deciding factor in the company's success. As one of the few suppliers on the market, the company publishes a monthly magazine with technical information and user tips. As well as this a whole series of catalogues and brochures is produced annually.

Previously the many product catalogues with up to 650 pages each and the various publications were produced in the conventional way with Viva products. »As the department responsible for projects, we used in the past to gather all the information together and pass it on to a central catalogue production department. This task with up to 15 Product Managers involves a huge amount of time and administration«, says the department manager.

»When VIVA presented us with the VivaIP concept, we immediately recognized its potential for our company, as now the colleagues responsible for the products in Purchasing, Marketing and Sales can edit the complex product descriptions themselves and plan and produce the catalogue pages directly from their own desktop«.

Compu-Shack has several departments who develop software for different purposes and applications. Over the years they created their own catalogue editor, which made the entry and editing of the data much easier for the Product Managers. »The Product Managers were always surprised that the presentation of the products in the catalogue looked completely different from the way they had been imagined.

In the Network Editor it could not be seen from the database entry if a picture was too small or even was missing. Although the catalogue production was according to previous standards very well organized and automated, we have for years been looking for a solution that will visualize the status of our data at a keystroke«. This task is now carried out by VivaIP.

For the software department at Compu-Shack it was no problem to integrate the VivaIP functions into the existing software in just a few days. »The Product Managers can now see immediately if the data is consistent and how the completed catalogue will appear. For the creation of a complete catalogue with 600 pages and subsequent PDF generation our VivaIP Server takes about 5 minutes.«

New Markets with VivaIP

»Thanks to VivaIP we have now obtained a unique competitive advantage in the market. As Distributor we give the dealer a high value tool, which enables him to respond to his customers in an extremely professional way.«