The first, and most important components, of the W³IN strategy was the establishment of a launch platform and a transactional system. Whirlpool Web World and W³IN.order were designed for that purpose.

It was rather hard to convince the powers-that-are to accelerate the introduction of such system in lie of the strain the SAP projects were putting onto the IT team. If the solutions would go online within a year (a timeframe nobody really believed at that time due to the newness of the platform), we would have roughly 12-18 months of actual benefits in the transactional system before it would have to be detached from the mainframe system MOPS and replugged into SAP. We had to be rather convincing.

Well, we were. The project paid for itself within that timeframe, and more importantly, it provided critical learning opportunities which benefited the SAP installation greatly. And I used some of my "old tricks". We actually designed a mockup system that we could show around. Once people "got" what this could be for them, they were sold.

The screenshot below shows the entry screen to Whirlpool Web World. After signup, people would see a menu of applications which was specifically catered to them. Yes, this was a transactional portal that provided common security and a single-signon solution to employees, suppliers and trade partners.

The actual order processing system itself was designed by me in a series of interactive sessions with trade partners, internal order desk forls, and IT specialists. We then handed those designs plus a rather high-level architecture to the project team, which made it real. There are no screen shots of the order desk, since this information is truly competitive in nature.