Somar International
Based in Truro, Somar International has been trading for over 12 years and operates in 73 countries worldwide, including the USA, Australia, Africa and Europe.
Somar International is an award winning company that provides innovative energy saving solutions to commerce and industry.
Kate Farrell, Operations Manager, says “Broadband has completely transformed our business. Before broadband, communication could be difficult as so many of our distributors do not have English as a first language. Broadband has improved our communications 100%. The speed of broadband has made a fantastic difference. We also spend a lot of time researching on the net and that is so much easier to do now.”
actnow provided financial assistance to Somar to develop a new website that is well optimised for internet search engines.
“Now 60% of our business comes through the website, www.somars.com. Previously our website simply did not perform well on the search engines. Now we are right up there near the top. We use the website specifically to attract new distributors and with its current level of sophistication, we use the website to carry out all the front end of the business. Prospective distributors are directed to an extranet site, powerboss.net, where there is an Initial Strategy Document for a prospective distributor to complete. This means that the website acts as a filter for us. We now get better quality applicants as it weeds out those who are not really serious, saving us a lot of time and making the whole process more efficient.
Somar have also made use of broadband to instigate an eLearning.system.
“Because all our distributors are scattered across the globe, providing training can be problematic so we made a decision to deliver training online. This would also save us time, be more cost effective and is environmentally friendly.
“We created our own bespoke online training programme, using a local supplier. The first phase, the Technical Entrance Examination, went live just before the end of 2006 and has already proved very popular with the technicians taking it and the Technical Team here at Somar. Phase Two, being the delivery of Technical and Commercial Training, will go live in Autumn with further modules added on as we introduce new products.”
Kate sums up “Broadband is at the heart of our global business. It has been absolutely vital to us in building the business over the last four years and is central to our vision for the future.”
