Retail Customer Ebook

Smart Work in Retail Customer Stories


Smart Work for a Smarter Planet
The world has become highly instrumented, interconnected and intelligent: from our food
and water, to our energy, homes and transportation, to our cities and governments and, of
course, our businesses and places of work.
The workplace may be smarter, but it is also more challenging because of increasingly
rapid and unpredictable change. Everything from swings in markets, to increasing global
competition to new consumer expectations and more are changing at a furious pace.
To keep up, we work harder. But to win, we must work smarter.
Smart work embraces, even takes advantage of, change by creating a more agile,
collaborative and connected business environment. It can make your business more
profitable and productive. While it makes the world a better place to live and work.
Some organizations are showing the way. In this book, youll see how our customers
from around the world, in the retail industry, are connecting people and processes to:
Optimize business performance
Use technology to meet business needs quickly
Maximize people's effectiveness working together
To learn more about Smart Work, visit ibm.com/smartwork. Additional case studies are
available at ibm.com/smartwork/success. We would love to have your organization as a
client reference. To become an IBM client reference, visit ibm.com/ibm/clientreference.

Table of Contents

i
I-800-FLOWERS.COM, United States.....................................................................................7
1-800-FLOWERS.COM, INC needed to replace multiple, diverse, siloed e-commerce systems
with a unified technology platform.

Bazaar Voice, United States.....................................................................................................11
Bazaarvoice needed a vehicle to help its own software solution to increase online sales and
create innovative tools to facilitate online commerce.

Gewandhaus Gr uber , Ger many ..............................................................................................13
Gewandhaus Gruber wanted to better understand and reward its existing customers, while
attracting new ones. It sought a cutting-edge loyalty offering that would help it increase revenue
and differentiate itself from its competitors.

Har tman Rauta Oy, Finland....................................................................................................15
The company wanted to take advantage of a number of new updates and improvements available
in the latest version of Lotus Notes software, including new features that would improve mobile
data security. In addition, Hartman wanted to implement a virtual group working environment to
support improved communication and collaboration.

Hess, United States....................................................................................................................17
Hess Corporation needed a new inventory solution that would automate processes and keep data
up to date.

Isuzu Austr alia, Limited, Austr alia.........................................................................................19
Isuzu Australia Limited needed a solution to improve the speed and accuracy of communications
between head office and the dealerships as well as facilitate increased collaboration with
business partners.

Major Retailer , United States ..................................................................................................23
Major Retailer wanted to determine whether its hybrid inventory strategy with some stock
keeping units (SKUs) was appropriate for its business.

Max Bahr , Ger many.................................................................................................................25
Max Bahr wanted to meet its customer demand for any of 40,000 products in over 80 outlets with
low replenishment and storage costs.

METRO Gr oup, Ger many.......................................................................................................27
METRO Groups retail store meat tracking system was entirely manual, a time-consuming and
error-prone process. METRO Group needed to gain a better grasp of the inventory management
of its meat products, while working to improve customer food safety.

Moosejaw, United States ..........................................................................................................29
To thrive in the highly competitive market for outdoor adventure gear, Moosejaw
Mountaineering needed to create a customer experience that would engage a customer
community whose appetite for extreme sports is matched by a hunger for communication and
collaboration.

Table of Contents

ii
Sear s Canada, Canada..............................................................................................................33
Sears Canada wanted to deliver on business objectives and reduce development cost through
code reuse to eliminate coding and recoding of the same integration, and speed the exchange of
information with business partners to improve business agility to be competitive in todays
economy.

South Amer ican Retailer , Br azil .............................................................................................37
South American Retailer needed to enable an enterprise-wide sales information portal with
dramatically improving productivity and information access while eliminating millions of printed
pages annually.

Spotlight Pr opr ietar y Gr oup, Austr alia .................................................................................39
Spotlight Proprietary Group wanted to have a strong and flexible IT Infrastructure with
sufficient strategic dimension or vision.

Yansha, China ...........................................................................................................................55
Yansha needed to increase its competitiveness against both local retailers and new foreign
competitors in an increasingly deregulated Chinese retail industry through the adoption of new
business processes, automation and business intelligence.

Building a Smarter Planet
1-800-FLOWERS.COM: Creating an
e-commerce platform for the future
Overview
Business Challenge
To better enable synergies
between its 14 gifting brands,
create greater business agility,
and reach its goal of becoming
one of the Top 10 among
Internet Retailer Top 500 com-
panies, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM,
INC. needed to replace multi-
ple, diverse, siloed e-commerce
systems with a unied technol-
ogy platform.
Solution
1-800-FLOWERS.COM teamed
with IBM to implement
IBM WebSphere Commerce
for two of its gift food brands as
an initial proof of concept
for the platform. The site,
thepopcornfactory.com has
seen a consistent rise in conver-
sion since its November launch.
Using knowledge gained from
this rst rollout, the company
will take a greater role in transi-
tioning most of its other brands
to the new platform over the
coming year.
Key Benets
Enables more rapid creation
and deployment of retail
Web sites
Facilitates cross-selling
between brands
1-800-FLOWERS.COM, INC. is the
worlds largest orist and gift shop, with
revenues approaching US$1 billion. The
company is marked by its large-scale
vision and forward thinking, positioning
itself at the leading edge of trends with
innovative marketing such as green
initiatives that reward responsible con-
sumer behavior. For example, its
BloomNet brand will, in exchange for
a customer forgoing a BloomNet Florist
paper directory, plant trees as part of a
reforestation campaign. It is also intro-
ducing environmental responsibility as a
theme across all of its businesses, with
awareness campaigns on social net-
working Web sites.
The company has a thorough under-
standing of the gifting market space in
which it operates, and sees great
potential for synergy by offering multiple
The platform will
enable the individual
brands to do things
they would never
have been able to
cost-justify before. Its
going to give us
unprecedented agility.
Steve Bozzo, CIO,
1-800-FLOWERS.COM
Page 7 of 60
Making the most of brand synergy through shared technology
specialty brands. The 1-800-FLOWERS.COM strategy has been to grow three
ways: organic growth, internal business development and strategic acquisitions.
Today, it has 14 brands that sell everything from popcorn to gift baskets to gour-
met food and childrens gifts.
The strategy has given 1-800-FLOWERS.COM a broad and diverse portfolio, but it
also created a business challenge. To fully realize the benets of its multibrand
strategy, they must be unied behind the scenes, but as is usually the case, each
new acquisition brought with it a different set of business processes and technol-
ogy, resulting in a large number of siloed operations that were difficult to integrate.
To promote brand synergy, the company has undertaken Fresh Digital, an
enterprise-wide transformation initiative. Unifying lines of business is a better
approach to retail, says Steve Bozzo, CIO at 1-800-FLOWERS.COM. By sharing
resources, systems and services, we accomplish a number of things. We become
a more dynamic and agile enterprise because were breaking down internal
barrierswhich will also help us develop new business intelligence. Well be able to
leverage resources and services of all kinds across the brands, from information to
IT to shipping to warehousing, which will let us work smarter. And by consolidating,
sharing and implementing more efficient technologies as well as implementing
measures like sustainable packaging and reducing our reliance on paper catalogs,
well be able to reduce our environmental footprint, which puts credibility behind
our green marketing efforts.
Build versus buy
The rst step on the consolidation path was to give the individual brands a com-
mon e-commerce platform. The 1-800-FLOWERS.COM brand itself uses a robust
e-commerce system that was developed entirely in-house and which continues to
serve the company very well, with a demonstrated ability to handle even the heavi-
est holiday volumes. It became clear, however, that using this platform to support
all of the other brands was not the best use of the companys resources. Rolling
out the 1-800-FLOWERS.COM platform to its other brands would require replicat-
ing it over and over and it was simply not the most efficient way forward.
Were very happy with our core platform. Its performance proves we have the abil-
ity to create really strong e-commerce solutions, but fundamentally were not a
software companywere a gifting company, says Steve Bozzo. It made more
sense for us to nd a best-of-breed e-commerce platform and work with it as
Tearing the walls
down will enable us to
go to market much
more effectively. Well
have a lot more shared
information, and that
will allow us to cross-
sell much better.
Steve Bozzo
Business Benets
Enables more rapid creation and

deployment of retail Web sites,
allowing 1-800-FLOWERS.COM to try
out new offerings with very little
investment and risk
Facilitates cross-selling between

brands by unifying the underlying
technology
Provides the potential for information

sharing across business units, opening
up the possibility for more effective
marketing to customers
Ensures a consistent look and feel

across the company
Provides a rich, differentiated customer

experience
Reduces maintenance and

development costs
Page 8 of 60
opposed to spending a lot of time and energy creating our own. Also, by going
with an industry leader, were leveraging its research and development dollars
instead of using ours to reinvent the wheel as well as reducing the size and envi-
ronmental impact of our infrastructure.
The company chose IBM WebSphere Commerce, in part because of the exible
and efficient way in which it functions behind the scenes. With WebSphere
Commerce, basically youve got a single Web site that handles all of the transac-
tions, says Bozzo. This central engine supports as many customer-facing Web
stores as you like, and its easy to add new ones or roll out new features across
brands.
The platform, running on IBM Power Systems hardware, also has to integrate
seamlessly with the companys existing systems. The 1-800-FLOWERS.COM
platform will remain in place, and most of the other brands will be migrated to the
new WebSphere Commerce-based system over the coming year. In the interim,
everything needs to continue functioning transparently. To accomplish this, the
service-oriented architecture solution includes IBM WebSphere Message Broker
and IBM WebSphere MQ, which form an enterprise service bus that ties the legacy
systems together.
The initial rollout supports two of the companys gift food brands, and took a total
of only seven months with the help of IBM Global Business Services. We went
from Web 0.5 to Web 2.0 in only a few months; we could not have done that with-
out IBM, Bozzo says. Knowledge transfer and lessons learned during the initial
rollout will help 1-800-FLOWERS.COM to take a greater role in launching the
remaining gift food brands. In this way, the company will be well prepared to launch
future brand storefronts entirely on its own.
IBM was chosen mostly because of the capabilities of WebSphere Commerce and
the expertise of IBM Global Business Services, but Bozzo emphasizes another
important consideration: IBM Global Financing. Because of the uncertainty were
seeing in the macro economy these days, making it easier to make the investment
was a key decision driver for us. IBM was able to give us what we needed in that
area.
Smarter Solutions for Retail
To realize its vision of synergy among its
14 brands and meet ambitious growth
goals, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, INC.the
worlds largest orist and gift shopis
deploying a single e-commerce platform.
The solution, based on IBM WebSphere
Commerce, is designed to replace
multiple siloed systems. The new
platform adds exibility and agility,
making it signicantly easier to launch
new Web commerce brandsallowing
the company to try new business
strategies with little risk. In addition,
the shared platform facilitates cross-
selling and information sharing
across the enterprise, which helps
1-800-FLOWERS.COM gain maximum
benet from its many business units.
Solution Components
Software
IBM WebSphere Commerce
IBM WebSphere Message Broker
IBM WebSphere MQ
Hardware
IBM Power Systems

Services
IBM Global Business Services
IBM Global Financing

Page 9 of 60
Supporting a visionary business strategy
The ultimate goal of the companys overall Fresh Digital initiative is to eliminate all
of the barriers between business units, enabling the full sharing and leveraging of
information across the entire enterprise and throughout its back-end systems.
Over the long term, our customers will be able shop any of our brands, and well
be able to ship from a unied location. Thats a much more streamlined, efficient
and smarter model, Bozzo says.
The implementation of WebSphere Commerce is a critical rst stepthe benets of
shared services that it offers will trickle down throughout the organization over time
and enable new ways of going to market. Tearing the walls down will enable us to
go to market more effectively. Well have a lot more shared information about buy-
ing patterns and customer proles and that will allow us to cross-sell much better,
says Bozzo. Also, well be able to try new ideas with little risk. With the new
platform, we can launch an entirely new brand fairly easily, because all of the
e-commerce technology is already there.
The most signicant impact of the platform, however, will be in the competitiveness
it brings to 1-800-FLOWERS.COM by allowing the company to leverage best prac-
tices across the entire business. The platform will enable the individual brands to
do things they would never have been able to cost-justify before, Bozzo says. Its
going to give us unprecedented agility. Well be able to re-merchandise our Web
stores on the y in response to competitive offers. That will make us much more
relevant to the customer, which is critical. Customer expectations continue to
ratchet up, and this new platform is positioning us to meet them going forward.
Well have an immediacy and responsiveness that will give us a real competitive
advantage.
For more information
To learn more about how IBM can help transform your business, please contact
your IBM sales representative or IBM Business Partner.
Visit us at: ibm.com/retail
ODC03103-USEN-00
Copyright IBM Corporation 2009
IBM Corporation
1 New Orchard Rd.
Armonk, NY 10504
U.S.A.
Produced in the United States of America
January 2009
All Rights Reserved
IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, Power Systems
and WebSphere are trademarks or registered
trademarks of International Business
Machines Corporation in the United States,
other countries, or both. If these and other
IBM trademarked terms are marked on their rst
occurrence in this information with a trademark
symbol ( or ), these symbols indicate U.S.
registered or common law trademarks owned
by IBM at the time this information was
published. Such trademarks may also be
registered or common law trademarks in other
countries. A current list of IBM trademarks is
available on the Web at Copyright and
trademark information at ibm.com/legal/
copytrade.shtml
Other company, product or service names may
be trademarks or service marks of others.
This case study illustrates how one
IBM customer uses IBM products. There
is no guarantee of comparable results.
References in this publication to IBM products
or services do not imply that IBM intends to
make them available in all countries in which
IBM operates.
Page 10 of 60
Over vi ew
Bazaarvoice, Inc.
Austin, Texas
www.bazaarvoice.com
Products
IBMWebSphereCommerce
Joining PartnerWorld Industry
Networks and using the
exceptional resources that
IBM can bring to a partner
lets us take our business
to a whole new level. Our
relationship with IBM is making
Bazaarvoice grow faster and
in more robust ways than we
would have otherwise seen.
Brant Barton,
vice president,
business development,
Bazaarvoice
Case Study QuickView
Industry: Retail
Bazaarvoice social commerce solutions boost sales at online
retail sites powered by IBM WebSphere Commerce
Bazaarvoice is a pioneer in developing technology and services
that encourage and harness online word-of-mouth marketing
and boost e-commerce. Working with IBM, Bazaarvoice chose
IBM WebSphere Commerce as a superior platform for its
social commerce solutions.
Challenge
In the offine world, word of mouth is a powerful force, and perhaps
the most trusted form of advertising. Bazaarvoice, an IBM Advanced
Business Partner that participates in IBM PartnerWorld Industry
Networks and is optimized in the retail industry, saw the potential for
word-of-mouth marketing to increase online sales and created
innovative tools to facilitate this capability.
Solution
Bazaarvoice core products -- Ratings & Reviews, Ask & Answer,
and Bazaarvoice Stories -- provide capabilities that are critical to
differentiating retailers and driving sales. The tools, respectively, help
enable customers to rate products and write reviews, ask questions and
get answers directly from other consumers, and share user experiences.
They can also seamlessly feed data to IBM DB2 databases.
Bazaarvoice solutions, which are hosted, managed and monitored,
provide advanced analytics. They work with any e-commerce platform,
including IBM WebSphere Commerce, a next-generation solution for
e-commerce needs which is the preferred foundation for the
applications for multi-channel retailers.
WebSphere Commerce provides a whole set of possibilities that
simply wouldnt be possible with other e-commerce platforms that
lack WebSpheres multi-channel capabilities, said Brant Barton, vice
president, business development, Bazaarvoice.
Benefts
Bazaarvoice social commerce solutions running on IBM WebSphere
Commerce:
Increase online sales and reduce return rates
Improve customer satisfaction and loyalty
Improve search ranking and drive qualifed leads
Provide better understanding of customer wants and needs
Page 11 of 60
Route 100
Somers, NY 10589
U.S.A.
Produced in the
United States of America
12-07
All Rights Reserved
International Business Machines Corporation, the IBM
logo, DB2, PartnerWorld, and WebSphere are trademarks
or registered trademarks of IBM Corporation in the United
States, other countries, or both.
Windows is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the
United States, other countries, or both.
Other company product or service names may be
trademarks or service marks of others.
The information contained in this documentation is
provided for information purposes only. While efforts were
made to verify the completeness and accuracy of the
information contained in this documentation, it is provided
as is without warranty of any kind, expressed or implied.
In addition, this information is based on IBMs current
product plans and strategy, which are subject to change
by IBM without notice. IBM shall not be responsible for
any damages arising out of the use of, or otherwise
related to, this documentation or any other documentation.
Nothing contained in this documentation is intended to,
nor shall have the effect of, creating any warranties or
representations from IBM (or its suppliers or licensors), or
altering the terms and conditions of the applicable license
agreement governing the use of IBM software.
Page 12 of 60
Innovation that matters
Gewandhaus Gruber is a clothing retailer with a 350-year history of
dressmaking and retailing. It currently has eight branch stores, two
outlets and a sports shop where it sells both traditional Bavarian clothing
and formal dresses of other brands.
Challenge
Gewandhaus Gruber is a successful mid-level to high-end clothing merchant in
Germany. Wanting to better understand and reward its existing customers while
attracting new ones, the company decided to implement a customer loyalty
program. But traditional card-based loyalty solutions were predictable and could
be expensive to maintain. Instead, the retailer sought a cutting-edge loyalty offering
that would help it increase revenue and differentiate itself from its competitors.
Solution
Using a combination of IBM and IBM Business Partner technology, the retailer
launched the frst fngerprint identifcationbased loyalty program and payment
method in Germany. The solution allows the clients loyalty club members to quickly
and conveniently pay for items via a fngerprint scanner that also tracks purchases
and that rewards members through loyalty incentives. Further, it provides Gewandhaus
Gruber with in-depth sales reports that provide decision makers and marketers with
valuable insight into the way customers spend their money.
Benefts
Earned d2.6 million15 percent of annual revenue in just six months
through approximately 4,500 club members
Saved d100,000 in operational costs over a comparable card-based
loyalty program
Increasedrevenueby4%andimprovedcustomersatisfaction
Gewandhaus Gruber increases customer loyalty and sales revenue by
using cutting-edge IBM and IBM Business Partner technology.
Overview
Gewandhaus Gruber
Erding, Germany
www.gewandhaus-gruber.de
Industry
Retail
Employees
1,000
Products
IBMAnyplaceKiosk
IBMDB2
for Linux

IBM Business Partner
it-werkeTechnologyGmbH
The system is unusual and
distinctiveit has a number
of practical advantages
particularly in terms of lower
operational costs. With no
need to print cards, post
them, manage them and
replace them when lost, the
savings are considerable.
Svenja Wittrowski, project leader,
Gewandhaus Gruber
Page 13 of 60
IBM Corporation
1NewOrchardRoad
Armonk,NY10504
U.S.A.
ProducedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
September 2008
AllRightsReserved
IBM,theIBMlogo,ibm.comandDB2aretrademarks
or registered trademarks of International Business
Machines Corporation in the United States, other
countries, or both. If these and other IBM trade-
marked terms are marked on their first occurrence in
this information with a trademark symbol (
or
),
these symbols indicate U.S. registered or com-
mon law trademarks owned by IBM at the time this
information was published. Such trademarks may
also be registered or common law trademarks in
othercountries.AcurrentlistofIBMtrademarksis
available on the Web at Copyright and trademark
information at ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml
Other company, product and service names may
The information contained in this documentation
is provided for informational purposes only. While
efforts were made to verify the completeness
and accuracy of the information contained in this
documentation, it is provided as is without war-
ranty of any kind, express or implied. In addition,
this information is based on IBMs current product
plans and strategy, which are subject to change by
IBM without notice. IBM shall not be responsible for
any damages arising out of the use of, or otherwise
related to, this documentation or any other docu-
mentation. Nothing contained in this documentation
is intended to, nor shall have the effect of, creating
any warranties or representations from IBM (or its
suppliers or licensors), or altering the terms and
conditions of the applicable license agreement
governing the use of IBM software.
This document illustrates how one organization
uses IBM products. Many factors have contributed
to the results and benefits described; IBM does not
guarantee comparable results elsewhere.
ReferencesinthispublicationtoIBMproductsor
services do not imply that IBM intends to make them
available in all countries in which IBM operates.
REC03001-USEN-00
Page 14 of 60
Hartman Rauta Oy operates a number of hardware and do-it-yourself
(DIY) stores for private consumers and the construction industry.
The companys retail stores focus on providing products for leisure
activities as well as interior decoration and construction.
Challenge
Hartman Rauta Oy (Hartman) had been using IBM Lotus Notes V7 software
hosted on an IBM System i5 server as it legacy e-mail and messaging platform,
and was satisfied with the existing system. However, the company wanted to take
advantage of a number of new updates and improvements available in the latest
version of Lotus Notes software, including new features that would improve mobile
data security. In addition, Hartman wanted to implement a virtual group working
environment to support improved communication and collaboration.
Solution
Hartman worked with IBM to upgrade its e-mail and messaging platform to
IBM Lotus Notes V8.5 software. The upgrade allowed the company to replace
its legacy Intellisync software with IBM Lotus Notes Traveler V8.5 software,
offering quick access to e-mail and attachments, calendar, address book,
journal and to-do list for Lotus Notes mobile users. Hartman also implemented
IBM Lotus Mobile Connect V8.5 software, helping to increase mobile security
for the companys virtual private network connections. Hartman implemented
IBM Lotus Quickr V8.5 team collaboration software to create a shared work-
space that helps groups work together on projects and easily share everyday
content such as documents and rich media.
Benefits
Increased security and flexibility of mobile connections
Improved integration between the Lotus Notes platform and the companys
mobile Symbian operating systembased handhelds
The Domino Attachment and Object Service built into Lotus Notes V8.5 helps
save storage capacity by minimizing duplicate file attachments
Hardware retailer increases mobile messaging security and flexibility
while improving integration with IBM Lotus
Overview
Hartman Rauta Oy
Vaasa, Finland
www.hartman.fi
Industry
Retail
Employees
1,000-5,000
Products
IBM
Lotus
Mobile Connect
IBM Lotus Quickr
IBM Lotus Notes
V8.5
IBM Lotus Notes Traveler V8.5
IBM System i5
IBM Lotus software

provides the tools we
need to leverage mobile
productivitywithout
sacrifcing security.
Jari Pienkuukka, Director, Logistics
and ICT, Hartman Rauta Oy
Page 15 of 60
IBM Software Group
Route 100
Somers, NY 10589
Produced in the United States
August 2009
All Rights Reserved
IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, Lotus, Lotus
Notes, Quickr and System i5 are trademarks of
International Business Machines Corporation,
registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. A
current list of IBM trademarks is available on the
Web at Copyright and trademark information
at ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml.
Other company, product or service names may be
trademarks or service marks of others. The informa-
tion contained in this documentation is provided
for informational purposes only. While efforts were
made to verify the completeness and accuracy of
the information contained in this documentation, it is
provided as is without warranty of any kind, express
or implied. In addition, this information is based on
IBMs current product plans and strategy, which are
subject to change by IBM without notice. IBM shall
not be responsible for any damages arising out of the
use of, or otherwise related to, this documentation
or any other documentation. Nothing contained in
this documentation is intended to, nor shall have the
effect of, creating any warranties or representations
from IBM (or its suppliers or licensors), or altering the
terms and conditions of the applicable license agree-
ment governing the use of IBM software.
LOC14140-USEN-00
Page 16 of 60
Hess Corporation engages in the exploration, production and refnement of
crude oil and natural gas. Operating more than 1,350 retail gas stations in
14 eastern U.S. states, the organization also offers energy-related utilities
services to commercial and retail customers.
Challenge
Locked in stiff competition, Hess Corporations retail gas station business relied on
smooth supply chain operation to minimize costs and maintain high proft margins.
But the organizations manual product pricing and inventory processes frustrated
these goals by consuming employee resources and leaving the organization open to
errors. Even worse, these manual processes led to delays that frequently resulted in
data that was out of date before it had been entered into the companys database.
Hess Corporation needed a new inventory solution that would automate processes
and keep data up to date.
Solution
IBM delivered an IBM Retail Integration Framework solution (built using IBM Lotus

Expeditor software) that leverages a service-oriented architecture (SOA) to provide
Hess Corporation with real-time insight into the inventory levels of its retail gas
stations. Using personal digital assistants (PDAs) and software from IBM Business
Partner Openstream Inc., the clients staff can scan station inventory and upload
that data to a local database. This information is then distributed to the clients
headquarters using Lotus Expeditor and IBM WebSphere
Process Server
software via the SOA. The solution also enables Hess Corporation to update
pricing information across its entire enterprise at one time, removing manual steps.
Benefts
Maximizes proftability by supporting real-time price change updates
Reduces inventory-tracking errors and duplicate orders by eliminating
manual processes
Streamlines order and inventory processes with an SOA, improving
employee productivity
Hess Corporation maximizes its profitability with real-time pricing
updates thanks to an SOA built using IBM software.
Overview
Hess Corporation
Woodbridge, New Jersey, USA
www.hess.com
Industry
Chemicals & Petroleum
Retail
Products
IBM Lotus Expeditor
IBM WebSphere Process
Server
Openstream Inc.
With the Openstream and
IBM solution, it is so much
easier to track inventory
across our 870 stores. It
streamlines our inventory
processes while providing
us with the peace of mind
of knowing that the data is
actually correct.
Hess Corporation
Page 17 of 60
IBM Corporation
Software Group
Route 100
Somers, NY 10589
U.S.A.
04-08
All Rights Reserved
IBM, the IBM logo, Lotus and WebSphere are
trademarks of International Business Machines
Corporation in the United States, other countries,
or both.
The information contained in this documentation
is provided for informational purposes only. While
efforts were made to verify the completeness and
accuracy of the information contained in this docu-
mentation, it is provided as is without warranty of
any kind, express or implied. In addition, this infor-
mation is based on IBMs current product plans and
strategy, which are subject to change by IBM without
notice. IBM shall not be responsible for any dam-
ages arising out of the use of, or otherwise related
to, this documentation or any other documentation.
Nothing contained in this documentation is intended
to, nor shall have the effect of, creating any warran-
ties or representations from IBM (or its suppliers or
licensors), or altering the terms and conditions of the
applicable license agreement governing the use of
IBM software.
WSC14034-USEN-00
Page 18 of 60
IBM Australia
Isuzu Australia takes the road to
collaboration success with IBM

WebSphere and Lotus technologies
About Isuzu Australia Limited
Isuzu Australia Limited is a wholly-
owned subsidiary of Isuzu Motors
Limited (Japan), and is responsible for
the marketing, distribution and support
of Isuzu Trucks in Australia. With just
65 employees in Australia, IAL depends
largely on its national dealer network
of over 1000 dealership staff to drive
its business and maintain its market
leading position.
Looking towards the latest technology
The Isuzu Truck national dealer
network is the retail end of the
distribution channel for Isuzu
Trucks sold in Australia, hence the
requirement for access to the latest
materials and information from IAL
head office. In 2005 the company
(IAL) was distributing all information to
dealers manually in printed format via
surface mail. Not only was this system
expensive and time-consuming, it was
also vulnerable to errors. Dealers were
responsible for the internal distribution
of the various materials, resulting in
frequent failure to reach the appropriate
dealer recipients. In addition to this any
errors or update to materials meant a
repeat of the above process, and again
there was no immediate confirmation of
receipt and use by dealers of the up to
date information.
It was evident to IAL that both internal
and external communications could
be improved through utilisation of new
technologies. Aninka Morhall, Staff
Operations Manager at Isuzu Australias
Head Office, in Port Melbourne, was
tasked with sourcing an online portal
and content management solution
to supercede the existing manual
processes.
Overview
Problem
Isuzu Australia Limited (IAL) has
a large national dealer network
which is the driving force behind
the business. The company needed
a solution to improve the speed
and accuracy of communications
between head office and the
dealerships as well as facilitate
increased collaboration with
business partners.
Solution
IAL chose to implement IBM
WebSphere
Portal linked to other

collaboration tools including Lotus

Sametime
, Lotus Quickr, Portal

Document Manager (PDM) and
Web Content Management.
Benefits
Communications both internally and
externally with dealers and partners
have been radically improved.
Information is now hosted centrally
on a web-based portal, allowing all
parties to access real time, up to
date information at any time.
Page 19 of 60
Collaboration pays off
The implementation of the WebSphere
Portal enhanced by Lotus collaboration
tools has totally transformed the
communication processes between
Isuzu and its dealer network. Today
all materials are hosted on the
portal and dealers simply have to
log on to instantly access the latest
information. The result has meant
vastly improved, more accurate and
timely communications with IALs
dealer network enhancing most areas
of their business operations, and even
increasing their ability to sell more
effectively. The dealers can also log onto
Sametime instant messaging through
a web interface, enabling them to
communicate with head office contacts
in real time and quickly trouble-shoot
any current queries.
Internal communication within IAL has
also improved. Staff can now publish
information themselves, expediting
access to important information. Instant
messaging has also meant employees
rely less on email and more business
decisions can be made in real time. The
discipline of using a central document
repository hosted online means fewer
documents are shared as attachments
and users can be more confident they
are accessing the most recent version.
Selection of a portal
Morhall evaluated solutions from a
number of leading vendors, but settled
on IBM WebSphere Portal along with
Workplace Web Content Management
(WCM). Commenting on IALs reasons
for selecting IBM technology Morhall
said, We chose WebSphere Portal
and WCM because this solution was
more capable of meeting our needs
than the other offerings in the market,
in particular in terms of its scalability.
We were also interested in all of the
extra collaborative components.
As a long time Lotus Notes
user
we knew these systems would
integrate seamlessly with our existing
technology platforms.
IAL also elected to expand its
collaboration capabilities by adding
Lotus Sametime instant messaging,
Lotus Quickr for team based project
management and Portal Document
Manager (PDM) to create a central
repository for documents. These
additional systems were implemented
to enable teams to collaborate around
specific projects and documents and to
cut down on sharing of documents as
email attachments Morhall commented.
The portal and collaboration tools were
rolled out to staff and 1000+ dealership
staff, with access controlled by a
complex security structure allowing the
right people to see the right content at
the right time. The systems were quickly
adopted by the majority of users and
today are used companywide.
We chose WebSphere Portal and WCM
because this solution was more capable of
meeting our needs than the other offerings
in the market, in particular in terms of its
scalability. We were also interested in all of
the extra collaborative components. As a long
time Lotus Notes user we knew these systems
would integrate seamlessly with our existing
technology platforms.
- Aninka Morhall, Staff Operations Manager, Isuzu Australia
Page 20 of 60
Morhall explained, Now our company
announcements are no longer sent
by email people know they have to
log into the portal if they want to be
kept up to date. Anyone can publish
information, its simply reviewed for
appropriateness, and then it is posted
immediately. All our business policies
and procedures are hosted on the
portal as well.
Since the portal went live in 2006
Isuzu has realised substantial
business benefits. The company has
enjoyed cost reductions since it no
longer has to print materials for the
dealer network and distribute them
through the mail. Cost aside, Isuzu
now distributes information to its
dealers instantaneously, confident
in the knowledge that dealers are
always just a click away from the
latest information. This has reduced
errors across the entire dealer
network.
Armed with the latest technology
tools, collaboration and knowledge
sharing has increased for example
teams can discuss a particular
document over a web meeting, or
individuals can access the real-time
status of a project, task or milestone
simply by logging into the portal.
Continuing the journey
The implementation of WebSphere
Portal and Lotus collaboration tools
has given IAL a taste for more
technology and the productivity gains
it can deliver. Morhall is currently rolling
out the use of wiki technology which
is available in Quickr, We are going
to start using wiki technology in Lotus
Quickr to further improve information
sharing thats our latest exciting
project here. Morhall is also looking at
incorporating IBMs Workplace learning
management system into the portal
to further extend knowledge sharing
and collaboration based e-learning
throughout the organisation.
Leading Communication for the Truck
Market leader
As Australian truck market leader for
19 consecutive years (20 by the end
of 2008), Isuzu Australia recognises
that maintaining this enviable record
is dependent on providing leading
products and services. IAL is also
committed to demonstrating leadership
in all areas of its operations, and by
selecting IBM WebSphere Portal and
Lotus Software technologies to provide
leading communications between
IAL and its dealer network its market
leadership is more easily maintained.
Now our company announcements are no
longer sent by email people know they have
to log into the portal if they want to be kept
up to date. Anyone can publish information, its
simply reviewed for appropriateness, and then it is
posted immediately. All our business policies and
procedures are hosted on the portal as well.
- Aninka Morhall, Staff Operations Manager, Isuzu Australia
Page 21 of 60
Copyright IBM Australia Limited 2008
ACN 79 000 024 733. Copyright IBM
Corporation 2008. All Rights Reserved
IBM Australia Limited
IBM Centre
Level 13, 601 Pacific Highway
St Leonards NSW 2065

08/08
IBM, the IBM logo, Websphere, Lotus, Sametime,
Quickr and Lotus Notes are trademarks or
registered trademarks of International Business
Machines Corporation in the United States, other
countries or both.
Intel, the Intel Inside Logo and Pentium are
registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its
subsidiaries in the United States or other countries.
Important Privacy Information: If you would like
to request access to or correction of your details
or if you or your organisation would prefer not to
receive further information on IBM products, please
advise us on: 132 426 (Australia) or 0800 801 800
(New Zealand).
This customer story is based on information
provided by AusRegistry and illustrates how one
organisation uses IBM products. Many factors have
contributed to the results and benefits described.
IBM does not guarantee comparable results
elsewhere.
Designed by the IBM Grafxlab.
GL_10081
Please call 132 426 in Australia or
0800 801 800 in New Zealand.

Page 22 of 60
scenarios were developed for each
strategy. The retailer was able to
reallocate nearly 25 percent of its
SKUs between the two strategies,
with a projected reduction in
transportation and inventory holding
costs of more than U.S.$1.5 million.
Benefits:
Lower transportation costs
More accurate inventory analysis
Improved distribution
Objective:
A retailer with billions in annual sales
had seven distribution centers (DCs)
to serve its stores. The retailer was
growing rapidly through acquisitions
and organic growth. This produced a
hybrid inventory strategy with some
stock-keeping units (SKUs) stored at
all the DCs and others at only a few
centralized locations. The
assignment of SKUs was largely
based on the practices of the
acquired companies. The retailer
wanted to determine whether its
inventory strategy was appropriate
for its business.
Solution:
The decentralized strategy had
suppliers drop products at the DCs,
while the centralized strategy had
products go to central DCs and then
to other DCs. The latter system
resulted in transportation costs of
nearly U.S.$5 million a year between
the central and store-facing DCs.
Using IBM ILOG Inventory Analyst,
the inventory planning solution from
LogicTools (now IBM ILOG),
Overview
Best of both inventory strategies
Using the centralized strategy, the
retailer is able to reduce its inventory
levels through risk-pooling and more
accurate forecasts. Furthermore, the
larger volume at the central locations
means more frequent shipments
from suppliers, which results in lower
inventory levels. But this strategy incurs
additional transportation costs be tween
central and store-facing DCs, as well as
extra handling costs as products have
to flow between DCs and then on to the
stores.
IBM
IBM Case Study
Major retailer
Evaluating inventory strategies
Page 23 of 60
Each inventory strategy was evaluated
with IBM ILOG Inventory Analyst. The
factors modelled included product
costs, inventory holding costs, demand,
forecast error, service levels, supplier
lead times and reliability, receiving
frequency, and transportation times and
costs. A total cost for each SKU was
determined for each strategy, and the
resulting costs compared. This helped
determine which SKUs to assign to each
inventory strategy, and the projected
savings from doing so.
For operational reasons, some product
categories could not use a hybrid
strategy, and an aggregated decision
was made for these categories by
considering all the products in the
IBM
Software
IBM ILOG Inventory Analyst
Products and services used
WSC14123-USEN-01
group together. Also, sensitivity analysis
was conducted to determine how the
strategy would change if inventory
holding costs were changed.
Benefits
By comparing IBM ILOG Inventory
Analysts recommendations with the
current distribution system, the retailer
was able to identify SKUs as candidates
for transition between the centralized
and decentralized inventory strategies.
Nearly 25 percent of the SKUs fell
into this category. By making these
changes, the retailer projected savings
of over U.S.$1.5 million per year, mainly
from reductions in transportation and
inventory holding costs.
Based on extensive analysis of the
results from the IBM ILOG Inventory
Analyst model, the customer was able
to save millions of dollars annually
in distribution costs, as well as
significantly reduce inventory. This
gave the customer more visibility into
the downstream supply chain, thereby
increasing manufacturing flexibility
and further reducing raw material
inventories. In addition, the length of
the cash-flow cycle was reduced by
50 percent through direct shipping to
customers.
Recyclable, please recycle.

IBM Corporation
Software Group
Route 100
Somers, New York 10589
U.S.A.

December 2009

All Rights Reserved

IBM, the IBM logo, and ibm.com are trademarks
or registered trademarks of International
Business Machines Corporation in the United
States, other countries, or both. If these and other
IBM trademarked terms are marked on their first
occurrence in this information with a trademark
symbol ( or ), these symbols indicate U.S.
registered or common law trademarks owned by
IBM at the time this information was published.
Such trademarks may also be regis-tered or
common law trademarks in other countries. A
current list of IBM trademarks is available on the
Web at Copyright and trademark information at
ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml

Other product, company or service names may

This case study is an example of how one
customer uses IBM products. There is no
guarantee of comparable results.

and services do not imply that IBM intends to
make them available in all countries in which IBM
operates.
Page 24 of 60
A change in business focus
Max Bahr Holzhandlung GmbH, a
pioneer since 1879 in Germanys
highly competitive do-it-yourself (DIY)
market, was at a crossroads. After
going through a busy period of opening
up new stores during the 1990s, the
DIY retailer wanted to refocus its
energy on driving up sales per square
meter of existing foor space. That
meant ensuring high shelf availability
for every item Max Bahr carries. DIY
stores typically carry few substitutable
products, and customers have a high
propensity to buy when they are in the
store.
With revenues of 816 million euros in
2005, Max Bahr operates more than
80 home and garden centers around
the Federal Republic of Germany,
as well as an e-commerce Web site.
Its inventory of some 40,000 items,
some of which carry the Max Bahr
brand, are sourced globally and cover
everything the do-it-yourselfer needs
for the home and garden, including
wallpaper, carpets, wood, electrical
equipment, tools, DIY manuals, garden
furniture and a huge assortment of
plants and fowers. A central warehouse
replenishes 30 percent of the products
in the stores; 70 percent arrive directly
from suppliers. A second warehouse is
scheduled to begin operations this year.
Max Bahr employs approximately 4,500
employees, all of whom are dedicated
to one objective: providing superior
on-foor consultation and service to
every customer, whether layperson or
professional. The company strives to
offer premium goods and services at
the lowest possible prices.
To help implement its revised business
plan, Max Bahr needed an automated,
centralized replenishment system that
could provide the highest customer
service levels, while optimizing
inventory and storage costs. We were
making replenishment decisions locally
at each store, says Anja Schning,
project manager at Max Bahr. Planners
would look at the stores point-of-
sale (POS) data and manually place
replenishment orders. Each store has
a POS system that runs on an IBM
eServer
TM
iSeries server. However,
not all stores had very good and
experienced planners often resulting
in poor availability and high opportunity
costs. Moreover, it was expensive
employing so many planners.
Do-it-yourself retailer uses IBM solution to automate
replenishment and help ensure high shelf availability
Supply Chain
Management
Overview
Challenge
Meet customer demand for any of
40,000 products in over 80 outlets with
low replenishment and storage costs
Why become an On Demand business
To help drive up sales per square
meter of existing foor space, Max
Bahr needed an approach that would
provide the highest product availability
levels for customers, while optimizing
inventory and storage costs
Solution
IBM Dynamic Inventory Optimization
Solution, a comprehensive offering
that helps companies determine
optimal inventory levels based on cost
constraints, forecasts, demand patterns
and service level requirements
Key Benefts
- Customer service levels of 99 percent
or higher
- Over 90 percent of replenishment
proposals turn into orders without
any review
- Improved demand forecasting, fewer
planners and lower replenishment
costs
Max Bahr Case Study
Page 25 of 60
BCC00102-USEN-01
Answering the challenge
In 2003, after considering a number
of alternatives, Max Bahr turned to
IBM, which proposed the IBM Dynamic
Inventory Optimization Solution. After
a one-month requirements study, the
IBM team began incorporating the
business rules needed by the solution
to forecast demand, calculate safety
stock, batch sizes and reorder points,
and compute replenishment order
proposals for the entire inventory.
We wanted IBM to build in as much
business logic as possible, so that
replenishment orders could be sent to
the warehouse and to suppliers without
ever being reviewed by a planner,
explains Schning. That required
writing client-specifc modules that
considered variables such as maximum
shelf or bin space for an item,
upcoming promotions, supplier lead
times, free shipping on orders above a
certain amount, product assortments
and odd lots.
The capabilities and fexibility of
the Dynamic Inventory Optimization
Solution allowed us to respond quickly
and effectively to Max Bahr, says
Richard Boedi, an IBM researcher on
the team. Within months of starting
the project, we were managing
inventory at four outlets and with one
major supplier.
Nightly replenishment runs
Today, the Dynamic Inventory
Optimization Solution performs
eighty to ninety percent of Max Bahrs
inventory replenishment. There is no
ERP system involved.
Shortly after midnight, the stores
transfer POS data approximately
1520 million transactions to a
central database and add them to a
rolling repository that contains a two-
year history of every product in every
store. Using this transaction dataset,
the Dynamic Inventory Optimization
Solution performs a two-echelon
analysis, looking frst at the outlets
and then at the central warehouse
to generate forecasts and order
proposals. Each of the approximate 85
runs of the solution takes around one
minute, constituting up to four million
replenishment decisions. The entire
process is completed by seven oclock
in the morning, before the planners
arrive at work. Any replenishment
issues found by the solution go on
an exception report to be manually
resolved.
The results from the Max Bahr-IBM
collaboration are impressive. Customer
service levels at the stores have
reached an average of 99 percent or
more. Whats more, over 90 percent of
the order proposals are automatically
turned into actual orders to suppliers
without any review by, what is now,
only a handful of planners in the
company.
The Dynamic Inventory Optimization
Solution has become one of the most
important business tools we have for
positively impacting sales and keeping
us competitive, concludes Schning.

IBM Global Services
Route 100
Somers, NY 10589
U.S.A.
Printed in the United States of America
12-06
All Rights Reserved
IBM, the IBM logo, eServer and iSeries are
trademarks or registered trademarks of Inter-
national Business Machines Corporation in the
United States, other countries or both.
Other company, product and service names
may be trademarks or service marks of others.
IBM operates.
This document is based on information pro-
vided by Max Bahr and illustrates how one
organization uses IBM products. Many factors
have contributed to the results and benefts
described; IBM does not guarantee compa-
rable results elsewhere.
The [solution] has become one of
the most important business tools we
have for positively impacting sales
and keeping us competitive.
Anja Schning, project manager,
Max Bahr
The IBM Dynamic Inventory Optimization
Solution is part of the IBM Center for
Business Optimizations solution portfolio,
which includes solutions in the areas of
risk management, marketing investment,
pricing and supply chain management.
The center brings together IBMs industry
and process expertise, hardware and
business performance software, and the
companys deep computing and advanced
analytics capabilities to tackle the most
diffcult challenges facing business and
government.
To learn more about IBM Global Business
Services, contact your IBM sales
representative, or visit:
ibm.com/bcs
To learn more about the IBM Dynamic
Inventory Optimization Solution and the
IBM Center for Business Optimization,
contact your IBM representative or visit:
ibm.com/services/cbo
Page 26 of 60
Lets build a smarter planet
METRO Group tracks meat products from
production to point of sale.
Overview
METRO Group
Dsseldorf, Germany
www.metrogroup.de
Industry
Retail
Products
IBMGlobalBusinessServices
IBMInfoSphere
TraceabilityServer
METRO Group now has
unprecedented transparency
in its in-store meat processes
of the real,- Future Store
in Tnisvorst.
Dr.GerdWolfram,HeadofCIO-Office,
METROAG
In Germany, there have been several incidences of moldy meat being
sold by different meat wholesalers. Although this had not been a problem
for METRO Group, customers were aware of fresh meat problems at
other retailers.
Challenge
METROGroupsretailstoremeattrackingsystemwasentirelymanual.Expiration
datemonitoringwasdonevisually,atime-consuminganderror-proneprocess.
With800to1,000meattraysinsidetheself-servicecounterofasinglestoreat
anygiventime,METROGroupneededtogainabettergraspoftheinventory
managementofitsmeatproducts,whileworkingtoimprovecustomerfoodsafety.
Solution
WorkingwithIBMGlobalBusinessServicesinafirst-of-a-kindproject,METRO
GroupusedIBMInfoSphereTraceabilityServersoftwareasthebackbone
ofitsnewmeat-trackingsolution.Meattraysaretaggedwithradiofrequency
identificationtags.Eachmeattrayisvisibleduringitscompletein-storelife-
cycle,frompackagingtopointofsale.
Readersthroughoutthelifecycleofthemeattraycontinuouslyupdatetheinventory
managementsystem.DataisstoredbytheIBMInfoSphereTraceabilityServer
software,enablingimprovedinventorymanagementandhelpingensureproduct
andconsumersafety.IBMGlobalBusinessServicesprovidedprocessconsulting,
dashboardsandthearchitectureforthesolution,aswellascustomization.
Benefts
Improvesinventorymanagementwithdemand-drivenforecasting,reducing
overstocksandwrite-offs
Increasesconsumersafetybysendingsystemalertsforexpiredornearly
expiredproducts,whichcanthenberemovedfrominventory
Iseasilyscalableandreusable,thankstostandardizedinterfaces,enabling
METROGrouptodeploytrack-and-tracesolutionsinothersaleslinesaswell
Page 27 of 60
CopyrightIBMCorporation2009
IBMCorporation
1NewOrchardRoad
Armonk,NY10504
U.S.A.
November2009
AllRightsReserved
IBM,theIBMlogo,ibm.com,andSmarterPlanetare
trademarksofInternationalBusinessMachines
Corporation,registeredinmanyjurisdictions
worldwide.Otherproductandservicenames
mightbetrademarksofIBMorothercompanies.
AcurrentlistofIBMtrademarksisavailableonthe
WebatCopyrightandtrademarkinformationat
ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml
Theinformationcontainedinthisdocumentation
isprovidedforinformationalpurposesonly.While
effortsweremadetoverifythecompletenessand
accuracyoftheinformationcontainedinthisdocu-
mentation,itisprovidedasiswithoutwarrantyof
anykind,expressorimplied.Inaddition,thisinfor-
mationisbasedonIBMscurrentproductplansand
strategy,whicharesubjecttochangebyIBMwithout
notice.IBMshallnotberesponsibleforanydam-
agesarisingoutoftheuseof,orotherwiserelated
to,thisdocumentationoranyotherdocumentation.
Nothingcontainedinthisdocumentationisintended
to,norshallhavetheeffectof,creatinganywarran-
tiesorrepresentationsfromIBM(oritssuppliersor
licensors),oralteringthetermsandconditionsofthe
applicablelicenseagreementgoverningtheuseof
IBMsoftware.
Thisdocumentillustrateshowoneorganization
usesIBMproductsandservices.Manyfactors
havecontributedtotheresultsandbenefits
described;IBMdoesnotguaranteecomparable
resultselsewhere.
ReferencesinthispublicationtoIBMproductsor
servicesdonotimplythatIBMintendstomakethem
availableinallcountriesinwhichIBMoperates.
GBC03030-USEN-00
Page 28 of 60
Moosejaw Mountaineering reaches
new heights of customer engagement
through social commerce.
Lets build a smarter planet
Overview
n The Need
To thrive in the highly competitive
market for outdoor adventure
gear, Moosejaw Mountaineering
needed to create a customer
experience that would engage
a customer community whose
appetite for extreme sports is
matched by a hunger for commu-
nication and collaboration.
n The Solution
Moosejaw sought to make its site
the go-to destination for young, hip
high school and college students
and for hard-core outdoor enthusi-
asts by embedding rich community
features into its online commerce
experience, thus becoming one of
the first outdoor-adventure retail-
ers to make multichannel social
commerce the cornerstone of its
growth strategy.
Online commerce has changed a
lot in the decade since it entered
into the cultural mainstream. Driven
by relentlessly rising customer
expectations, sites have become
easier to use, merchandising has
improved and, to put it simply, com-
panies have gotten better at online
commerce because theyve come
to understand its many nuances.
In spite of these changes, however,
the essential character of online
retail namely, the extension of tradi-
tional retail practices to the Internet
channel has remained largely
unchanged. So, too, have some basic
and long-held assumptions about the
way consumers buy and what they
are looking for from an online retailer.
n Key Benefits
Increased revenue from an

expected increase in conversion
rate (based on an initial increase
to 50 percent)
Expected increase in customer loy-

alty and word-of-mouth expansion
through a more engaging and col-
laborative online retail experience
Ability to deliver seamless

messaging, programs and
customer experience across
all channels
Expected increase in customer

satisfaction through richer, more
informative pre-purchase support
(e.g., customer ratings)
Based in Madison Heights, Michigan, Moosejaw Mountaineering, Inc. is one of the nations leading
outdoor-adventure retailers. With seven retail locations employing 250 in Michigan and Chicago, the
companys online retail, Moosejaw.com, was rated a top 50 Web site according to Internet Retailer.
Page 29 of 60
Enriching the retail experience with the power of social networking
2
The traditional view of online transactions is anchored on the idea that online
stores are first and foremost a venue for transactions, which, by and large, tend
to be tightly structured interactions involving the buyer and the retailer. Within
this interaction, the retailers key job is to provide customers with the information
they need to purchasesuch as pricing, product descriptions and orderly
merchandisingand to deliver all within the context of a superior customer
experience. However, the way customers are seeking and processing this infor-
mation is beginning to change, and thats expected to have a big impact on
tomorrows online experience.
The biggest reason is the sweeping impact of Web 2.0, a term that describes
a paradigm shift in the way people use the Internet to interact with each other
and with information. The key earmark of Web 2.0 is the exploding popularity
of user generated content, examples of which range from blogs, wikis and
discussion groups to YouTube and MySpace. What each has in common is a
decidedly bottom-up, approach to generating and sharing information thats
heavy on collaboration and light on hierarchical structures. So how does this
impact online retail? The answer, in large measure, lies in demographics and
changing expectations.
Community meets commerce
When the younger consumers driving the Web 2.0 wave want to buy online,
theyd prefer the same kind of collaborative, bottom-up information exchange
in their shopping experience. This, in effect, resets the goals and parameters
that retailers have to consider in configuring their online strategies. While issues
like merchandising and navigation remain important, retailers also need to
provide an environment that supports the interaction of customer communities,
which are exerting more and more influence on buying behavior. This is espe-
cially true for products that reflect a lifestyle or a set of emotional values. Thats
why Moosejaw Mountaineering (www.moosejaw.com), a fast-growing retailer
specializing in outdoor, surf, skate and snowboard equipment and apparel, is
such a good example of how it can work. Relying on a host of retail solutions
from IBM and IBM Business Partner CrossView, Moosejaw sought to make its
site the go-to destination for young, hip high school and college students and
for hard-core outdoor enthusiasts by embedding rich community features into
its online commerce experience, thus becoming one of the first retailers to make
multi-channel, social commerce the cornerstone of its growth strategy.
Now a fast-growing chain with seven stores and 250 employees, Moosejaw
owes much of its success to a fiercely loyal customer base. The roots of this
loyalty lay in the companys ability to make shopping fun, as well as its abil-
ity to provide the right product mix, strong product and technical support and
Business Benefts
Increasedrevenuefromanexpected
increaseinconversionrate(basedon
aninitialincreaseto50percent)
Expectedincreaseincustomerloyalty
andword-of-mouthexpansionthrough
amoreengagingandcollaborative
onlineretailexperience
Abilitytodeliverseamlessmessaging,
programsandcustomerexperience
acrossallchannels
Expectedincreaseincustomer
satisfactionthroughricher,more
informativepre-purchasesupport
(e.g.,customerratings)
Strongerbrandthroughamore
consistentmulti-channelexperience
Our strategy has been to
reinvent the way people
shop for outdoor, surf,
skate and snowboard
apparel and equip-
ment. IBMthrough its
technology and retail
thought leadership
has been instrumental
in helping us realize
this vision.
Jeffrey Wolfe, COO,
Moosejaw Mountaineering
Page 30 of 60
3
a constant drive to develop unique, innovative ways to communicate with
their customer. But with no shortage of competitors in the outdoor adventure
spacemany large and well knownMoosejaw faces the ongoing challenge of
making itself the destination of choice. Rising to this challenge, the company
has introduced a steady stream of features that have resonated with custom-
ers, including over 50,000 customer reviews, texting of tracking numbers and
promotions to mobile phones, and its Moosejaw Madness community, where
customers post photos from their latest adventures, read the irreverent Daily
Remark and immerse themselves in Moosejaws unique culture. While features
like these have been highly successful, Chief Operating Officer Jeffrey Wolfe
believes that Moosejaw has only scratched the surface of what it can do for its
customers. We are on the verge of truly blurring the lines between Web, retail,
mobile, catalog, call center and kiosk, taking the best of each channel and
making it possible across all channels.
Moosejaws approach to multi-channel, social commerce was to implement a
new solution from the ground up with help from IBM and IBM Business Partner
CrossView. One of the key benefits of the solution is its ability to create a seam-
less, interactive, community shopping experience across every sales channel.
Customers can interact with Moosejaw staff and with other customers on the
Moosejaw Web site and then connect those threads on their mobile phones
and when they come into the Moosejaw retail stores. Perhaps more valuably, it
provides Moosejaw with a ready-made platform for integrating these social net-
working capabilities deeply into its commerce platform. Imagine, for example,
a customer looking for a tent suitable to use at 20,000 feet and 20 below zero.
Instead of simply searching through a catalog, customers can now search by
a products rating, while also taking into account customer profiles that include
product usage experience. Getting product feedback from someone who has
actually used that tent on Mount Everest or K2 is a far cry from standard catalog
informationand thats exactly what Moosejaw is shooting for. Key to the realiza-
tion of this vision is the companys work with IBM Toronto Software Lab, which is
working with Moosejaw to develop this breakthrough capability.
Moosejaws physical stores also figure prominently in its strategy. A standout
feature of the new solution is its ability to provide truly seamless support to
and thus create a common, superior experience throughall of Moosejaws
channels. Key to this capability is CrossViews Point of Sale solution which
extends the capabilities of IBM WebSphere
Commerce into retail stores with

a solution that utilizes WebSphere Commerce as its engine at the enterprise
and IBM WebSphere Remote Server in the stores. CrossViews solution utilizes
a common information platform based on IBM DB2
and validated for the

IBM Retail Integration Framework, making it easy for Moosejaw to extend its
Solution Components
Software
IBMWebSphereCommerce
IBMWebSphereRemoteServer
IBMDB2
Hardware
IBMSurePOS
TM
500Express
Services
IBMTorontoSoftwareLab
IBMGlobalTechnologyServices
IBMRetailStoreSolutions
CrossView
Timeframe
Coreplatformimplementation:9months
Socialcommerceplatform:5months
What Makes it Smarter
MoosejawMountaineeringismaking
itselfoneoftheleadingplacestobefor
outdooradventurersbyleadingtheway
intheintegrationofsocialnetworking
capabilitieslikeblogging,groupdiscus-
sionandcustomerproductratingsacross
all ofitsretailchannels.
Page 31 of 60
ODC03073-USEN-02
online channel programs and tactics into its store environment. For instance,
using IBM SurePOS 500 dual-screen point-of-sale terminals in-store customers
are now able to buy, ship and pay with the exact same services they are familiar
with online, and they will be offered the same targeted promotions and cross-
sells while they read reviews, blogs and recommendations. With all this new
technology, that same fun and irreverence that has been a part of the Moosejaw
culture from the beginning will now be part of the in-store check-out process.
Multichannel benefits
To enable a consistent shopping experience for customers across channels,
the Moosejaw solution integrates and registers orders and inventory changes
for every channel, offering increased visibility and optimum resource alloca-
tion across channels. The multichannel capability also provides Moosejaws
in-store sales associates and call center agents with the tools they need
to provide more interactive and insightful support to customers. Its seen in
the small things, like being able to tell a customer how close they are to a
reward point threshold or asking about their satisfaction with a recent pur-
chase. But its also seen in the bigger things, like the systems ability to see
inventory in near real time so an associate can find just the right Patagonia
coat for a customer whether its in the store, in the warehouse or at a suppliers
warehouseand send the order via XML straight to the other shop, warehouse
or supplier for processing and fulfillment. Its seen in the way it enables call
center agents to get a full profile of a customer and provide the most knowl-
edgeable and comprehensive support.
Altogether, its about providing the kind of customer experience that will
continue to make Moosejaw the premier destination for the outdoor, surf,
skate and snowboard community and in the process enable Moosejaw to
sustain its high rate of growth. Wolfe sees the companys advanced social
commerce capabilities playing an important role by strengthening loyalty,
increasing the conversion, or browse-to-buy, rate of the Moosejaw site and
by building word-of-mouth support, which thus far has been one of the biggest
factors in its growth. Our strategy has been to reinvent the way people shop
for outdoor, surf, skate and snowboard apparel and equipment, says Wolfe.
IBMthrough its technology and retail thought leadershiphas been instru-
mental in helping us realize this vision.
Please contact your IBM sales representative or IBM Business Partner.
Visit us at:
ibm.com/retail

IBM Corporation
1 New Orchard Road
Armonk, NY 10504
U.S.A
September 2009
All Rights Reserved
IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, Smarter Planet,
DB2, SurePOS and WebSphere are trademarks
of International Business Machines Corporation,
registered in many jurisdictions worldwide.
Other product and service names might be
trademarks of IBM or other companies. A current
list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web
at www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml
This case study illustrates how one IBM customer
uses IBM products. There is no guarantee of
comparable results.
IBM operates.
Page 32 of 60
IBM Case Study
Sears Canada increases code reuse by
5%-15% with SOA solution
Overview
Challenge
Deliver on business objectives
and reduce development cost
through code reuse to eliminate
coding and recoding of the
same integration, and speed the
exchange of information with
business partners to improve
business agility to be competi-
tive in todays economy
Solution
Supplier information exchange
service enabling exchange of
product information between
Sears Canadas legacy systems
and 3,000 suppliers
Benets
5%-15% reuse of code, low-
ering costs and improving
developer productivity
Faster deployment of prod-
ucts and services
Improved customer,
dealer, supplier and partner
experience
A successful retailer needs to change
quickly to keep pace with shifting cus-
tomer tastes. For Sears Canada, this
has meant improving the agility of its
supply chain.
Sears Canada is a retail powerhouse
with a strong heritage in large
brick-and-mortar stores and a compre-
hensive product catalog with associ-
ated merchandise pick-up locations.
The company operates 196 company-
owned stores, 178 dealer stores,
64 home improvement showrooms
and 1,850 catalog merchandise pick-up
locations.
Today, the company partners with
about 3,000 suppliers to makes sure all
of its sales channelsstores, catalog
and onlineare fully stocked with the
right mix of products that consumers
want at the right price.
Already, Sears Canada
can clearly see the
ROI advantages of our
IBM SOA solution.
Miki E. Uhlyarik, Middleware
and Integration Architect, Sears
Canada
Page 33 of 60
Streamlining business and IT processes
From the business side, Sears Canada needs to streamline its internal processes
to achieve faster time to market even as it reduces the cost of bringing new mer-
chandise to its customers. From the IT side, it needs to streamline development
and integration to enable it to exchange data with its suppliers more efficiently
and expeditiously.
The IT infrastructure team, led by Middleware and Integration Architect Miki E.
Uhlyarik, has the responsibility of integrating new functionality with the companys
legacy systems, which still run a very large part of the business and act as the
main repository of corporate data. Sears Canada faced a major challenge in imple-
menting changes quickly enough in its legacy development processes to keep up
with the fast pace of business change.
We faced point-to-point, fairly rigid connections, says Uhlyarik. We couldnt very
easily replace components. Whats more, any change to one component had to be
made in all the other components.
After researching service oriented architecture (SOA), the team recognized it as a
valuable concept that they could apply. SOA offered us a framework both on the
conceptual and on the technical level that could help us overcome issues related to
the integration of internal and external business systems, says Uhlyarik.
Uhlyariks team anticipated that SOA would enable code reuse to eliminate coding
and recoding of the same integration; reduce development costs over the long
term; and speed the exchange of information with business partners to improve
business agility.
Investing in SOA skills and infrastructure
Starting essentially from scratch, the infrastructure team realized it had to
prepare before it could begin employing an SOA approach to coding services or
building applications.
The team established an SOA Center of Excellence (CoE) and began publicizing it.
The CoE initially functioned as an SOA information, education and training clearing-
house. The company leveraged its more than 30-year partnership with IBM to raise
its CoEs understanding of SOA and begin orienting people in the new approach.
Sears Canada also initiated IBM training programs to close the skills gap that fre-
quently hinders SOA projects, especially in the early stages. The IBM training
addressed SOA concepts, Web services, XML and security. The team even began
educating management long before a single service had been developed. We
found that we needed support from IT management because SOA required a major
investment before the actual applications could be put in place, says Uhlyarik.
Page 34 of 60
The company installed IBM System p servers running AIX to host
IBM WebSphere Application Server as the core component of the application
foundation based on Smart SOA. IBM WebSphere Application Server provides an
innovative, performance-based application foundation for building, deploying, and
managing robust, agile, and reusable services and SOA applications of all types.
The production environment is congured for high availability. In addition, Sears
Canada set up separate server environments for staging and for development. The
company also acquired IBM WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus, which it imple-
mented right away, and WebSphere Service Registry and Repository.
Exchanging data with suppliers in just a few clicks
The companys initial implementation focused on a simple system integration bus
intended to streamline integration. For that, it created a Web services gateway,
mediation ows and JAX-RPC to implement common infrastructure components
that Web services-based applications would need. Then the team went looking for
an application requiring deeper-level integration and a higher level of reuse. This
project would be the pilot implementation of WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus.
The company needed to exchange product data between its 3,000 suppliers
and its internal database and IBM CICS systems. The exchange of this
product informationsizes, colors and various other product attributesis essen-
tial to getting products in front of Sears customers in a timely way. Until the infor-
mation is in the system, Sears has no way to market and sell the product through
any of its channels.
Uhlyariks team chose to pilot SOA by creating a supplier information exchange
service. Initially the team would test the service with one vendor. After that, the plan
was to roll it out to all vendors. It will save a great deal of time spent retyping and
scanning the data each time it is updated. And with 3,000 suppliers, just think of
the potential time savings, notes Uhlyarik.
Following an initial proof-of-concept, the ESB team can now make the supplier
information exchange service available for other suppliers with just a few clicks,
while the custom developers continue to create more custom point-to-point con-
nections. WebSphere ESB converts messages as needed to maintain the ow of
information through the system.
The savings will grow dramatically with each supplier joining the system. We have
to look ahead two or three years to see the payback, says Uhlyarik. But already,
Sears Canada can clearly see the ROI advantages of our IBM SOA solution.
Solution Components
Servers
IBM System p
Software
IBM AIX
IBM WebSphere Application Server
IBM WebSphere Enterprise

Service Bus
IBM WebSphere Service Registry

and Repository
Page 35 of 60
5%-15% increase in code reuse
Every IT initiative at Sears Canada must be based on a clear business case with a
positive payback. In the case of vendor data exchange, the infrastructure team
estimated 5%-15% of code was suitable for reuse and calculated that the effort
would deliver an attractive payback even at a seemingly low 5% level of reuse.
In addition to hard-dollar savings realized through code reuse, the benets Sears
Canada expects to receive from its SOA investment include:
Greater exibility, responsiveness and efficiency
Faster deployment of products and services
Improved customer, dealer, supplier and partner experience
Improved developer productivity
More reliable code and fewer support problems
More efficient maintenance

The most prominent sign of the success of the Sears Canada SOA initiative, how-
ever, can be seen in the response of senior IT and business management to the
effort. Our 2009 plan with SOA was approved at the executive level. The plan has
made it through a very rigorous analysis where a lot of projects just fell by the way-
side, Uhlyarik concludes. That represents success by any measure.
WSC14089-USEN-00
IBM Corporation
Software Group
Route 100
Somers, NY 10589
U.S.A.
April 2009
All Rights Reserved
IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, AIX, CICS,
System p and WebSphere are trademarks or
registered trademarks of International Business
Machines Corporation in the United States,
other countries, or both. If these and other
IBM trademarked terms are marked on their
rst occurrence in this information with a
trademark symbol ( or
TM
), these symbols
indicate U.S. registered or common law
trademarks owned by IBM at the time this
information was published. Such trademarks
may also be registered or common law
trademarks in other countries. A current list of
IBM trademarks is available on the Web at
Copyright and trademark information at
ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml.
Other product, company or service names may
This case study is an example of how one
customer uses IBM products. There is no
guarantee of comparable results.
and services do not imply that IBM intends to
IBM operates.
Contact your IBM sales representative or IBM Business Partner. Visit us at:
ibm.com/soa
ibm.com/websphere
For more information on Sears Canada, visit: www.sears.ca
Page 36 of 60
Overview
South American Retailer
Industry
Retail
Employees
16,000
Products
IBM
WebSphere
Portal
Enable
IBMLotus
WorkplaceWeb
ContentManagement
Linux
Case Study Quickview

South American retailer improves productivity by delivering
information to the point of sale using IBM WebSphere Portal
Retailer deploys IBM WebSphere Portal Enable and IBM Lotus Workplace
Web Content Management to enable an enterprise-wide sales
information portal, dramatically improving productivity and information
access while eliminating millions of printed pages annually.
Challenge
TheITinfrastructureatamajorSouthAmericanretailercouldnotsupport
reliabledistributionofinformationtoemployeeswithinthetimeframesrequiredto
supportsales.Thecompanywaslosingbusinessbecausesalespersonscould
notprovidedetailedproductinformationtocustomers.Additionally,theprocess
forcommunicatingnewproductlinesandweekendofferinformationwashighly
inefficient,andthecompanylackedacentralrepositoryfortheinformation.
Byimprovingitscommunicationssystemstoprovideseamlessinformationdelivery
fromheadquarterstothesalesfloor,theretailercoulddeliverimmediate,accurate
informationtoeachsalespersoninordertoansweranyandallproductquestionsa
customermighthave.
Solution
ThecompanychoseaportalsolutioncomprisedofIBMWebSpherePortalEnable
andIBMLotusWorkplaceWebContentManagementrunningontheLinux
operatingsystem.Thesetoolshaveenabledthecompanytodeployanintranet
productandsalesinformationportalacrosstheenterprise.WithLotusWorkplace
Web ContentManagement,informationiseasilymanagedandupdatedfromback-
endsystemsatthecompanysheadquartersandaccessedviaLinuxdesktopsand
thinclientsineachstore.
TheWebsiteprovidesupdatedcontentregardingeverypertinentaspectofsales.
With10to20terminalsineachretaillocation,everysalespersonnowhasconvenient
accesstoproductdetailsandinformationonsalesandpromotions.
Page 37 of 60
CopyrightIBMCorporation2009
IBMCorporation
SoftwareGroup
Route100
Somers,NY10589
U.S.A.
June2009
AllRightsReserved
IBM,theIBMlogo,ibm.com,LotusandWebSphere
aretrademarksofInternationalBusinessMachines
Corporation,registeredinmanyjurisdictionsworldwide.
AcurrentlistofIBMtrademarksisavailableontheWeb
atCopyrightandtrademarkinformationatibm.com/
legal/copytrade.shtml.
LinuxisaregisteredtrademarkofLinusTorvaldsinthe
UnitedStates,othercountries,orboth.
Othercompany,productorservicenamesmaybe
trademarksorservicemarksofothers.
Theinformationcontainedinthisdocumentationis
providedforinformationalpurposesonly.Whileefforts
weremadetoverifythecompletenessandaccuracy
oftheinformationcontainedinthisdocumentation,itis
providedasiswithoutwarrantyofanykind,express
orimplied.Inaddition,thisinformationisbasedon
IBMscurrentproductplansandstrategy,whichare
subjecttochangebyIBMwithoutnotice.IBMshall
notberesponsibleforanydamagesarisingoutofthe
useof,orotherwiserelatedto,thisdocumentationor
anyotherdocumentation.Nothingcontainedinthis
documentationisintendedto,norshallhavetheeffect
of,creatinganywarrantiesorrepresentationsfrom
IBM(oritssuppliersorlicensors),oralteringtheterms
andconditionsoftheapplicablelicenseagreement
governingtheuseofIBMsoftware.
LOC14125-USEN-00
Benefts
Thenewsystemreducesunnecessaryworkloadandimprovesproductivity
acrossthecompanybecauseallsalespeoplenowhavecompleteandimmediate
accesstotheinformationneededtomakeasale
Thecompanyhasrealizedamassivereductioninprintingcosts,eliminating
approximately180,000printoutsperweekendandover10millionprintouts
annually
Thecompanycanimmediatelyrespondtocompetitorpromotionsbystorearea
withacompetitiveinitiativeandeasilydistributetherightinformationtoaffected
employees
Page 38 of 60
Australian retailer focuses on
business processes as the entry point
to service-oriented computing.
Spotlight turns around IT with business process-based SOA
Service Oriented Architecture
DeepView case study
October 2008
Page 39 of 60
Australian retailer focuses on business processes as
the entry point to service-oriented computing.
Page 2
Contents
Introduction
Founded in 1973 by two brothers, Spotlight Proprietary Limited is a privately
owned crafts and soft furnishings retailer based in Australia, with 106 stores
located across Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Hong Kong. In addition,
it has 12 Anaconda superstores in Australia, selling outdoor adventure goods,
clothes and equipment.
Spotlight is a very large business, with more than 6,000 employees. Stores
and catalogs generate approximately one million sales transactions a day, with
annual sales approaching A$1B in 2008. The product mix is highly seasonal
and rotates quickly throughout the year. At any one time, some 250,000 out
of 500,000 SKUs are active. A mission-critical loyalty program is another
measure of Spotlights success, with fve million registered customers.
Anne McDiarmid is the Chief Information Offcer for Spotlight Proprietary
Limited. Her responsibility is to provide the technology to support both the
Spotlight and Anaconda brands, plus provision back-offce IT. When she
arrived at Spotlight, IT was at a breaking point.
In this DeepView, Ms. McDiarmid discusses how she and KAZ Group, an IBM
Business Partner, introduced process- and service-based computing to support
the Spotlight business. KAZ Group, located in Australia, focuses predomi-
nantly on applications development and systems integration.
3 The challenge: an IT
infrastructure at risk of
imminent failure
4 The strategy for change:
start with understanding the
business processes
6 Developing a roadmap for
implementation
7 Integrating legacy and new
systems with a services-based
approach
7 Selecting the right tools for
end-to-end process control
10 Where is Spotlight today?
11 Taking the transformation to
the next level
13 Lesson learned: bring in the
right help at the right time
14 The final analysis: it begins
and ends with process
management
Page 40 of 60
Page 3
The challenge: an IT infrastructure at risk of imminent failure
When I joined Spotlight in late 2006, the company had enjoyed 35 years of
highly successful retailing and continual growth. As a result, Spotlight was
heavily invested in propertythe bricks-and-mortar side of the business.
However, the company had only made information technology an investment
priority for the previous seven or so years and that was without suffcient stra-
tegic dimension or vision. For example, the point-of-sale (POS) system had only
been in our stores for some seven yearsand even it was 10 releases behind the
current version. We also had several homegrown legacy systems, plus one com-
mercial fnancial package that had been hacked beyond recognition. It might
originally have been out-of-the-box, but this was now impossible to tell. And
we had middleware connecting to middleware (Figure 1).
Solution components
Software
IBM WebSphere

Process Server
IBM WebSphere Commerce Server
IBM WebSphere Portal
Figure 1. Before the start of its IT transformation initiatives, Spotlights infrastructure had not kept pace
with the needs of the rapidly growing retail operations.
Suppliers
Warehouse
Supply
Direct
Purchase
Purchasesof
GoodsReceipts
Salesand
LayBys
Goods Receipt
Finance
&Stock
Spotlight
Legacy
Applications
Merchandising, Marketing, Finance
Product,Price,Promos,StoreInfo(PPP)
VIP
Product/
Price/
Promo
Stage
Process6
Process2
Process3
Process4
Process5
www
Process1
Insufficient investment in IT infra-
structure had left Spotlight without
a way to provide the business
with accurate sales, product or
price information.
We had no parallel processing. Everything was performed overnight,
sequentially. Even basic sales information was lacking, or so out of date as
to be largely worthless. Instead of daily sales summaries, we were waiting
until Thursday each following week to fnd out the previous weeks sales.
And, depending on where you went, you could get a different version of what
sales were.
Page 41 of 60
Page 4
Highlights
The retailers continued growth
resulted in new stores, which put
more stress on already overloaded
legacy systems.
To make matters worse, we could not guarantee product and price. We could
not tell you what inventory was in the business, nor did we have any means of
knowing what we had sold. Instead, we had a simple system that replenished
what we soldwhether it was old stock or new stock. Furthermore, we did not
run on traditional min-maxes. We had no visibility across the chain of how
our product sales were being achieved in terms of growth.
What we had, therefore, was a failure in terms of delivery to our stores, and
therefore to our customers. Yet we continued to be highly successful. We kept
adding stores. Unfortunately, that meant we kept adding load to our already-
stressed legacy systems. We had failures in products and pricing every day, just
basically because we had no message queuing or even automatic restart capa-
bility. In short, the business may have been growing, but the IT infrastructure
was simply not keeping up.
The strategy for change: start with understanding the business processes
From soon after my appointment, it was clear that my priority was to address
these shortcomings. The imperative had become fnding an escape from what
all too easily might become a business threatening trap. Once I understood the
scale of the issues we were facing and the resources I had to work with, I real-
ized we needed additional help.
Spotlight had a team of about 55 IT professionals who had been working with-
out the beneft of defned processes or basic disciplines. They were willing and
conscientious in terms of supporting our customers in the business. But most
of their time was spent fghting fres.
KAZ Group, under Senior Solution Architect Vicki Redwoods leadership,
brought in a team of analysts to help us develop a strategy for building an
IT infrastructure that could support our business and enable continued
growth. The KAZ team took us back to square oneunderstanding our
business processes.
With the in-house IT team spending
most of its resources fighting fires,
Spotlight looked to IBM Business
Partner KAZ Group for assistance
in addressing the IT shortcomings.
Page 42 of 60
Page 5
Highlights
We call this effort the process fow saga, because it took three long months
to arrive at accurate diagrams of what our systems did and what our process
fows were (Figure 2). At the time, this process fow analysis seemed endless.
From talking with other organizations, we now know that our experience was
neither unique nor all that lengthy. But at the time, it felt like we were not
making much overt progress.
Figure 2. Spotlights IT transformation began with a detailed mapping of the processes behind the
retailers core business.
PRODUCT
MASTER
PLU Ref. Data
(warehouse lines)
Warehouse
Shipment Costs
Eagle
IETL190
PRONTO
Raven
Walka (NZ)
Sub Dept Sales
Purchases & Interstores
Shipment Rece
Virtual Shipment
Keyed
Receipts
Store Credit Claims
(Whouse & Supplier)
CREDIT
CLAIMS
STOCK
RECEIPTS
PLU COUNTS
PD
STAG
BC
Store claim
approvals
Buyers
C
o
u
n
t
A
d
ju
s
t
m
e
n
t
s
Store
On Hand,
rder Status
Eagle
Cockatoo
Claims
CREDIT
CLAIMS
CLAIM
REPORTING via
SQL reporting
IETL 350
STOCKTAKE
MASTER
Client PC
IETL251
IETL280
IETL 250
CREDIT
CLAIMS
Hornbill
???
???
???
Head Office
terstore
ansfers
Shipping
dept.
Before Spotlight could transform
its IT operations, it needed to
understand the business processes
IT supports.
An end-to-end process mapping
helped the IT team see how applica-
tions and data related to the needs
of the business.
Nevertheless, this represented a watershed for many on my team. Until we went
through this exercise, they did not understand how, by tweaking this or adding
that, they had all too effectively inhibited the use of what IT and applications
we did have.
Page 43 of 60
Page 6
Highlights
Another eye-opener for us all was the process mapping. Spotlight is a retailer.
We buy and we sell. Everything is about products and price. It should be
simple, but in many cases it is not. So what we focused on was the end-to-end
process for a sales transaction: How did we buy a product and receive it into
stock? How did we move a product from stock to the store? How did we record
the sale and capture the transaction data in our systems? Where did the sales
data end up in the legacy systems?
At the end of the saga, the IT team understood what the business was about.
And once we understood how many different versions of the truth we had in
circulation, we could begin to rationalize.
Developing a roadmap for implementation
Once we thoroughly understood our as is situationfrom both a business
process and a technology perspectiveit was time to change. We needed a
roadmap to new, replacement, systems while keeping the old systems going. At
the same time, we were plagued with systems instability. Our legacy systems
were failing. In order to keep the business running, we just hoped we had the
time to make replacements before something irrevocably broke.
We had to identify priorities what we could live with for the long term, and
what needed addressing sooner. We also needed the control to selectively turn
off some parts while leaving others on. That meant thinking about how we
might run some elements in parallel, at least until the new parts were proven.
For example, we decided early on that we had to replace our point-of-sale
system immediately in one country. Yet this could not happen overnight;
it had to occur gradually over some six months. We also decided to add enter-
prise resource planning (ERP) capability, so we chose both a new point-of-sale
system and SAP Retail for ERP.
The next step was to identify
which legacy systems to retain
and which to retireand to
develop a phased implementation
plan that would support ongoing
business operations.
Page 44 of 60
Page 7
Highlights
Integrating legacy and new systems with a services-based approach
We decided, with KAZs encouragement, to break the old systems into what
we now refer to as services, or small components. The advantage was that the
business could understand what each part was doing and then could choose
when to turn on (or off) selected business functionality.
This also enabled us to combine parts (services) that previously could not
have been combined, as well as introduce new services and functions that
could work with old ones. For example, we could create a mixture of old point-
of-sale and new point-of-sale systems feeding old and new applications all of
which was automatically achieved by putting the service layer in between.
Even with this phase completed, and with a rationalization of the middleware
that connected everything, we still needed end-to-end control. Our architec-
tural solution, suggested by KAZ, was to add a process service layer on top so
that we would apply automated coordination and control from start to fnish.
A further beneft of this was that we were then able to introduce a degree of
parallel processing without having to change the old systems. The important
aspect to remember, however, is that this process service layer could only work
because we were breaking functions up into services and placing the service
architecture at the center.
Selecting the right tools for end-to-end process control
The next question we addressed was tool selection. As a dynamic retail
business with continuous events, we could not afford any loss of business
capability. We could not contemplate turning off the point-of-sale system for
a week to install a new one, nor could we shut down the business for three
weeks to introduce ERP. We needed to migrate slowly across different stores in
different locations, from legacy to new, and perform this seamlessly so there
would be no signifcant impact on the business. These were the most critical
factors for us.
Introducing a services layer
enabled Spotlight to integrate
business functions in new ways
and readily add new capabilities.
The one missing component was a
way to control business processes
end-to-end.
Spotlight began to look at applica-
tions in terms of the business
functions they performed, which
were defined as services.
Page 45 of 60
Page 8
Highlights
With this in mind, Vickis team proposed IBM WebSphere
Process Server.
The attraction was that it provides the basis for end-to-end control over at
least fve disparate systems. With one process control point, we could see and
manage everything, from goods going to the store through to sales being
recognized in the head offce (Figure 3).
HidgZhcZlhnhiZb
Hedia^\]i=ZVYD[[^XZ
LZWHe]ZgZEgdXZhhHZgkZg CZl
EDH
6eea^XVi^dc
Dji\d^c\
EgdXZhhZh
>cXdb^c\
EgdXZhhZh
EgdXZhh8dcigda
Ldg`[adl
EgdXZhh8dcigda
Ldg`[adl
>ckZcidgn
6eea^XVi^dc
=dbZ
D[[^XZ
6eea^XVi^dc HidgZhdaYhnhiZb
DaYEDH
6eea^XVi^dc
6
e
e
a
^
X
V
i
^
d
c
h
Z
g
k
Z
g
h
Z
g
k
a
Z
i
XMLdata
XMLdata
MQ
MQ
SMTP
MultipleWebSphere
MQqueues
(oneperstore)
Import
changed
data
Spotlight
employees
Web
service
Webservice
JMS
JMS
JavaMail
JDBC
XML
data
XML
data
JMS
AZ\VXn
6eea^XVi^dch
Figure 3. WebSphere Process Server provides a central point of control over business events while
integrating the fow of business processes across multiple applications.
The company selected IBM
WebSphere Process Server
to provide a single process
control point over multiple
disparate systems.
The process control layer
coordinates business events
across five applications, handling
errors and generating alerts.
WebSphere Process Server is now being used as our virtual process control.
It coordinates business events across our fve main applications as well as
performing error handling and generating alerts. Now we can see what is hap-
pening, which is good. Yet we also discovered we could see errors that we did
not even know were occurring. Nevertheless, we now have consistent process
fows and process monitoring across many asynchronous steps, which are
being performed in a mix of old and new applications.
Page 46 of 60
Page 9
Highlights
This is a huge improvement. Before, we looked like a monolithic IT shop with
the business having minimal control and no responsibility. Now the business
has information and must take responsibility. It is a fundamental change that
has been achieved by using services and process management. The business
and IT work more closely together than ever before.
Part of what has helped here is a set of common defnitions that work for
both business and IT (Figure 4). While it may seem a statement of the
obvious, having a common understanding of what constitutes a sale or a
trend or a product is critical. Now, when business and IT people talk, we
know we are talking about the same thing. That has already proved to be
an incredible winning situation for the business and for my developers, and
we consider it to be a best practice for any services-based transformation.
A common set of definitions
developed during the business
process analysis phasehelps
ensure that business and IT speak
the same language.
Data
Header
Transaction
Headerdetails
Void
VoidedTransaction
details
Audit Log
Auditdetailslogged
duringorbefore
aPOStransaction
Transaction
Detailsloggedat
thecompletion
ofthePOS
transaction
Customer
Customer
details
LayBy
Laybydetails
recordedduring
thetransaction
Items
Repeatinggroup
thatcontains
multipleItem
elementswithin
thetransaction
CeIIar Shares
DetailsofCellar
Sharesidentified
duringthe
transaction
Vouchers
Repeatinggroup
thatcontains
detailsofVouchers
issuedduring
thetransaction
Issued
Rain Check
DetailsofRainCheck
issuedduring
thetransaction
Redeemed
Rain Checks
Detailsof
RainCheck(s)
redeemedduring
thetransaction
Tendering
Transaction
Tendering
details
GP Extras
GeneralPayments
detailscollected
duringthepayment
transaction
Footer
Transaction
Footerdetails
Figure 4. Business and IT agreed on a set of defnitions that provides a common vocabulary for
describing business functions.
Page 47 of 60
Page 10
Highlights
Where is Spotlight today?
At the time of this writing, we have made incredible inroads into reshaping
how Spotlight delivers and exploits IT. We are 20 months into our transfor-
mation, and we are about one-third of the way through our plan. We have
implemented WebSphere Process Server it is live and running. We are in
the fnal stages of testing SAP for Retail, and that will shortly be going live
(Figure 5).
SuppIiers
Warehouse
Supply
Direct
Purchase
Purchasesof
GoodsReceipts
Sales&LayBys
PPPfromSAP
tooldsystems
Product,Price,Promos
Stock/StoreOrders
ASN,Invoices,Goods
SAPinStore-Purchasing,ReceivingandInventoryControl
ASN,Invoices,
Goods,Tracking
Stock/StoreOrders
PPP
Salesand
LayBys
Goods Receipt
Transport
Companies
Finance
&Stock
Spotlight
Legacy
Applications
WebSphere
ProcessServer
MQ
Finance
Merchandising, Marketing
Product,Price,
Promos,Store
Info(PPP)
VIP
Product/
Price/
Promo
Stage
Process6
Process2
Process3
Process4
Process5
www
Process1
Inventory Retail
MasterData SAP
Figure 5. This diagram illustrates the progress of Spotlights IT transformation at the time of this writing.
A phased rollout of new POS
systems to stores was implemented
in parallel with bringing a new ERP
solution online.
Page 48 of 60
Page 11
Highlights
Already we are more than halfway through introducing the new point-of-sale
systems. We have about 120 stores to do over a four-month period, at a rate of
about 810 per week. Now that we have the installation process refned, these
are going in smoothly. In the interim before SAP goes live, they are fed by the
services at the front end of our legacy systems.
Using the services-based approach, we are already combining product
hierarchies across the new SAP system and the legacy systems. Similarly, we
have started to create orders on the new ERP system regardless of whether
they point to the new point-of-sale or old point-of-sale system. To us these are
all enormous wins.
The feedback from stores has been amazing. I received yet another e-mail
recently saying how much a staff member likes the new systemnot least
because it enables her to support her customers much better. Furthermore, the
rollout has not impeded our catalog business and its related sales.
Taking the transformation to the next level
Next on our agenda is a retooling of our Web site. We have selected IBM
WebSphere Commerce Server to be our new Web store. After that there are
additional systems we will update, change or reuse (Figure 6). But thanks
to the services approach and the way that WebSphere Process Server can be
used, we have a fexibility of choice. This is highly attractive, especially now
that we have mapped our processes and understand our data.
The services-based approach
enabled Spotlight to combine data
across the new and old point-of-
sale systems, legacy applications
and the new SAP system.
Page 49 of 60
Page 12
Highlights
We also plan to implement IBM WebSphere Portal as our new internal com-
munications mechanism. With 6,000 employees, some of them short-term
or even temporary contractors, effective communications and easy access to
training materials are additional business imperatives. The portal will allow
us to do training locally, at the store level, while ensuring consistency by
keeping documentation updated and available centrally.
WebSphere Portal also offers us the option for expanding our marketing
initiatives on the Web. With fve million registered members in our loyalty
program, we see tremendous potential in using WebSphere Portal to create a
powerful social networking community with our customers.
Figure 6. Future plans call for implementing a new infrastructure for Web retailing and a
portal-based intranet.
Sales&LayBys
Product,Price,Promos
Stock/StoreOrders
ASN,Invoices,Goods
SAPinStore-Purchasing,ReceivingandInventoryControl
ASN,Invoices,
Goods,Tracking
Stock/StoreOrders
PPP
AllSales
Inventory
Availability
(ATP)-SAP
andTransport
SAP
Processes
Transport
Companies
WebSphere
ProcessServer
WebSphere
Commerce
eStores
WebSphere
Portal
MQ
MQ
Finance
Merchandising, Marketing
Inventory Retail
MasterData SAP
The next steps in Spotlights IT
transformation will be to retool
the Web site and implement an
employee portal.
Page 50 of 60
Page 13
Highlights
Lesson learned: bring in the right help at the right time
The single most important lesson I have learned from what we went through
is that you should never underestimate the size of the task. Spotlight needed
help to achieve what we have done. We needed the KAZ team to come in and
show us what was in front of us and to have that extra level of knowledge and
experience that our IT team, however well motivated, simply lacked.
If we had tried to do everything ourselves we would have been slower and
more error prone, as well as less imaginative. One does not always have
objective thinking when one is on the inside. For us this lesson learned is
all about fnding the best people to help understand the business together
and then to achieve a gradual skills transfer.
The result has been to change how IT supports the business. We now have a
coherent IT operation and an expanded, more skilled IT team that aims to
understand and fulfll the business requirements. We can now use services
because everything we do is oriented around the business processes.
From a CIO viewpoint, perhaps the biggest value has been that my IT depart-
ment now understands our business processes. We are not techies anymore.
We are Business Process Retail Technicians. Furthermore, the obverse is true:
the business also understands the drivers and levers that affect IT. The busi-
ness is both more realistic and imaginative, now that it understands the layers
and the services as well as the complexity of what we have developed.
With the new skills they acquired,
Spotlights IT staff is now focused
on understanding and meeting the
needs of the business.
The knowledge and resources
provided by KAZplus that
teams objective point of view
were critical to the success of
the project.
Page 51 of 60
Page 14
Highlights
The fnal analysis: it begins and ends with process management
Looking back, I do not think we had even heard of the term SOA until
comparatively recently. Rather, we adopted the approach that KAZ brought
to us as a way of reaching our objectives. They convinced us that the process
management approach would enable us to move from A to Z without signif-
cant negative effects on the business. There was never any discussion of SOA
principles that I can recall.
Instead, the focus was on what WebSphere Process Server would allow us to
doon the function and effect, not the architectural principles. I remember
thinking that it all sounded really good, almost too good. Ours was a business-
driven decision. It was not a conceptually driven conclusion.
That is not, however, to downplay SOA. We did not know we were delivering
according to SOA principles. We did not know that others had arrived at
the sorts of conclusions we had. Now I can see that we did SOA without
knowing about SOAand this confrms to me just how effective SOA is and
continues to be for the business.
While the project did not begin
with a formal decision to take
advantage of SOA, it was
immediately evident that the
initiative would benefit greatly by
adhering to SOA design principles.
Page 52 of 60
Page 15
About IBM
IBM is a global computer products and services company, with close to
US$97 billion in sales, approximately 386,000 employees, and operations
spanning more than 150 countries and including thousands of clients,
Business Partners and suppliers. As one of the worlds largest IT companies,
IBM strives to invent, develop and manufacture the industrys most advanced
information technologies, including computer systems, software, network-
ing systems, storage devices and microelectronics. Its worldwide network of
services professionals provides the extensive expertise clients need to create
business value using IBMs leading technological solutions.
About KAZ
KAZ Group, an IBM Premier Business Partner, is the largest Australian-owned
IT services company, providing innovative and fexible IT solutions that help
clients simplify, optimize and transform the way clients do business. As a
separately managed subsidiary of Telstra, KAZ combines a 30-year heritage in
IT with the networks and connectivity options of Australias leading telecom-
munications and information services company.
To learn more about the many ways IBM can help you build and manage a
Smart SOA
solution for transforming business processes, please contact your

IBM representative or IBM Business Partner. Or visit us at:
ibm.com/soa
To learn more about KAZ Group, an IBM Premier Business Partner, visit:
kaz-group.com
Page 53 of 60
IBM Corporation
Software Group
Route 100
Somers, NY 10589
U.S.A.
October-08
All Rights Reserved
IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, Smart SOA and
WebSphere are trademarks or registered
trademarks of International Business Machines
Corporation in the United States, other countries,
or both. If these and other IBM trademarked
terms are marked on their first occurrence in this
information with a trademark symbol (
or
),
these symbols indicate U.S. registered or com-
mon law trademarks owned by IBM at the time
this information was published. Such trademarks
may also be registered or common law trade-
marks in other countries. A current list of IBM
trademarks is available on the Web at Copyright
and trademark information at www.ibm.com/
legal/copytrade.shtml.
Other company, product, or service names may
This case study illustrates how one IBM customer
uses IBM products. There is no guarantee of
comparable results.
or services do not imply that IBM intends to make
them available in all countries in which IBM
operates.
WSC14063-USEN-00
Page 54 of 60
Yansha department store
embraces supplier collaboration
to streamline processes
Innovation that matters
Key Benefits

Reduced order lead time from
2.5 days to 4.5 hours

Improved order acknowledgement
rate from 80 to 99 percent

Reduced order error rate from nine
to one percent

Achieved ROI in nine months
Overview
Business Challenge
In order to maintain its market
leadership position, Chinese
retailer Yansha needed to
increase its competitiveness
against both local retailers and
new foreign competitors in an
increasingly deregulated Chinese
retail industry. Yansha saw that
the best way forward was to trans-
form the way it does business
with its supply chain partners
through the adoption of new busi-
ness processes, automation and
business intelligence.
Solution
Yansha deployed a first-of-its-kind
supply chain management (SCM)
platform that leverages a service-
oriented architecture (SOA) to inte-
grate enterprise resource planning
(ERP) and SCM applications. The
platform enables Yansha and its
suppliers to leverage new real-time
performance information to provide
transparency into supply chain
business processes and generate
actionable business intelligence,
setting new standards of efficiency.
A rapidly changing retail landscape
The retail industry in the vast
Chinese marketplace is very differ-
ent from that in the West. Retailers
have historically been highly region-
alized, and the overall market has
been largely closed to competition
from foreign companies. With the
rapid growth of the Chinese econ-
omy and relaxation of regulations,
that is changing rapidly. Mergers
and acquisitions are on the rise lead-
ing to industry consolidation and
expansion beyond regional boundar-
ies, and Chinese retailers must now
share the market with global compa-
nies as well.
Page 55 of 60
2
Transforming the supply chain through real-time performance information
This adds up to unprecedented competitive pressure for Yansha, one of Chinas
largest regional retailers. Yansha is an upscale brand with revenues in the
billions of Yuan each year and 215,000 square feet of retail space at its Youyi
Shopping City in Beijing. Catering to an upscale clientele, Yansha sells high-
end, exclusive goods from brands such as Versace, Prada and Calvin Klein.
Yansha has long displayed industry leadership. Opened in 1992, Yansha
was the first retailer operating as a joint venture in China to introduce modern
enterprise processes and computer systems aimed at improving managerial
methodologies. In 2000, it implemented IBM Business Partner eFutures ONE
POS-ERP suite, providing it new levels of internal efficiency. In 2003, the ERP
suite was upgraded with SCM capabilities.
But Yansha was not realizing the full potential of its systems. With the rapid
pace of change in the retail landscape, Yansha knew that it had to do more
if it was to maintain its leadership position. Faced with the prospect of having
to compete with highly efficient foreign competitors, Yansha realized that it
had to optimize its supply chain and improve efficiency among its 1,800-plus
local and international suppliers, and that leveraging technology was the way
to do it. This quantum shift represented a radical departure for Yansha, which
like its local competitors, was still doing business manually for the most part,
relying on paper-based processes and interaction via telephone and fax.
Yansha faced two fundamental challenges in its effort to optimize its supply
chain: first, to streamline and automate its business processes, and second,
to find a way to get all of its suppliers to buy into a new, more efficient way of
doing business.
Transforming business processes for enhanced decision-making
Despite its implementation of an enterprise suite, a number of obstacles
continued reliance on manual processes, the siloed nature of many of its sys-
tems and a lack of integration with supply chain partnerswere hampering
Yanshas ability to track and integrate information in real time and generate
actionable business intelligence from it. More than 30 key supply chain pro-
cesses were handled manually. The result was low productivity, high error rates
and inaccurate business data, all leading to reduced competitiveness.
To transform its processes for more informed decision-making, Yansha worked
with the IBM China Research Lab (CRL) and eFuture to develop Blue Engine,
a process-driven SCM platform built specifically for the retailer. Blue Engine
incorporates both automated business processes (such as purchase orders,
shipping notification, invoicing, payment and return of goods) and new function-
ality based on IBM WebSphere
Process Server and IBM DB2
middleware.
Business Benets
Increased supplier information
service revenue by 50 percent
Reduced order lead time from
2.5 days to 4.5 hours, driving down
inventory costs
Improved order acknowledgement
rate from 80 to 99 percent
Reduced order error rate from nine
to one percent
Achieved ROI in nine months
Enhanced operating and business
process efciencies, visibility, asset
structure and both customer and
supplier satisfaction
Enabled the creation of a value-based
supplier pricing model that uses new
supplier performance metrics
Reduced operating risks due to
optimization of supplier relationship
protability and lower error rates
Exchanging our
data and interacting
closely will enable us
to respond to the
market appropriately.
Mr. Ai Jie Ma, Director of Yansha
Technical and Information Department
Page 56 of 60
3
By integrating information from existing systems with new automated
processes through a service-oriented architecture, Blue Engine accomplishes
several key objectives:
Automates the supply chain management-related key business processes among
people, across multiple existing applications and between Yansha and its suppliers
Improves visibility through real-time monitoring of business processes, generating
key performance indicators (KPIs) such as order acceptance rate and on-time
delivery rate that enhance decision-making capabilities
Provides suppliers with better online information services to make customer buying
behavior, sales trend and process information transparent, enabling suppliers to
adjust and optimize their operations to satisfy market demand. This increases supplier
willingness to pay for these fee-based services (thereby increasing revenue), while
encouraging them to move away from manual interactions thus improving overall
supply chain efficiency
Because of the need for the efficient integration of information, processes
and systems across the enterprise and out into the supply chain, the adoption
of SOA is a key part of Blue Engine. It provides the flexibility to quickly build
new solutions (and change existing ones) based on immediate business need.
SOA also enables greater interaction with suppliers through Web-based delivery
of services, which fosters greater responsiveness. According to Mr. Ai Jie Ma,
Director of Yansha Technical and Information Department, This solution will
help us build an information platform together with our suppliers in their internal
information system. Exchanging our data and interacting closely will enable us
to respond to the market appropriately.
With Blue Engine, many of Yanshas paper-based manual processes have
become a thing of the past. Workflow-related activities such as issuing purchase
orders and checking inventory are pushed directly to appropriate users via
mobile short messages, browser-based workspace and e-mail triggering alerts
when activity processing is delayed, and significantly improving business
process execution. Business users can also employ collaboration utilities such
as mobile short message services to find the right person to solve potential
process issues, which helps streamline resources and avoid rework.
The power of real-time information
The Blue Engine project pioneered the first application of a process automation-
based workflow engine using IBM China Research Labs Web 2.0-based visual-
ization and interactive business process monitoring technology for Chinas retail
industry. This visualization technology enables Yansha management to get an
accurate, real-time view of its supply chain, delivered through a dashboard that
displays continuously updated key performance indicators. This in turn provides
a solid basis for business decision-making and process optimization.
Key Components
Software
IBM WebSphere Process Server
IBM DB2 database software
Services
IBM China Research Lab
eFuture
Why it matters
In the vast Chinese retail market,
deregulation has been driving increased
competition from regional players as
well as newly arrived international
companies. In order to maintain its
leadership position in the marketplace,
major Beijing retailer Yansha deployed
an SOA-based supply-chain manage-
ment solutionan industry-rst in China
that enabled the company to expand
its capabilities and transform the way it
does business with over 1,800 suppliers.
Thanks to streamlined, automated pro-
cesses and new business intelligence,
Yansha has been able to increase its
competitive edge over other retailers by
optimizing the efciency and protability
of its entire supply chain.
Page 57 of 60
ODC03019-USEN-00
More importantly, real-time information enables Yansha to work more effectively
and efficiently with its suppliers. The retailer now has the information it needs
to accurately categorize its suppliers based on a number of factors including
their profitability, monthly selling trends and level of activity. This has enabled
Yansha to come up with a completely new, value-based supplier pricing model
that gives preferential treatment to those vendors which are most valuable and
profitable for the company. In this way, suppliers are given an incentive to work
efficiently: superior performance is rewarded with a better deal.
The availability of new information provided by the solution has also enabled
Yansha to provide enhanced fee-based online information services to its
suppliers, which not only encourages them to adopt the new methods, but also
generates additional revenue for the retailer.
Competitive advantage, greater efficiency. . . and satisfied suppliers
All 1,800 of Yanshas suppliers actively use the supply chain management
solution and supplier satisfaction has improved significantly. The improvements
in efficiency are dramatic: Order acknowledgement (a required verification
step in the supplier order/fulfillment process) is up from 80 to 99 percent, order
lead time has dropped from 2.5 days to only 4.5 hours and error rates are down
from nine percent to only one percent. Risk and cost have both been reduced,
and competitiveness is greatly improved. Even the revenue generated by online
supplier information services has increased by 50 percent.
Our shopping mall now has a technical advantage, notes Mr. Ma. We have
a leading role in securing prospective sites, enabling us to rebuild business
processes and stay competitive. It is a classic case of information technologys
business value for corporations.
To find out how better use of your information assets can help transform your
business, please contact your IBM representative or IBM Business Partner.
Visit us at:
ibm.com/innovation

IBM Corporation
Global Solutions, Industry Marketing
294 Route 100
Somers, NY 10589
U.S.A.
11-07
All Rights Reserved
IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, DB2 and WebSphere
are trademarks or registered trademarks of
International Business Machines Corporation in
the United States, other countries, or both.
Other company, product, or service names may
Many factors contributed to the results and
benefits achieved by the IBM customer described
in this document. IBM does not guarantee
comparable results.
IBM operates.
Page 58 of 60
SWM14010-USEN-00
IBM Corporation
Route 100
Somers, NY 10589
U.S.A.
January 2010
All Rights Reserved
IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, Smarter Planet, the planet icon, DB2,
Lotus, Rational, Tivoli and WebSphere are trademarks of International
Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries
or both.
Other company, product and service names might be trademarks of
IBM or other companies. A current list of IBM trademarks is available
on the Web at ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml
References in this publication to IBM products and services do not
imply that IBM intends to make them available in all countries in which
IBM operates.
These customer stories are each based on information provided by
the client and illustrate how one organization uses IBM products.
Many factors may have contributed to the results and benefts
described; IBM does not guarantee comparable results elsewhere.

Retail Customer Ebook

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Retail Customer Ebook

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Smart Work in Retail Customer Stories

Smart Work in Retail Customer Stories

Enables more rapid creation and

Facilitates cross-selling between

Provides the potential for information

Ensures a consistent look and feel

Provides a rich, differentiated customer

Reduces maintenance and

IBM WebSphere Commerce

IBM WebSphere Message Broker

IBM Power Systems

IBM Global Business Services

IBM Global Financing

IBM Lotus Notes

IBM Lotus software

Portal linked to other

, Lotus Quickr, Portal

Increased revenue from an

Expected increase in customer loy-

Ability to deliver seamless

Expected increase in customer

Commerce into retail stores with

and validated for the

Copyright IBM Corporation 2009

IBM WebSphere Application Server

IBM WebSphere Enterprise

IBM WebSphere Service Registry

Greater exibility, responsiveness and efficiency

Faster deployment of products and services

Improved customer, dealer, supplier and partner experience

Improved developer productivity

More reliable code and fewer support problems

More efficient maintenance

Case Study Quickview

solution for transforming business processes, please contact your

Process Server and IBM DB2

Copyright IBM Corporation 2007

You might also like