Case Study: Sew What?

Sew What? Is a business focused on custom drapery manufacturing and design. Founded in 1992 by Megan Duckett, the company has really grown over the years. Their focus is on excellent customer service and keeping their customers coming back. The business itself started out small as a part time venture for Duckett in her home. Over the years though, Duckett has grown her business into a multimillion-dollar enterprise with more than thirty-five employees. She contributes the success and growth of her business to hard work and the use of technology. Duckett started using the internet to advertise and draw in more business. This essentially gave her a global customer base as customers could make purchases online from anywhere in the world. Her
Her website even accommodates different languages and spellings so that searching for the right product is easy. This did not happen without growing pains as Duckett missed out on a large contract and saw growth decrease in the early 2000’s. This was the catalyst that changed her thinking and drove her to create and build her own website. The site has changed over the years but she is still drawing in business and allowing her to reach $4 million dollars in sales by the year-end of 2006. This is a huge accomplishment for Sew What? and for Duckett. To show how much of a feat this was to grow her business using technology, she was awarded The Dell/NFIB Small Business Excellence Award. This award is given annually to a small business that demonstrates innovation in the use of technology to care for its customers. In addition, Sew What? and Duckett were also awarded a Stevie Award for Women in Business for being an innovative company of the year as well as an award for small and medium sized businesses in PC Magazine (O’Brien,
It is in our daily lives more than we even realize each day and at each place we visit. I live in a small town that has a lot of small businesses. I have seen these businesses grown and some even fail over the years. One thing that most of the successful businesses have in common is their use of technology. I will use Chapman’s Flowers and Greenhouses for example. This small business has been in operation for over 30 years and continues to grow today (Chapmans, n.d.). I know the owner as I went to school with her children and they were our neighbors growing up. As an adult, I shop at her store for gifts, party favors and flower arrangements. The shop has really changed over the years from the way they stock the store to the items they sale. The biggest change has been on their online presence. They just recently, about two years ago, created a website that allows you to shop online. This allows them to reach customers all over the world. There are a few things they could do using information technology that would help them in their everyday business. They have many phone orders in our small town since they are a florist. Each order is answered in person and hand written on a receipt book. Using some type of phone system to help weed through general questions about hours of operation and actual orders that need to be taken in person would be a benefit and save time. They could also use some type of management system that keeps up