OnFulfillment Blog | Custom Developments & Integrations

This is the fifth and final installment in our “product fulfillment vs. marketing fulfillment” blog series. If you’re new to this particular topic and want some background, we suggest you visit our blog page and read the previous entries, starting with the introductory “Product Fulfillment vs. Marketing Fulfillment: What Do You Need?” The other three—titled “Product Fulfillment vs. Marketing Fulfillment: Which is Best for Receiving?”, “Product Fulfillment vs. Marketing Fulfillment: Pick & Pack,” and “Product Fulfillment: Which Offers Better Support and Flexibility?” can be read in any order you like.

In this final segment, we’re taking a look at how product and marketing fulfillment differ in terms of reporting.

What is a Company Store?

If your company is like most, it produces branded merchandise that it sells (or in some cases gives) to employees, customers and partners to wear or use.  It’s a simple and relatively cheap way to promote the brand, essentially providing free advertising for the business.

If your business is like most, you probably have a marketing portal—a system that allows you to store, manage, organize, share and track massive amounts of sensitive company data and content.  This could include everything from documentation and collateral to videos, photos, logos, proprietary software, and other tangible assets that internal teams as well as external partners can access, download and distribute.  Since partners are sometimes required to purchase materials, the system also processes and stores credit card information.

That’s a lot of sensitive information.  And it begs the question: just how secure is your marketing portal?

Running an online business is incredibly complex.  

The technology required to create a website where people can virtually browse, shop, reserve, order, download, or purchase items is overwhelming.  If anything, we should be amazed when it works properly rather than annoyed when it doesn’t.  The fact that it is so commonplace and reliable is a testament to the tenacity and creativity of the developers who made it possible.

Even the presumably easiest tasks are fraught with difficulty and challenges.  For instance, in order to maintain some semblance of order, one of the first things an online business must do is assign users to predefined groups or roles that determine what resources they can see or access.  On the surface, this seems to be a fairly simple and straightforward process.