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The Shopping Channel

Nationwide Broadcaster Improves Collaboration with Microsoft .NET
Framework
Posted: October 4, 2005

The Shopping Channel is a 24-hour, seven-day-per-week broadcast retailer seen by hundreds of

thousands of viewers across Canada. It provides shoppers with a variety of unique and brand-name
products ranging from jewellery to household appliances. In an environment where scripts drive every
aspect of on-air programming, The Shopping Channel relied on an aging, custom-built software system to
help it generate live segment scripts for its crew and sales staff. In order to keep pace with growth, The
Shopping Channel required faster and more collaborative script-building technology. By enlisting the aid
of a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, the broadcaster took advantage of Microsoft-based technology,
including the .NET Framework, Visual Studio® development system and SQL Server™ 2000, to build a
scripting solution that has enabled it to boost sales, improve team collaboration and use its staff more
efficiently.

Company Overview
The Shopping Channel is a 24-hour, seven-day-per-week Solution Overview
broadcast retailer seen by hundreds of thousands of viewers Customer Profile
across Canada. It provides shoppers with a variety of unique The Shopping Channel is a broadcast
and brand-name products ranging from jewellery to household retailer seen by hundreds of
appliances. thousands of viewers across Canada.
TSC sells a variety of unique
The Shopping Channel runs live segments each day devoted brand-name products ranging from
to a particular product – in order for each segment to move jewellery to household appliances
forward in a seamless and timely fashion, they are scripted
prior to going to air, and each script is distributed to a variety Business Situation
of crew members and call centre sales staff. Despite years of In an environment where scripts
rapid growth and having been acquired by Rogers drive every aspect of on-air
Communications Inc., the broadcaster still relied on an aging, programming, TSC relied on an
custom-built software system to help it generate live segment aging, custom-built software system
scripts for its crew and sales staff. to help it generate live segment
scripts for its crew and sales staff

Business Challenge
Solution
“It looked like an old MS-DOS program. It was actually By enlisting the aid of a Microsoft
designed to help us set up special offers for viewers, but we Gold Certified Partner, TSC built a
asked the supplier to modify it to handle our scripting needs. scripting solution that has enabled it
This new program required a lot of data entry, was very to boost sales, improve team
cumbersome to use, and it only provided our crew with basic collaboration and use its staff more
information,” says Erik Penno, director, TV Programming & efficiently
Web Retail, The Shopping Channel.
Benefits
To succeed, The Shopping Channel must be nimble – the
broadcaster constantly tracks its sales to see how a particular
• More efficient workflow
segment is performing. Based on those results, it may choose • $1,000 per day in savings
to move or revise a particular segment. The old system, • More focus on business tasks
however, could only generate scripts in hard copy, so if a • Better customer service
revision needed to be made it had to be re-entered into the
• Integrated platform
system and built again from scratch. Departments that
handled commercials, marketing and show scripts created Software and Services
their own documents – all of which also had to be revised. • Visual Studio
“Any time we made a change, we had to redo all the copies –
• .NET Framework
that meant photocopying them, distributing them to all the • SQL Server 2000
members involved. In a live environment like ours, getting all • ScriptSure
that done was pretty difficult,” says Penno. Handwritten notes • Office 2000 (or 2003, 2007, etc.)
and workarounds added to the inefficiencies and inaccuracies.
Partners
Staff became frustrated by the need for duplicate data entries • Systemgroup Inc.
and tedious script revisions.

As well, call centre staff often field calls from viewers unsure of the name of a particular product, and
they use scripts to help meet the customer’s request. Using hard copies made the process unnecessarily
slow. “We started looking at ways to make the system more efficient, and to revamp all of our workflow,”
says Penno.

The Shopping Channel needed a system that would help it manage scripts in a way that would enable
instant revisions, accessible by all key stakeholders when they needed it, and that would integrate with
its front-office Microsoft®-based applications running on Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel. After
putting out a request for proposals, it chose a solution from a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner based on
the Microsoft .NET Framework.

Solution
Tasked with modernizing script-building software at The Shopping
When we put Channel, Systemgroup worked with the broadcaster and took
together our advantage of the Visual Studio® development system to build a new,
proposal of customized .NET-connected application dubbed ScriptSure.

person-hour time
savings, which we
used to help sell
the project, we
told them it would
save at least 30
person hours per
day. We’ve
definitely
accomplished
Built with C#, ScriptSure is closely integrated with The Shopping
Channel’s existing proprietary COBOL-based catalogue system to help
provide staff with access to real-time inventory and cataloguing
information, which helps with the development of scripts for on-air
shows. In addition, the solution guides script programmers through the
necessary steps required to build accurate scripts by applying
Shopping Channel business rules and practices. Once developed and
approved, scripts are available online and can be published in various
formats (PDF, HTML, XML) for consumption by each department. Each
script defines a show by dictating, to the second, what is displayed live
on-air. Integrated on-air graphics features provide real-time
advertising and promotional feeds to video.

that. “By taking advantage of the .NET Framework, we ensured that

ScriptSure was able to closely integrate with existing applications,
Erik Penno
director, TV
making collaboration easier. This was a key selling point for The
Programming & Web Shopping Channel,” says Ken Ryder, vice president, Systemgroup Inc.
Retail
The Shopping Channel
Business Benefits
Using ScriptSure, a solution built with Visual Studio and taking
advantage of the .NET Framework, The Shopping Channel now enjoys
near-seamless integration across the organization. Staff are able to write scripts in a more timely
fashion, enabling the organization to generate more revenue.

More efficient workflow

For staff who have a hand in script-building, ScriptSure has helped The Shopping Channel operate more
efficiently, producing better scripts faster, and reduced hours of data re-entry from having to change
entire scripts. Now, scripts are changed on the fly, ensuring only those changes that are required are
made.

As well, before the introduction of ScriptSure, it was not always possible to verify that a particular script
was the most recent version. This sometimes left the crew with two versions of scripts in production,
leading to miscues.

“The newly integrated system provides us with huge time savings by simplifying tasks, and provides our
programming staff with the ability to focus on developing a better show flow, and more engaging
promotions,” says Penno.

Reduced operating costs

By collaborating more quickly and effectively, and avoiding the added cost and hassle of manual script
rewrites, The Shopping Channel has refocused approximately 50 person hours a day across a variety of
job roles back into more business-enhancing work. As a result, Penno estimates that around $1,000 a
day in salaries is being reinvested in more productive work.

“When we put together our proposal of person-hour time savings, which we used to help sell the project
to our executives, we told them it would save us at least 30 person hours per day. We’ve definitely
accomplished that,” says Penno.
 Improved customer service

With ScriptSure enabling staff to create and revise scripts digitally, The Shopping Channel has been able
to save on the cost of paper. More importantly, when call centre sales agents need to refer to the script
to help customers select a product they had seen hours or even days prior the call, they can do so using
ScriptSure over their PCs, and no longer have to wade through documents to find the information.

“That means we can take more calls, and when you do that, you’re boosting revenue because you’re
converting calls a lot better. There’s a big value there,” says Penno.

Stable, scalable platform

The Shopping Channel has continued to modify ScriptSure, even adding a tool that enables it to
automatically generate television graphics. Because ScriptSure plays such a key role in supporting The
Shopping Channel programming, new additions or revisions to it must be done with full confidence that
there will be no unplanned downtime or that delays won’t affect programming, and thus affect revenue.

“This is one of they key reasons we went with Microsoft and .NET. We knew we were going to be
constantly adding to this application as we grew and became even more efficient. The ability to generate
TV graphics and other functions have been major wins for our production team,” says Penno.

Microsoft Visual Studio .NET

The Microsoft .NET Framework is an integral Windows(r) component for building and running the next
generation of applications and XML Web services.http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/

Microsoft Visual Studio .NET is the rapid application development (RAD) tool for building next-generation
Web applications and XML Web services. Visual Studio .NET empowers developers to rapidly design
broad-reach Web applications for any device and any platform. In addition, Visual Studio .NET is fully
integrated with the Microsoft .NET Framework, providing support for multiple programming languages
and automatically handling many common programming tasks, freeing developers to rapidly create Web
applications using their language of choice.http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/

Acquire Visual Studio .NET: http://shop.microsoft.com/devtools/default.asp

MSDN(r) Subscriptions:http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-ca/vstudio/aa718656.aspx

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For more information about Systemgroup Inc., call (905) 278-7700 or visit the Web site at:
www.systemgroupinc.com

For more information about The Shopping Channel, call (888) 2020-888 or visit the Web site at:
www.theshoppingchannel.com

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