Situated in Norway's technological capital, SiT Tapir is part of a student-run, not-for-profit organization, and has
been serving Trondheim's university students with 7 local bookshops since 1921. Its online bookstore boasts early 4 million titles
and its partner web site Gnist ("Spark") extends the company's customer base beyond students by catering to the needs of professionals
in a variety of fields. Together they generate NOK 100 million (US$18.5 million) in revenue annually.
Key Challenges
- Provide pertinent content results the first time, every time.
- Add value to the professional book purchasing experience.
- Maintain and grow customer base for online sales.
- Develop into a knowledge base for professionals seeking to maintain and develop their expertise.
Company Benefits
- Easy-to-use system keeps customers coming back.
- Competitive advantage based on added value.
- IT systems aligned with company goals for greater ROI.
- Growth path flexibility.
Why VirtualWorks was Selected
- Ability to index within file content.
- Low total cost of ownership.
- Norwegian heritage and nearby technical support and customer service.
- Ability to integrate with third-party e-commerce technology vendor.
Customer Benefits
- Quick and easy online shopping experience.
- Find your book right away in only a few clicks, from start to finish.
- Learn about other titles you may like, based on similarity of content.
- Immediately find and purchase any book from anywhere in the world.
With an eye toward the future, SiT Tapir updated its online store platform with new technology a few years ago; today
its database houses over four million titles. However, over time it discovered that something wasn't working and would-be customers
were defecting to competitors. With a goal of developing its business by increasing online sales through gnist.no, SiT Tapir knew it
needed another technology update to maintain its customer base and drive new growth.
Better Search Results Driving Better Business Results
As Internet Bookshops Manager Staale Sand Kalkvik explained, "The main goal for us was keeping customers and getting them to buy what
they need from us and not turning to a competitor because they couldn't find what they needed on our site. "Delivering rapid, reliable
content access and a simple, streamlined process were main goals for gnist.no in selecting a technology vendor. By integrating VirtualWorks with
its existing e-commerce platform and online database, Kalkvik reports, "We have experienced a dramatic improvement in the quality of
content access for our customers."
SiT Tapir's unique external application of the VirtualWorks' technology, a content virtualization platform used to make content instantly and
securely accessible regardless of its location, is helping the company retain customers in addition to making it easy for new ones to find what
they need. But perhaps the most exciting part of the story is the explosive revenue growth, 600% in five years, SiT Tapir expects for gnist.no by
leveraging VirtualWorks' precision-indexing and retrieval capabilities.
As information continues to proliferate, students and professionals alike
find themselves sifting through an enormous amount of similar data to get to the "right" content.
Information Technology as a Competitive Advantage
When they need a book or research report about a specific topic, the time required to whittle down the results, often thousands of them,
can be overwhelming.
SiT Tapir is working to change that, explained Kalkvik, "We want to be a knowledge base for selling traditional
books, e-books, journals and scientific articles. We also want to feed research results and continuing education and professional development
courses from our partners to professionals in their separate areas of expertise."
Positioning the company as the source for accurate and
relevant professional development materials, SiT Tapir is creating a powerful competitive advantage. Said Kalkvik, "The VirtualWorks
technology is helping us to add value for customers by comparing the content of books and providing suggestions based on real customer interests.
It's helping us become more competitive."
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