Your website: A portal to your business

It’s hard to imagine a time when Amazon.com was not a ubiquitous example of a commercial website. When the Internet as we know it today first starting gaining popularity in the mid-1990s, most web pages were fairly static and mainly provided information. Even the most polished commercial sites were limited to showing what products and services a company may provide, mostly due to limitations of dial-up connections and limited functionality.
 

Still today, people may think of a commercial website only as a place to buy a product or service. With today’s technology, a website can be so much more for a company’s customers, vendors and employees alike. Through a system of secured portals, your website can become a full-service station where these groups can find more than what varieties your greenhouse will produce in the coming season.

For your employees, having a portal on your website can give them an opportunity to take care of various HR and work-related paperwork, training and issues from any computer, whether at the office or at home. This is especially beneficial to the greenhouse industry, considering many employees are either seasonal workers or do not have access to a company computer.

A vendor portal on a commercial website can open up a new world of possibilities. Imagine having better communications with the various vendors a greenhouse grower deals with and streamlining transactions for both parties. Although they aren’t as common in the horticulture industry as they are in other manufacturing areas, vendor portals could provide a valuable asset for greenhouse growers.

A portal also improves the online relationship between vendor and customer beyond just a shopping cart. The customer can have all of their information with the greenhouse saved in one convenient place. The greenhouse can also collect vital information from its customers in terms of how their website serves their needs. It can also open up more opportunities to market specifically to customers or for customers to come to find information geared specifically to individual buyers.

Like many industries in today’s business environment, greenhouse growers as a whole are constantly looking for ways to improve their operations. By investing in web-based portals for customers, vendors, and employees, greenhouse growers can provide better service to these groups as well as improve their own operations.

Practical Software Solutions is a Sage Authorized Partner. For more information, contact Greg Lafferty at (704) 721-6800 ext. 3019 or glafferty@practicalsoftwaresolutions.com.