BACKING up important business data is a crucial step for any enterprise, but that was a lesson the Far East Flora group learned the hard way.
In 2006, the retailer of flowers and plants found itself knee-deep in water when a December flood destroyed its horticulture business as well as office equipment, desks and hardware.
Ryan Chioh, managing director of FarEastFlora.com, the online retail arm of the group, recalls: 'When I came into the office, the flood had already covered and destroyed a lot of our hardware, because our computers were on the floor... you could say that, effectively, we were almost drowned out.'
That proved a catastrophe, as the firm has not only a call centre but also a mail-order business. Fortunately, Hewlett-Packard, one of its customers, stepped in to help FarEastFlora.com recover the data on the flooded hard disk drives. The tech giant also loaned FarEastFlora.com about 20 PCs to tide the company over.
'HP was very professional in guiding us through what we needed to do to set up quickly,' says Mr Chioh. 'I will always be very grateful (to them) because I don't think they had to do that ... it wasn't within their scope; they were also on Christmas leave then. Also, for us to buy another 15 to 20 computers would have drained our cash flow.'
The company's involvement in IT had begun even before the incident. In 2002, FarEastFlora.com pumped in about $500,000 into a customised enterprise resource planning and a customer relationship management system to overhaul its order processing system.
'The reason we did that was that our systems were not connected. People could order online, but we'd have to print out their data and key it into our system,' he explains, adding that the problem was compounded by the fact that the company was unable to track its customers' records.
'On occasions like Valentine's Day, (when) we could get up to five times the normal daily order, we couldn't cope, and we made customers uncomfortable and angry.'
Hence the 'very important (but) hard decision', says Mr Chioh. 'Today, if a customer were to call in, he can leave us his name, handphone number and e-mail address, and we'll be able to pull out his records in a split second.'
FarEastFlora.com is also using HP's tablet PC and printing technology to sell flowers that have pictures and messages printed on their petals. Called 'Flower Memo', the service has generated additional revenue - the company has been 'averaging double-digit growth for the past three to five years', says Mr Chioh.
'There's this saying - 'Say it with flowers', and I wanted to see whether we could use that idea literally,' he says of his decision to develop the concept further. 'We wanted to create that wholesome and personalised experience for our customers.'
Mr Chioh, who aims to be a loyal customer of HP, is looking to upgrade 'some of our older servers and maybe increase our storage' by purchasing other solutions from the tech firm. After what FarEastFlora.com has gone through, he is now wiser and more cautious.
'(Companies) need to realise that IT is not the 'cure all' for their business problems - a lot of people misunderstand that,' he says. '(However), my experience with IT is that if used and done well, it can definitely iron out many problems for you.'
