RE: Poll suggestion...

["Daniel James" <groups@xxxxxxx>]

I take it I can't enter the competition :-)

Daniel

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Harrison [mailto:Mark.Harrison@xxxxxxx]
Sent: 02 January 2003 21:25
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [ukha_d] Poll suggestion...


A surprising number of UKHA_Ders have connections with a lot of the
people involved :-)

To answer the "are they run as one company", it depends how you
count
:-)

In operational / management terms, MVC/Streets Direct Channels is run
as
one business, MVC Stores is run as a separate business. (See below.)

In terms of marketing, MVC.co.uk is pitched as if it ran with the
stores, wheras Streets is pitched as if it were a pureplay.


Now the detail :-)

In August 2001, MVC asked Streets, who had been recently acquired by
eKingfisher, to launch a fifth "skin" on their website branded
as
mvc.co.uk. This was in addition to the dvdstreet, alphabetstreet,
audiostreet and gamesstreet skins that already existed. videostreet was
launched later as eCommerce developed beyond the "early adopters"
stage
- the first generation of people willing to buy on the web were pretty
similar to the first generation to buy DVD players :-)

In October 2001, woolworths.co.uk moved off the ATG platform, and
became
the "sixth skin" on the Streets site. At the time, the Streets
site was
based primarily on PHP. 

(Now - for bonus points - which two members of UKHA_D were the original
chief architect for the PHP sites, and the budget-manager for the
migration project!)

MVC and Streets were, however, run as separate businesses until early
2002, when MVC and Streets merged into a single company with a single
operating board. This ran Stores and Direct Channels as separate
reporting lines.

Since then, woolworths.co.uk has been rolled into the MVC/Streets
business (so doesn't, in fact, report to the Woolworths Operating
Company board). Obviously, MVC/Streets and Woolworths (the operating
company) are both owned by Woolworths Holdings plc, so both still
report
into Gerald Corbett (he of former Railtrack fame.)

Finally, in April 2002, the site moved OFF the old Streets PHP platform
onto ATG5, and out of UK5 into the machine room at EUK (the wholesale
arm of the Woolworths Group.)

(For double bonus points, the network team of EUK comprises of George
Quaquah, Bharat Nayee, and Alan Asante - which Engineering company did
they work at together previously, which two members of UKHA_D worked
with them at the time, and which member of UKHA_D works for a company
that was recently acquired by them?)

Regards,

Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: roaming@xxxxxxx [mailto:roaming@xxxxxxx] 
Sent: 2 January 2003 15:32
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [ukha_d] Poll suggestion...


Quoting Mark Harrison <Mark.Harrison@xxxxxxx>:
> >> Dvdstreet.co.uk is a High Street Shop's web brand...
> >>
> >> It's MVC's.
> 
> > but http://www.mvc.co.uk/
<http://www.mvc.co.uk/>  is
too!
> 
> and
> 
> www.audiostreet.co.uk
> www.gamesstreet.co.uk
> www.videostreet.co.uk
> 
> > Are these considered the same thing?

I knew all the streets were the same company, what I meant is would
they
be 
considered the "online version" of a highstreet store, given
that
mvc.co.uk is 
the online version of mvc.

I bank with cahoot.
cahoot is an online bank run by abbeynational abbenynational.co.uk is
the online version of abbeynational the high street 
bank - ie, cahoot "just happens" to be owned by abbey, it is not
the
online 
version of the bank.
Ditto, I would have thought, mvc is online mvc shops, and dvdstreet
"just 
happens" to be owned by them, but they are separate
businesses.....

T.