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| A New York auction house had been auctioning signatures, letters, and memorabilia to the general public for years. Bids were taken over the phone for thousands of articles during a short period of time and processed on paper. Imagine the auctioneers trying to keep track of dozens of bids on thousands of items, closing the bids to the highest bidders, and then processing the transactions, all on paper. It was extremely difficult, if not impossible, to know exactly who was the highest bidder, how many bids were in, or even the general status of all transactions for a given period of time. Management and business reports were not available until days after the event. | |
Bid Tracker took the guess work out of running the auction house. Faster bid processing meant higher revenues. |
The VNS Solution
The solution to the paper problem was simple. Build a computer-based application that would automate the entire process, from the taking of the bids, to the striking of the gavel. VNS provided the design and development expertise to solve this business problem. Computer desktops were networked together to a central database shared by all auctioneers and managers. Each auctioneer was provided bid order forms to enter the original bid information. Simple bid tracking features were provided for fast recall of previous bids by inventory item and by customers. Detailed information not quickly nor previously available to the auctioneers was now at their fingertips. In addition, management now had the facilities to generate reports on current bid status, customer status, inventory availability, and general business and financial reports, not previously available until days after the auction closing. The faster processing time for each bid meant higher revenues because they were able to take more bids. |
The VNS team helped design and develop a total solution:
Applying in-house Project Management skills Providing technical system design skills Building subsystems to control Order Allocations and Bid Tracking, Lot Management, Invoicing, and Reporting Training for the client staff on Bid Tracker
Knowledge in the technologies and in the business environment Senior Programmers and Analysts System & Networking Architects Training & Technical Documentation Communications and Database expertise On-going Technical and Development support
Programming in Visual Basic 5.0 & ACCESS
Orthogonal Database Design Real-time systems design Mirroring Distributed Processing Three-tier Client/Server Architecture |
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