Ph.D thesis "The Viability of Multimedia Retrieval Systems for Marketing and Sales" by prof dr M. J. Hoogeveen  

3.5. The Multimedia Business Catalogue (MBC)

3.5.1. Introduction

M&S business outlets work with catalogues to present assortment information to their business customers, but also to support their sales staff. The quality of paper catalogues is often too low, in terms of topicality, completeness, media richness, searchability etc. Business sales assistance by MM Business Catalogues (MBCs) may benefit from the improved catalogue quality. An MBC is a multimedia system which presents the complete business assortment vividly, and offers transparent support of all assortment related processes to business sales staff and large business accounts. An MBC may be used by the large business accounts, because they order products and services covering the complete portfolio of an M&S firm. It may be affordable to offer a stripped MBC to smaller business accounts. The IBM direct catalogue and the Philips audio-visual products catalogues offered to business relations are examples of commercial MBCs .

A lack of topicality, completeness, media richness and searchability can be seen in the case of the General Specification (GS) catalogue of PTT Telecom. This paper GS catalogue supports the PTT Telecom Business Market sales staff. An analysis was made that suggested that an MBC would be a solution to these failings (Hoogeveen, 1993c). In a feasibility study it was also concluded that an MBC would meet the requirements for sales support of personal sales (De Ruyter, 1993). A first prototype of the MBC was developed by PTT Research during the second half of 1993. The development costs of this prototype were only about HFL 30,000.-.

The following descriptions of the M&S business objectives and information processing tasks, MRS functions and MRS implementation aspects are based on interviews with sales personnel, and the results of the PTT Research PROMISE project.

3.5.2. Business objectives

The main business objectives (O) for the MBC are to improve the quality of the catalogue as a sales support tool, and to streamline internal information provision.

It is assumed that improved sales support will contribute to an improved customer contact and increased sales volume. Therefore, improving the quality of a catalogue as a sales support tool is seen as an important objective (O1).

An analysis of the old GS catalogue (Hoogeveen, 1993c) shows that the topicality of the paper catalogue declines from 90% at the moment of distribution to 63% after 6 months when it is replaced by an update. Topicality is operationalised as the percentage of assortment descriptions needing update. Shortening product life cycles and shorter time to market puts even more pressure on the topicality of assortment information. The completeness of the catalogue is about 58%, meaning that 42 of every 100 assortment descriptions has one or more empty fields, like missing contact persons, selling arguments, service desk telephone number, etc. Other problems are related to the ease of handling a paper catalogue, accessibility and its presentation quality. It is believed that a media rich MBC helps to convey the essential assortment information to sales personnel who suffer from information overload. The same is believed to be true for their customers.

A second related objective is improving internal information provision by canalising sales information (O2). A current problem is that business sales staff is overloaded with assortment information, product and service handbooks and specifications from diverse marketing departments. If assortment information is canalised through one information channel, the MBC, this would reduce the load of unstructured, difficult to search and retrieve, paper information in sales offices.

The following extensions of business objectives for the MBC are possible. One can imagine improving customer relations by offering business accounts direct access to the MBC from the customer's offices. It can give suppliers a competitive advantage to be a de facto preferred supplier. Offering direct access to an MBC will lead to a rise in system (production) costs, which need to be recovered by extra profits or efficiency gains by cutting sales staff and reducing order administration.

A choice might be made for an electronic catalogue as this offers possibilities to improve the quality of the catalogue, particularly topicality by continuous updates, completeness by adding all relevant information without being restricted to two pages per assortment item, and searchability. A choice might be made for a multimedia catalogue because this offers the possibility to replace current illustrated catalogues and related material, and for to improve of the presentation value as a tool to support interactions with business customers.

3.5.3. Information processing tasks

As can be seen in figure 18 assortment information provision involves diverse processes and M&S people. Product managers, responsible for the management of about 300 products and services, monitor the assortment information in the MBC and related sales volume figures. Sales volume figures by product, produced by Order IS, is the feed-back the product manager triggers to take actions, like developing new products or services or initiating more sales promotion.

  Figure 18. Information processing tasks related to business sales support.

Product related information that needs to be included is edited by a catalogue editor responsible for catalogue management. The catalogue editor performs updates and extensions, using input from the marketing archive in the form of pictures, animations and videos.

The marketing department responsible for promotions, use the MBC as a source for developing marketing actions. These marketing actions are directed at business customers, for example, in the form of a mailing, and are fed into the MBC by the catalogue editor.

The target group of users are the over 400 personal sales people in the business outlets. Casual users are other types of business sales people, a heterogeneous group including account managers, technical sales people and telesales people. Personal sales people use the MBC to prepare themselves for pro-active or re-active sales conversations. They retrieve actual assortment information, access manuals for technical background information and for installation, and read marketing news (promotions) to present special offers to their customer. Technical background information is particularly of interest to technical sales people. A very important issue is that the personal sales people and account managers can use the MBC as a presentation tool to support sales conversations with business customers. Therefore the MBC includes customer-centred promotion videos.

Orders and customer information are entered by the business sales people. If direct access to an MBC is offered to business customers, orders and customer information can be entered directly by the business customers themselves.  

3.5.4. System functionality

A description of the functions of the MBC is given in this section. First, general MBC functionality (see figure 19) is discussed followed by a detailed discussion of MBC database system functionality (see figure 20).

The main MBC functions are:

• Order entry: the MBC user interface functionality for order entry by business sales people. Entered orders are sent on to an order system.

• Problem entry: the MBC user interface offers functionality for problem entry by business sales people. Entered problems are sent on to a complaint handling system, a strategic corporate resource.

• Account file management: the MBC user interface includes functionality for entering data about accounts in a file and editing these account files. Business salesmen and account managers can use this functionality.

• Assortment retrieval: assortment retrieval is a main function of the MBC system. Business sales people, and business customers, product managers and marketers can use this functionality. The MBC user interface sends retrieval request to the MBC database system, which returns the requested assortment information to be presented.

• Solution composition: the PTT Telecom assortment contains many service elements that can be part of a business solution for a customer problem. The MBC interface can offer functionality for the composition of service elements into feasible and profitable solutions. The solution module can check the solution and present it in an attractive way. Solutions can be stored in the MBC database system and be retrieved from this database system. Standard solutions, prepared centrally, can also be retrieved.

• Presentation: the MBC interface offers presentation functionality to support personal sales people and account managers in their business presentations. The presentation functionality can also be accessed by interested customers to look up ready made presentations. To do this, the MBC interface retrieves ready to use and self explaining presentations from the MBC database system. The use of presentations is registered in the database system as a performance measure, this and other performance measures, are of interest for marketers. Personal sales people and account managers can also use the presentation function to create, store and retrieve their own presentations.

• Editing: the catalogue editing environment offers functionality for editing the MBC by a catalogue editor. This includes the creation, updating and removal of catalogue information and MBC software.

 

Figure 19. Functional elements of the MBC.  

The main database system functions are:

• Updating: the update facility offers updating functionality to the production environment for the updating of presentations, and assortment information. Further, it offers update functionality to the MBC interface for the updating of solutions and customer profiles based on their choices and information requests. • Data exchange: the exchange facility exports relevant customer information from the customer interest profile database to a corporate customer IS.

• Searching: the search facility offers the MBC (user) interface search functionality. The MBC interface sends queries. The search facility returns result sets of customer interest profiles, business presentations, assortment files and solutions from their respective databases.

• Presentation: the presentation facility accepts presentation requests (including references in a result set) from the MBC interface and returns information objects from customer interest profiles, business presentations, assortment and solutions databases.  

Figure 20. Functional elements of the MBC database system.

3.5.5. Implementation aspects

The MRS implementation aspects for the MBC are discussed in this section. First, general MRS implementation aspects are discussed, then MDBMS implementation aspects.

The MBC interface runs on an MPC (Multimedia PC) and consists of MBC access software.

The MBC interface presents all information types: animations to explain, for example, the way a Greenpoint wireless telephone works, video for commercials and to show the use of services, music and speech in support of video and animations, texts to describe the attributes of products and services, and structured data for prices, customer information and ordering. Speech is also used to present texts, for example, when personal sales staff is on the road to a customer. The more the MBC is used by customers the more the marketing value becomes important. In this light one can justify improving the reality value of animations by including 3D views of products.

The prototype of the MBC interface is developed using the authoring tool Multimedia ToolBook 1.5 of Asymetrix Corporation which runs in the MS-Windows 3.1 environment and supports Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) and Dynamic Link Libraries (DLL). Multimedia Toolbook is used for three reasons: it supports presentation of multimedia information, offers an easy to use development environment and Toolbook development experience was available. The choice of the MS-Windows environment is made because this environment is in accordance with the PTT Telecom workplace standard and the MPC standard. In the MBC prototype the Soundblaster 16 ASP audio card of Creative Labs is used for playing audio. The output media used are built-in loudspeakers for good quality sound. Video is displayed in video for windows (AVI) format.

The interface of an operational MBC can be developed with an authoring tool like we used for the prototype (i.e., Multimedia ToolBook). If more programming flexibility is needed it is possible to use programming languages like Visual Basic and C++. The operational MBC interface platform is extended, in comparison with the prototype, with a LAN connection for access of remote databases, an ISDN connection, video cards for playing MPEG1 quality video, and a CD-ROM player.

Portable PCs can be used by personal sales people to download parts of the MBC database by a LAN or ISDN basic rate connection, and present MBC information to customers at their own offices. When a presentation for larger audiences needs to be given a connection to a transview for overhead projection or RGB projector is needed. One can imagine that spoken commands or a remote control are used to control the MBC interface during presentations.

If a customer is provided with MBC access one can imagine several scenarios. First, they can be provided with a limited MBC on CD-ROM and an ISDN basic rate connection for tele-ordering, and entering customer complaints and desires. The advantage of CD-ROM is that it is a cheap distribution medium for large circulations. Second, the use of an ISDN connection is a useful alternative to download updates of the MBC database to hard disk.

The Catalogue editing environment consists of tools for the production of content data and an authoring interface. As yet, no authoring interface has been created in the MBC prototype. ToolBook is used for the authoring. Further, the Soundblaster 16 ASP audio card of Creative Labs is used to capture, digitise and play audio, and the DVA-400 overlay board and Mediaspace board of Videlogic are used to capture and compress video. A scanner is used to digitise and code product pictures in TIFF format. The editing platform consists of a Pentium PC.

In an operational system, the catalogue editing environment needs to include a heavy PC equipped additionally (in comparison with the prototype) with:

• input media, digitisation cards and coding cards for MPEG1 video and audio;

• a caption camera for high quality picture input;

• a CD Writer to write CD-Recordables in CD-ROM format;

• a DCC or DAT tape recorder to record the content of a CD-ROM and send it to a CD printing office for making copies;

• professional editing software to edit audio, video, pictures, animations and text;

• an authoring interface to update the MBC database system.

The representation of video and audio can be improved by supporting successors of MPEG1, like MPEG2 and later MPEG4. Improved compression ratios obtained by these successors will increase storage and transmission efficiency, and makes it more cost-effective to update the complete MBC database remotely, and later on to offer on-line access to the complete database (without remote updates). An advantage is that an improved quality of video presentation may increase the marketing value of the MBC, i.e., attractiveness, attention value, level of impact of messages, etc.

The MBC database system consists of a retrieval engine and MM databases. In the MBC prototype Superbase 2.0 of Software Publishing Corporation is used as the retrieval engine to search structured data. An operational version of the MBC can use ORACLE version 7, which complies to the PTT Telecom database standard and which supports storage of BLOBs. So, in fact, the extended DBMS approach is followed.

The most distinguishing retrieval facilities of the MBC prototype, which are now developed in the ToolBook application but could be better supported by the retrieval engine, are the use of hypermedia and IRS retrieval mechanisms in addition to standard DBMS retrieval mechanisms. The hypermedia facilities used are hyperlinking to trace references from a specification page to an associated marketing video, and graphical browsing for backtracking and selecting business presentation elements, etc. The IRS retrieval facilities are set manipulation, full text indexing and full text retrieval to search through the GS pages (documents) without knowing key words beforehand.

A description of an implementation scenario for an operational MBC database system follows. The operational MBC database system is stored on powerful local servers connected to MM LANs (>100 Mbit/s). The servers are updated cyclically from the central catalogue system using basic rate ISDN for small size files and CD-ROM for stable video and audio files. The bandwidth of the public connection will be gradually expanded with the expansion of the catalogue database over the years. The catalogue database will start at a size of about 600 MB (with an average of 2 MB per product/service and 300 products and services) and grows to many GBs when longer promotion videos are included later.

The MM retrieval engine used supports storage of GS pages in an MM document format to improve the re-usability of the GS pages. Ineffective exchange of documents between incompatible document processing systems can thus be avoided. One can imagine the support of the file formats of MM successors of popular word processors like WordPerfect and MS Word. If ISO MM document standards HyTime and HyperODA are broadly accepted by the market we can imagine support of these standards by the retrieval engine.

The retrieval engine further supports some other facilities.

• It supports the automatic MPEG and pictorial coding and decoding of objects. Audio, video and pictorial objects are coded automatically when they are stored in the databases and are decoded automatically by the presentation facility of the retrieval engine when they need to be presented by the MBC interface.

• A profile facility is needed to send GS pages to business customers, personal sales managers or product managers according to their predefined profiles.

• A ranking mechanism is used in addition to a full text search mechanism to support sales people in searching relevant information.

The developments of automatic pictorial indexing should earn special attention to retrieve video fragments and pictures effectively for presentation composition. This would offset the disadvantage of manual indexing which is time consuming, and thus expensive.

3.5.6. Discussion

On the basis of the prototype and known examples we can conclude that MBCs are technically feasible. The most important business opportunity for the MBC seems to be reduction in sales outlet costs if an MBC is used to support tele-ordering by customers. Tele-ordering results in reduction in personal sales or telesales costs for the supplier and possible price reductions for the customer. The assumed value added of MR is based on the idea that an improved presentation of products and services is motivating for customers, and efficient and effective for retrieval by pictures, associative references and key word searches. The MBC offers an easy to handle retrieval interface to browse or search through the catalogue database including interactive manuals, marketing actions and promotion videos.

A strength of the MBC system, which should be offered as an integral part of an SSS, is that it offers all assortment related information via one channel to business sales people, and other types of actors. This will lighten the burden of being overloaded with unstructured paper information.

One success factor is the degree to which the MBC system complies with the business standards for workplace automation, and eases the use of the catalogue as a portable system for business presentation purposes. The MM presentation has the advantage that it may result in improved information impact and retention and higher customer satisfaction, i.e., more fun. It is believed that this will result in stronger customer relations.

One problem with the MBC system, so far, is that the infrastructure is not yet in place for MBCs: too few of the installed base of PCs have an MM capacity at present. This problem will cease to exist over time, when MPCs become part of the standard workplace infrastructure.

A small drawback is that MM catalogue editing is rather complex in comparison to the current text editing function, therefore, a specially trained and skilled editor is necessary. Another drawback is that the system management and operational system costs for sales support will rise, due to the introduction of an MBC, and because of the use of vast amounts of MM data.

One problem with the MBC project is that, although target groups responded positively to the MBC prototype, it is hard too give forecasts for effectiveness gains in the personal selling process. Another problem to be considered is that there is little MM experience at present within the information management, system management and automation departments. A small pilot project can be used to tackle these problems, give answers to questions with regard to system effectiveness, and result in further practical MM experience for the organisation.

3.6. The Multimedia Promotion System (MPS)

3.6.1. Introduction

Entertainment is in the lift on fairs and exhibitions, and therefore the media richness of presentations or other fair communication means are upgraded, in competition for the attention of visitors. MPSs are an exponent of this development. MPSs are particularly useful when the real product or service can not be demonstrated at a trade fair. MPSs can be found at trade fairs in the form of MM infotainment machines with service simulation capabilities that can give a feel of the product or service and have a high relative marketing impact. Multimedia Promotion Systems are interactive audio-visual marketing systems that introduce services to individual visitors or audiences to motivate them to purchase these services. MPSs may assist potential customers and marketing people in the first phases of the acquisition process.

An innovative trade fair stand was developed for PTT Autolease for the Freight Trade Fair in Rotterdam in 1993. The trade fair stand formed a part of a nation wide publicity campaign to promote the change of name from RAC to PTT Autolease and introduce it to the market. A Full Motion Full Screen Video CD-i was developed, to act as an eye catcher at the trade fair stand, this received a lot of attention from the Freight Trade Fair visitors. The development costs for the CD-i were about 150.000 HFL. PTT Autolease describes the value added of MM as follows:

• Presentation is improved and more attractive than company videos.

• The interactive element and game box elicited enthusiastic responses from the trade fair visitors.

• It gives an original/innovative impression.

The idea of a VR gaming environment using a helmet and VR suit was abandoned at an earlier stage as the VR technology was too unstable and the equipment costs were too high.

The trade fair stand won the best stand award at the Freight Trade Fair following judgement by an independent jury. The trade fair stand was reused at four other shows in 1993 and 1994. The CD-i is also shown at the entrance of the PTT Autolease main office.

Besides, a CD-i was developed by the PTT Research PROMISE project during the second half of 1993 to gain experience with the CD-i for promotion of PTT Telecom mobile telecommunication products.

The following descriptions of the M&S business objectives and information processing tasks, MRS functions and MRS implementation aspects are based on interviews with PTT Autolease, market studies in relation to the PTT Autolease publicity campaign (Kesselaar & Siero, 1993; NIPO, 1993), and the experiences of PROMISE researchers with the development of a CD-i for promotion of mobile telecommunication products (Hoogeveen, 1994).

3.6.2. Business objectives

The business objectives (O) for developing an MPS are to help - as part of a PTT Autolease trade fair stand - to make the name of PTT Autolease and services it offers well-known (O1) and to create an innovative image for PTT Autolease (O2). The PTT Autolease managers believe that the MPS helped to create the desired, innovative image at the trade fairs visited. PTT Autolease sales people reported that the MPS was an effective tool to attract a lot of attention from visitors at trade fairs. The business objectives of the MPS are very modest in comparison to the business objectives of the complete publicity campaign.

The business objectives PTT Autolease wanted to meet with its publicity campaign were to increase sales volume (2000 extra lease-contracts) and to increase its market share in the Dutch autolease market.

PTT Autolease sees becoming well-known and an innovative radiation, as necessary conditions for increasing sales volume. Strong management commitment was given to the publicity campaign by the PTT Autolease management and by the board of directors of the parent company KPN. Apart from being present at trade fairs, the complete publicity campaign included bill boards advertising, radio & TV commercials, business presentations, sending press releases to news agencies, and magazine advertisements.

After the publicity campaign, an independent Dutch market survey (NIPO, 1993) showed that 43% of the respondents recognised the name of PTT Autolease. As a result PTT Autolease ranked 7 in a group of 15 competitors. This is not a bad result for a new player in the field, but it is thought that PTT Autolease also benefits from the well-known name 'PTT'. An independent market survey (Kesselaar & Siero, 1993) (n=222) showed that the unprompted response ("What car lease firms do you know?") with regard to the name 'PTT Autolease' increased from 1.4% in January 1993 to 3.3% in May 1993. The prompted response ("Do you know PTT Autolease") increased in the same period from 39% to 54%.

The 1993 increase in sales volume was 400 extra lease contracts in the Dutch market (the target of 2000 extra lease contracts was too ambitious). The exact contribution of the MPS to the results of the publicity campaign is unknown, but probably modest.

One can imagine that the business objectives of a promotional system can be extended. For example, by promoting a product in a number of different places. An MPS can be used outside the trade fair environment. It can be used at more locations where customer or visitor contact takes place. For example, it can be used at every PTT Autolease office and for business presentations at the customer's site. One can also imagine that direct marketing objectives are relevant when promotional disks are sent as part of a direct marketing action. The effectiveness of such promotional actions depend of course on the number of disk players in the market.

Another possibility is to use the promotional disk for internal promotion so that, for example, new PTT Autolease employees can learn about the services offered by the company with less instructional effort, however, for instruction purposes other types of information items probably need to be included, such as technical manuals, sales specific information, etc. It is probably therefore wise to handle instruction and training by separate systems and not to mix promotional material with training objectives.

The management of PTT Autolease chose for a multimedia promotion system because they assumed it would help to create an innovative image of PTT Autolease (O2) and support the general trade fair stand objectives (O1) by attracting attention and evoking enthusiasm.

3.6.3. Information processing tasks

PTT Autolease needs to be present at car and freight trade fairs to meet its promotional objectives. The MPS is part of the trade stand, where M&S people promote PTT Autolease and the services of PTT Autolease.

Visitors can look around the trade stand which includes a small photographic exhibition, and can pick up leaflets and a catalogue from PTT Autolease. They can also be obtain information about PTT Autolease and its services personally from the marketing and sales people. The visitor can ask general or specific questions, and if the more interested visitors want to keep in touch with PTT Autolease they can leave their business cards. Marketing and sales people from PTT Autolease will then take care of follow-up. Figure 21. Promotion at a trade fair.

The MPS can be used by visitors to obtain information about the services offered by PTT Autolease, without being approached by a PTT Autolease employee. This relieves both the marketing people and the customers. The services offered by PTT Autolease are:

• leasing of passenger cars;

• leasing of trucks;

• customising vehicles for security (police), delivery (carriage of goods) etc.

With regard to leasing vehicles it is necessary to explain complex lease constructions like sale-and-leaseback and car fleet management, and that a trade fair visitor goes away with an attractive visual impression of the services of PTT Autolease.

PTT Autolease has not considered the use of promotional CD-i's as hand-outs for trade fair visitors, though this idea has, for example, been used by handing out the 'Mobile telecommunication' CD-i of PTT Research after demonstration sessions. Using hand-outs takes advantage of the fact that people like to have something physical, as a memento of a presentation; as a free gift a sparkling CD has an attractive, high-tech image. A clear, current, limitation of handing out CD-i's is that most visitors will not have equipment to play the CD-i at their office or at home. This need not to be a serious limitation from a marketing point of view if the CD-i, with its printed label, is appreciated and attracts the desired attention.

The possibility of supporting, using the MPS, intake of visitor data, particularly name, address and company name and address is also not considered by PTT Autolease. Another interesting option is to use a CD-i to support the customer's service selection process. Still another interesting option for an MPS is to support order intake, although this brings us into the realm of other SSSs discussed previously.

3.6.4. System functionality

The MS and database system functionality are discussed together, this is possible because of the simplicity of the functionality of the PTT Autolease MPS. An overview is given in figure 22.

Figure 22. Functional aspects.

The main system function is:

• Presentation of lease services: the user interface of the MPS allows a trade fair visitor to access lease information from the promotion database. This lease information concerns general lease constructions, sales and leaseback, car fleet management, service stations of PTT Autolease, and the construction workshop. Lease services information is produced by advertising agencies and the marketing department and is updated directly. PTT Autolease has considered to extend new system versions of the presentation function with possibilities to manipulate objects, to drive vehicles through traffic (with the assignment to bring the vehicle home safe), etc., to improve the gaming element (attractiveness, interactive involvement) of future MPSs.  

Several extensions of system functionality can be considered on the basis of extensions of the information processing tasks, discussed in the previous section:

• Selection of lease services: visitors can select vehicles, and choose customisations. The result is animated to help the customer visualise the effects of his choices.

• Visitor data input: visitors can be asked to enter personal data, like business card data or other data that is of interest from a marketing or sales point of view.

• Remote database access: remote database access functionality will be needed to retrieve topical price information and visitor data from external databases.

• Tele-ordering: a telecommunication extension can support the ordering process, which may lead to a competitive advantage: if customers have a PTT Autolease ordering terminal within reach they will be persuaded to use it if it is easier and faster than ordering by phone.
 

3.6.5. Implementation aspects

First, general MRS implementation aspects, then, some MDBMS implementation aspects are discussed in this section.

The trade fair set-up of the MPS includes stand-alone game boxes with built in CD-i player, colour TV monitor with stereo loudspeakers, and mouse with trackerball for menu selections. The game box looks like a game machine box in an amusement arcade. Seven game boxes were used for a large car show in the RAI in Amsterdam. A joystick can replace the mouse with trackerball for quicker and more accurate cursor control. If more stable and affordable VR technology becomes available, VR elements like VR glasses (or a VR helmet) might be used as the output medium for a more vivid experience of the services offered by PTT Autolease services. Although this goes beyond the limits of current CD-i technology, speech interaction (recognition and production) would enhance the desired gaming impression.

The CD-i was designed by an advertising agency and is produced by a CD-i production studio. This production studio offered one of two European facilities to encode MPEG1 video real time (25 frames per second) on Silicon Graphics Onyx computers. The CD-i title was programmed in C and the Balboa authoring environment of OptImage Interactive Services. The low circulation (only seven CD-i's were produced) did not justify mastering the CDs, so CD-Rs were used. (The critical number for mastering was a circulation of about 25 if 1994 price lists are taken into account). The inclusion of a telecommunication function (for remote database access) would require a telephone connection, a modem, and adaptation of the CD-i title. The CD-i title controls the modem and remote database interaction, an alternative would be a PC-based MPS with a modem connection.

What information types are present in the user interface of the MPS of PTT Autolease? The CD-i Full Motion Video cartridge is used to display MPEG1 video. Video fragments are used to show such things as the PTT Autolease office, the reconstruction work shop with welders, trucks in the garage and on the road; presented together with traffic, work shop and office noises, they give a dynamic impression of the firm. Music is sometimes played in the background. Speech and long texts are used to explain the services offered by PTT Autolease. A trouble with long texts is that it takes time and patience to read them from screen (screen texts are far more difficult to read than printed paper text (see chapter 4)). Pictures are used to show the office buildings of several PTT Autolease service centres. Graphics are used to style menu buttons and the screen lay-out. The way these diverse information types are composed give a well thought outlook and makes a good impression.

Since high level computer skills can not be expected from customers at a trade fair the retrieval functionality at the user interface is kept simple: a hierarchical menu interface for retrieval by menus and selecting buttons on the screen is enough to start a presentation. An improvement of the interactivity of the MM presentation system can not only be obtained by adding interactive game elements but also by adding interactive retrieval elements. As is found with the 'Mobile Telecommunication' CD-i produced by PTT Research, the user interface can be improved by offering hyperlinking, graphical browsers and, in case of longer texts, key word search functions. A touch screen interface would be necessary for a key word search for the quick selection of characters from a graphic representation of a keyboard, as a physical keyboard is both uncommon and unnecessary for public (CD-i) systems. When adding retrieval functions one should avoid making the retrieval interface too complex, so that the trade stand visitor becomes confused when confronted with a vast number of buttons and paths of reference.

The MDBMS implementation aspects of the MPS are limited. No real MDBMS is used in a CD-i environment. A CD-i title is an integrated whole of data and program code for interaction. The CD-i RTOS (Real Time Operating System) controls the CD-i system, all retrieval facilities used are offered by the authoring environment and are programmed. The retrieval functions mentioned above that can be offered in the user interface would not really require a real MDBMS.

If, however, the lease service database needs to be updated often, the size of the title exceeds 650 MB, or more advanced retrieval facilities need to be offered it becomes necessary to reconsider the CD-i platform in favour of a PC platform, this would allow the implementation of an MDBMS and updating of databases.

Standard DBMS aspects become relevant when remote databases are accessed. The remote price or visitor database can be located on a server, and includes standard DBMS facilities like a relational DMF, a database language SQL, and an import facility for order records send by a Tele-CD-i.

3.6.6. Discussion

A striking strength of the MPS for the Freight Trade Fair is that it evoked the enthusiasm of the management, PR, marketing and sales staff of PTT Autolease and of visitors to the trade fair. The award for the most appealing stand at the Freight Trade Fair in Rotterdam, although not completely contributable to the CD-i, reinforced the idea that PTT Autolease had made a good decision in investing in an MPS. These are positive indications for the viability of the MPS, and this reinforces PTT Autolease to proceed further with this type of promotion. However, a structured evaluation of visitor responses was not performed, so quantitative data about the effectiveness of such an MPS is not available.

It is interesting to note that the publicity campaign seems to have been effective (although the increase in sales volume was somewhat disappointing); however, on the basis of available data, it is not possible to isolate the CD-i variable in relation to increased sales volume and the name of PTT Autolease.

The PTT Autolease management sees as a success factors for their CD-i project:

• the choice of MM: at present it is new and innovative, you can score with it;

• the help yourself aspects: no sales person is breathing down a trade visitor's neck;

• the interactivity and gaming outlook: people are more attracted and involved then when using conventional company videos and leaflets.

A critical note was sounded in that the visitors were somewhat disappointed with regard to the interactive gaming elements since it was just a point of information with no real gaming possibilities. The business objectives are probably met better if the interactive gaming elements are improved.

Bottlenecks found during system development are:

• time pressure, resulting in a less well thought-out CD-i title than actually possible;

• lack of IT expertise at PTT Autolease and no access to independent expertise;

• no direct communication with the producer since the advertising agency acted as an intermediary, resulting in some loss of control of the development process;

• dissatisfaction with the price performance ratio;

• lack of stability in Full Motion Video technology at that time.

A further criticism in relation to lack of IT expertise, is that often no clear argumentation is given why certain tasks are, or are not, supported by the MPS. It seems as if the implementation limitations of the CD-i platform controlled the definition of system functionality.

In conclusion, with a small firm like PTT Autolease, the authoring of CD-i or Tele-CD-i titles can not be performed in-house, as the production volume is too small to justify investing in a CD-i authoring system (which costs about HFL 100,000.-); however, a large organisation like KPN, or its subsidiary PTT Telecom, is able to extend its audio-visual production or automation centres with a CD-i and/or CD-ROM authoring task.

3.7. Multimedia Assisted Instruction (MAI)

3.7.1. Introduction

MM or Multimedia Assisted Instruction (MAI) is one of the most active application fields for MM, this is not only the case in university settings, in which instruction is a primary process, but also in industry. A MAI system is multimedia courseware, supporting an individual or group learning process relatively independently of teaching location and teaching time, in which an interactive element and media richness are used to improve the learning effect. The most often heard arguments for MAI (it is used here interchangeably with Hypermedia Aided Instruction) in comparison to conventional courses are (see also chapter 4):

• higher learning effectiveness: better retention and better understanding;

• higher learning efficiency: steeper learning curve (less instruction time), and self training or training on the job (fewer instructors, less travel);

• higher productivity: the number of trainees per instructor or course is increased;

• meaningfulness: it is more fun and helps to create the impression of an innovative firm, it has a PR value.

The following descriptions of the M&S business objectives and information processing tasks, MRS functions and MRS implementation aspects are based on contacts with the TSA project (Tele Sales Assistant project, see section 3.4.), experiences within the PROMISE project, and examples from literature.

3.7.2. Business objectives

Several cases are described simultaneously because of their similarity, namely TSA training, the Agfa disk case and the Interactive Service Handbook case.

For TSA training the main business objective is:

• to reduce the waiting time for telesales training (O1) by increasing training productivity , and thus increase the level of product and service knowledge of the telesales people.

Since the turn over of telesales people at telesales centres is high and call pressure is also high, it is important to profit from telesales people from the beginning. There are about 1000 telesales people, with a mean waiting time for a training of about 2 months. Since extending training capacity by hiring more instructors is expensive, an MM training module was designed which offers self-help training on the job.

The second case is that of the Agfa disk. Agfa is an important producer of film and photographic equipment for both the amateur and the professional. The medical division of Agfa had, in 1991, a 20% share (4 billion dollars) of the total revenues of Agfa. The main products for the medical world market are X-ray film and professional medical cameras for radiology departments.

The business objectives for developing a MAI are for Agfa (Kustermans, 1991):

• to reduce training costs (efficiency) (O2): Agfa expects to reduce the number of return flights to Antwerp and Munich, where the international training centres are, by 70% and expects to reduce the duration of training by 30%;

• to increase the training effectiveness (O3);

• to offer sales support to customers in the form of a self help system for acute problems (O4).

The advantage of adding sales support as an objective is that the same MM product can be reused for another purpose without much additional costs.

The expected savings on travel costs are about 1 million HFL per year, those from reducing course duration about HFL 0.5 million a year. These projected yearly savings surpass the initial development costs of a CD-i by at least a factor 10!

The BU NWB (network company) is responsible for the management of network services within PTT Telecom. The functions of these services is often little understood by marketing and sales staff within PTT Telecom. Therefore the idea was launched by PTT Research and NWB

• to improve internal knowledge of network services (O5) using Interactive Service Handbooks.

An interactive service handbook contains information which is already available, but not in an accessible way. Currently, service information is available in paper handbooks which are hard to digest.

Interactive Service Handbooks can be seen as a MAI application and the estimated costs for producing such a MAI application are HFL 80,000.-.

Another objective of MAI can be to improve support by ISs like the TSA system discussed before. This can be in the form of intelligent tutor or help agents as part of the IS they use, which give immediately help when a user is in trouble.

MAI is interesting for NWB as it is assumed that a MAI will be effective in meeting objectives discussed above. This assumption is based on the effectiveness of MAI in assisting the learning process, as discussed in the foregoing section.

3.7.3. Information processing tasks

The courseware for the TSA training system is produced by teachers, and it is used by novice telesales people, individually or in small groups. This MAI system includes exercises with regard to the products and services offered by PTT Telecom to the consumer market, for example, wireless telephones, answering machines, etc. The TSA training system is intended both to teach novice telesales personnel how to use the TSA system, and to improve product and service knowledge.

In the Agfa case, the medical division is supported by a staff of 700 commercial marketers and about 600 maintenance technicians. Training is organised in the headquarters of Agfa in Antwerp in Belgium and in Munich in Germany. In the old situation, 600 flights per year were made to Munich or Antwerp to teach small groups of technicians how to install, maintain and repair medical cameras, having the size of washing machines, in 1 to 3 weeks.

A CD-i disk was developed for Agfa which is distributed to all Agfa establishments throughout the world, making it possible to train technicians on the job. The CD-i is also used by commercial sales people, and is given to customers as a handbook to accompany their medical camera. The advantage of using pictures is that it helps to show very clearly how the cameras operate and how to repair the cameras.

PTT Research has proposed a MAI system in the form of Interactive Service Handbooks that can be used by different types of marketing and sales personnel: marketers, account managers, personal sales staff and technical sales staff. It is important for marketing staff to be given ideas on how to promote and position the services presented in the market, while for business and consumer market sales staff it is important to learn what the functions of products and services are and to communicate this information to their customers.

  Figure 23. Self-help training support by MAI.

In more general terms, MAI systems can be used to train customers, maintenance technicians and sales personnel in understanding the use and maintenance of products and services offered by a company. A teacher can give feedback on test answers and trainee questions, and a teacher is involved in the production of a specific training course, though this is actually produced in an authoring centre. Such an authoring centre also takes care of the actual updating of MAI systems.

The training function of a MAI system for M&S can be extended by including training material about customer interaction (especially relevant in the case of the TSA system) and by including relevant information about marketing actions for sales people. This is probably necessary if a more complete course is to be offered to M&S target groups. The product and services information can be kept topical by offering on-line access to corporate assortment databases.

3.7.4. System functionality

This section gives a general description of the functions of the MAI system. General MAI system functionality (an overview is given in figure 24 below) is discussed first, followed a discussion of MAI database system functions.

The main system functions are in general terms:

• Consultation: The MAI (user) interface offers trainees the possibility to retrieve and consult interactive MM material on the subject matter. The MAI interface retrieves subject matter information from the MAI database system. The information is presented in a structured way. All three systems, the TSA training system, the Agfa disk and the Interactive Service Handbook include a consultation function.

• Testing: The MAI interface can include a test or examination function. The test function retrieves test questions from the MAI database system, presents them to the trainee who then responds. The trainee's responses are stored in the MAI database system. The test function gives feedback to the trainee about his or her test results. The TSA training system contains a test module. A test module is planned for the Interactive Service Handbook.

• Analysis of test results: the teacher is supported in the analysis of trainee test results. The analysis function retrieves the test results of trainees from the MAI database system, computes their test scores, and presents them graphically to the teacher.

 

Figure 24. Functional elements of a MAI system.  

In experimental MAI projects, functionality for MM teleconferencing (Crowfort et al., 1991), and computer supported co-operative work based on broadband (Kindt et al., 1991; Pehrson et al., 1992) is sometimes included. On the basis of these developments we can anticipate several extensions to system functionality:

• Teacher consultation: the MAI interface might offer functionality for real time or delayed consultation of a teacher.

• Study group co-operation: the MAI interface might offer functionality for real time or delayed communication and co-operation with other trainees. Trainees would be able to study together and work collectively on tests.

3.7.5. Implementation aspects

The MRS implementation aspects for the three MAI systems are discussed in this section. First, general MRS implementation aspects are discussed, then MDBMS implementation aspects.

The MAI interfaces of the Agfa disk and TSA training system offer retrieval by menus and hyperlinking using selecting buttons on the screen. The MAI interface of the Interactive Service Handbook includes graphical browsing of an overview of related items, key word searches and a possibility to search full text using technical specifications.

The TSA training system uses the same information types as the TSA system: text descriptions of products and services and pictures of products. An experimental stage video is used in addition to pictures and the other standard information types included in the TSA system. The TSA training system is a module of the TSA system. This module is controlled by keyboard and mouse, and uses PC S-VGA screens for display. The teachers in the editing environment need, in addition to the TSA system editing tools, tools to capture, code, and edit video data in AVI format. The update process uses similar transmission media to the TSA system.

Information on the Agfa disk on CD-i is structured in the same way as a conventional manual with chapters. Pictures are used to present the medical cameras, these can be manipulated by the trainee: power can be switched on or off, and camera pieces can be removed to view the interior of the camera. The trainee can zoom in on components. Sound is used to give an impression of the camera in operation. Sound and pictures are also used to simulate operational problems. Text explanations are used for example, to help the trainee to solve operational problems. Graphics are used to depict icons (e.g., a hand holding a spanner to start the chapter customer support), and screen lay-out.

In the case of the Interactive Service Handbook video is used to present real life usage situations. Animations and graphics are used to present complex and abstract services in an understandable way. Pictures of equipment can be presented and buttons and levers on the pieces of equipment can be manipulated to show how services operate. The handbook contains the text of available handbooks.

More advanced MAI systems include the implementation of some extensions.

• Teacher consultation and study group co-operation can be supported by MM mail and by a desktop videoconferencing system.

• for technical sales training especially (as is the case with the Interactive Service Handbook and the Agfa disk) VR elements can help to improve the reality value of interactions with simulations of equipment. VR elements will make it completely unnecessary to use real medical cameras or other equipment for training in maintenance or operation skills, as the 3D visual, auditive and haptic experience obtained using the VR application is similar to reality. Although VR is possible today, it will take some time before VR systems are cost-effective for training of M&S people.

• Today, telecommunication extensions for access to topical assortment databases require ISDN (or PSTN) connections, and ISDN30 (2 Mbit/s) if real time MM data is transmitted.

• To identify trainees and store their results chip cards, diskettes or hard disks can be used. Currently, chip cards have a limited storage capacity, but this storage capacity is increasing rapidly.

The authoring centre needs to be equipped with tools for MM information processing and MAI authoring. With the development of the editor function the authoring environment will evolve. The more different information types are used, the more different tools for capturing, coding and editing are necessary. These tools need to be offered in a simple integrated environment which also allows for teachers, often not the most IT minded people, to edit their material. For remote editing and/or updating of MAI applications a public network connection is necessary.

When coding equipment improves MPEG1 and MPEG1 successors can be used to produce full motion video and CD quality audio.

The MDBMS implementation aspects of the Agfa disk on CD-i are limited because of the platform chosen. The TSA training system is implemented in a PC environment and uses the search and presentation facility of the Microsoft Access DBMS under MS-Windows. If the TSA training system is used in connection to ORACLE databases, Interactive Service Handbook and other MAI courseware within PTT Telecom, will profit from topical central assortment information. The exchange facility and update facility of an MDBMS will then be needed. The MM data of the TSA training system is currently stored in directories and not in Access database files. In the Interactive Service Handbook the external models describing the presentation aspects of MM objects, and the MM objects itself can be stored in MM databases. The MDBMS selected needs to be able to support at least the storage and retrieval of BLOB data type. The search facility of the MDBMS selected should use an extended SQL database language that supports the consultation function of the MAI interface, for example, in the form of Query By Example screens.

3.7.6. Discussion

MAI systems are clearly technically feasible and seem viable, particularly when we look at the Agfa disk and TSA training system. The greater the reduction in training costs (travel, lost working time) the more viable a MAI system is. The value added of MR for MAI systems is based on more effective learning and quicker disclosure of relevant knowledge.

As is the case with most MAI courseware, the three MM self help training on the job applications described are or will be used single user or even stand alone (Agfa disk). The advantage of PC based MAI is the ease by which material can be updated on-line on a regular basis and MAI functions can be integrated with other applications. This makes it possible to migrate towards on-line help software offering intelligent assistance to sales people using SSSs. This advantage is not available in the case of CD-i based MAI, however, a CD-i can be distributed easily by mail or distributed with goods (e.g., a medical camera) or handed out personally to customers. Moreover a CD-i can be played on standard and cheap equipment, in contrast to PC based MAI systems.

In the Agfa and TSA courseware cases, little use is made of retrieval facilities, as little knowledge was available about the advantages and disadvantages of retrieval facilities for certain applications. The Agfa disk is one of the earlier CD-i and MM applications, and therefore incomplete use is made of the audio-visual and interactive possibilities of the medium. An especial strength of the Agfa case is that the benefits are estimated quantitatively and resulted in an acceptable Return On Investment; as yet a post-measurement is not available. This phenomenon that the effectiveness of an MR application for M&S is not measured has been reported before, and seems symptomatic of MM applications in general.

© 1995-2002 Martijn Hoogeveen