TECHNOLOGY

Changing a global platform is not a small initiative ,” says Malcolm Chiu , the Chief Information Officer of Hong Kong-based direct selling titan QNET . In the rapidly-expanding world of eCommerce , user experience is a crucial factor in turning casual browsers into buyers . Chiu , and the firm ’ s Chief Technology Officer , Ivan Woo , have long understood the role of personalisation and agility in creating a dynamic eStore . Four years ago , they also realised that QNET ’ s existing legacy platform could not accommodate many of the features that customers were coming to expect from an online shop . In 2012 , QNET set about the mammoth task of creating an entirely new Next Generation Platform ( NGP ) — which is due to launch this year .

“ This is the largest IT project in the company ’ s history ,” Chiu explains . “ We had our entire platform built in-house about 10 years ago and we grew that platform to serve hundreds

of countries and many languages .” However , as time went on , there proved to be some legacy issues with the firm ’ s original platform . “ It was really imperative that we transform or migrate the platform to a much more modern and robust solution ,” Chiu says .

QNET ’ s unique sales model and wide global reach requires a highly personalised web platform capable of producing detailed analytics . The company relies on teams of independent representatives ( IRs ) to sell its products to consumers in their communities . The IRs are then compensated based on the sales volume of their referrals and the revenue of the other IRs in their teams . Retail customers can only purchase QNET products if they are given access to a representative ’ s referrer ID .

“ We sell many different kinds of products ,” says Chiu . “ From vacations all the way to cosmetics . And we have many networks — they build

www . qnet . net 55