Fnac: CSC Helps French Retailer Reinvent Music Downloads

Fnac is a subsidiary of Pinault-Printemps-Redoute group, a brand leader in the sales of cultural and leisure goods such as books, CDs, TVs and travel in France. It has 108 stores, 65 in France and 43 abroad.

CSC validated Fnac's approach, then became project contractor and provided program management for fnacmusic, all in a nine-month period. The new music distribution platform launched successfully in September 2004, and version 2.0 of fnacmusic was successfully deployed at the end of that year.

"Fnac has been selling 'physical' music in its stores for the past 35 years and on the Internet for the past five," says François Momboisse, the fnacmusic project director. "As a new way of buying music is emerging, we want not only to be present, but ultimately to be leaders in this business." Although the site stands on its own, it is an extension of Fnac.com, the huge virtual retail store. Thanks to Fnac's collaboration with CSC, Web surfers can now select, buy and download music with great listening quality simply and legally.

Fnac first began considering the new market and the possible services it could offer in May 2003. "We have been offering music downloading services for some time now via the DigiFnac option on the Fnac.com site," says Alexander Blaizot, project director for the Fnac strategy department. "But we were working with software that was not our own and hence over which we didn't have complete control." CSC was called in to ensure the viability of the new strategy. CSC worked with Fnac to assess whether launching a site for downloading "virtual" music would be profitable and to define the project's functional needs, the necessary technical partners and the support needed to store the music. Fnac took charge of the technical aspects and the first negotiations with both major and independent music rights holders.

A spirit of partnership

"The task was a rather difficult one since all possibilities had to be considered: how to integrate music files directly from the music distributors or how to digitalize these files ourselves, how to develop a system of identification for each unit of music, how to create 30-second listening files and how to produce digitalized jackets that would go with the music files," recalls Blaizot. The first draft of the detailed requirements was finalized at the end of 2003, which coincided with the first layout of the site on paper, carried out by the CSC team. Five other service providers were queried at this time, and in January 2004, Fnac chose CSC to take on the site project.

"We already had operational teams set up," states Habib Achkar, delivery assurance director for CSC West Europe and Fnac's account manager. "We knew what the project was all about and had the necessary know-how, having already worked on the digitalization of music files for an 'intelligent car' experiment. We were also familiar with Fnac's business, having already worked with them. We had also clearly identified the security dimension for such a project."

CSC met Fnac demands, especially those having to do with deadlines—the site was to be working in an experimental manner in July 2004, with the official launch two months later. "We are offering Fnac a long-term working relationship, which exceeds simply carrying out the project and comes closer to a real partnership," continues Jean-Louis Gross, CSC West Europe's vice president. "This includes a technological watch service in order to keep abreast of the market, enhancing the fnacmusic tool when need be."

Sharable technology

CSC dedicated a 15-member team to developing and implementing this project at Fnac Direct, the part of Fnac that oversees Fnac.com. The technical platform for catalog management and customer relations is built around Microsoft Commerce Server. "It was more efficient to start with an integrated and compact solution for this type of project, even though we had to develop many features ourselves using Visual Studio for catalog management," explains Achkar. Fnac was already a Microsoft client. "This choice enabled Fnac to be in phase with the expected developments on the Fnac.com site, and allowed shared use of the technologies and services within the group. The call center and the 30-second listening service will be used by both fnacmusic and Fnac.com," Blaizot adds.

One of the critical points for the success of this project was the initialization of the music information flow as well as standardization of the metadata that accompanied it, including author, title, album, genre, record label and play list. This categorization was essential for Fnac to set up the marketing necessary for music sales, which would be coordinated with the more traditional music promotions in Fnac stores.

Quality of service makes the difference

The fnacmusic site was launched as planned, making available more than 300,000 pieces of music to its visitors. "The real difference is the quality of service offered to the Web surfer: The Fnac platform supports the load much better than the platforms of its competitors," Blaizot says. From the very beginning, the vast choice of music available at Fnac along with the store employees' knack for guiding customers has made the record outlet stand out. The editorial content of fnacmusic reflects Fnac's offline image. This dedication to quality is also visible in the choice of the file format: Microsoft WMA. "It is the most widely spread digital rights management format on the market and the one most commonly installed on PCs," Blaizot explains. The service offered by fnacmusic to Web surfers is extensive; beyond the 30-second listening samples, the site can advise the visitor in accordance with the playing device he or she uses.

"There was a very strong synergy between CSC and Fnac," says Blaizot. "We really worked together like a team, and that is what enabled us to foresee and smooth out problems."

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