BackgroundThe retailing industry is evolving and along with it the needs and demands

of its consumers.The sector emerging in the coming years will be very different from the
retail environment thatwas prevalent in the beginning of the century (Mcgoldrick and Collins,
2007). According toHardgrave (2013) this industry is quickly heading towards a shift in
power. The onset of newtechnologies, made possible through the expeditious expansion of
the internet (Zwass, 1996),has now enabled consumers to order products directly from a
retailer or manufacturer and it hasalso democratized the flow of information. The power to
make demands has gradually shiftedfrom the retailers towards the end consumers instead.
These new demands involve expectationson a high level of service satisfaction and
expanded capabilities to fulfill the consumers orders(Cilt(UK), 2014a; Zwass, 1996).This
change began in the mid 90’s when the term multi-channel retailing was coined. Itsdefinition
revolves around retailers using at least two different channels of sale for offeringproducts
and/or services to customers (Lin, 2012). The interest in the multi-channel approachwas at
that time mainly driven by the possibility of increased sales but also to meet new
customerdemands arisen from their changes in shopping behaviour and expectations (Lewis
et al., 2014). The result was that Brick-and-mortar retailers, meaning retailers with
physical stores, startedadding an online channel of sales (Yan and Pei, 2012; Yang
et al., 2013). While their internet-based counterpart started acquiring physical stores
(Lewis et al., 2014; Ono et al., 2012). But atthis point of time these different channels
of sale were mainly considered to function in isolationfrom each other (Cilt(UK),
2014b; Frazer and Stiehler, 2014; Strang, 2013).But the multi-channel strategy
would continue to evolve. A catalyst for this started withthe introduction of Amazon
Prime (Driscoll, 2015; Strang, 2013). The online retailer giantAmazon announced
back in 2005 that they could offer their customers free two-day shipping onqualified
items which had a significant impact on Amazon’s success (Strang, 2013). This
madehuge ripples throughout the entire retail industry and affected the brick and
mortar retailers inparticular. Customers now started to expect shorter delivery times
of their orders, at lower costs.As a competitive response brick and mortar retailers
started constructing innovative solutionsthat used one of their primary assets, their
stores (Strang, 2013). By using their stores incombination with aspects of their newly
added online sales channel, certain shortcomings in onechannel could be
compensated by capacities of the other (Lewis et al., 2014).This would be the first
steps towards multi-channel integration. With a more customer centricview in focus,
newer technological opportunities and with the need to compete, the previouslysiloed
multi-channel retail industry started to evolve into what is today known as an omni-
channel approach (Lewis et al., 2014; M u ̈ ller-Lankenau et al., 2005). Its main idea is
to spanmore marketing, sales and distribution concepts and put emphasis mainly on
what multi-channelimplementations lacked - a seamless integration between all the
different channels of sale (Frazerand Stiehler, 2014; Rossi, 2015). A successful
implementation of the omni-channel approachwould allow customers to switch
effortlessly between channels during a single transaction andallow for possibilities
such as product pick-up and returns of online orders in a physical store.(Piotrowicz
and Cuthbertson, 2014; Wallace et al., 2004). A common denominator in this isthe
concept of order-fulfillment across channels, which relates to the possibility of
customersorders flowing independently to and from the consumers through any set
of nodes of the supplychain. Both the brick-and-mortar retailers that adopt internet
channels and direct-to-consumeroperations, and e-commerce retailers that adopt
store channels, need to adapt their fulfillmentoperations in order to achieve an omni-
channel oriented environment (ARC Advisory Group,2014In recent years
researchers have identified technology as the main obstacle for truly achieving
thiskind of synergies in any omni-channel strategy. Mainly due to the need for
acquiring resourcesand systems and the difficulties in achieving the desired
integration between channels (Lewiset al., 2014; Lin, 2012; M u ̈ ller-Lankenau et al.,
2005). Many existing technical software solutionsthat can manage distribution
centers (DC) with complex requirements on order-fulfillment ca-pabilities are aged
and in need of replacements or major upgrades. (McCrea, 2013; Trebilcock,
Chapter 1.Introduction32012). Furthermore, these software systems traditional
architectures have often been made upof a whole eco-system of information
systems, which all need to be able to communicate insome manner to solve
problems in the borderlands of each others’ areas (see fig. 1.1). Eachcomponent has
the responsibility of some information and task execution. This is a rather
stalesystem support structure and causes both information silos as well as
bottlenecks in possiblesystem support functionalitiesERPE-commerce
platformPOSCartWishCRMInventory ManagementWMSDemand PlanningProcurementFinanceHRPOSTraditional
Information System Eco-systemFigure 1.1:Traditional eco-system of information systemsA
key part in this system structure for an succesful implementing of an omni-channel
approachis the WMS (warehouse management system). It presents the biggest
opportunity for flexiblehandling of different order-fulfillment methods. The primary
requirement of a WMS is to man-age resources and operations as well as the
material flows within a warehouse (ARC AdvisoryGroup, 2014; Mulcahy and Sydow,
2008; Richards, 2011). ARC Advisory Group (2014) furtherdefines WMS as a
software solution that operates in real-time and allows for the utilization ofradio
frequency, RFID, voice recognition, and/or real-time location systems.The software
industry has also started undergoing a shift into adopting cloud-based systems,which
has been in line with both the need for streamlining and achieving greater supply
chainvisibility. According to ARC Advisory Group (2013), cloud computing is the use
of internetfor on-demand accessing of software and hardware to perform work. This
new cloud basedtechnology has also shown to make the transition from siloed
operations to integration easier.Through greatly facilitated software deployment and
by having inventory data and customerinformation stored in a centralized databank,
the bridging between different sales platformsand system components is facilitated
(Amato-McCoy, 2012). Also many solutions now workon a SaaS-based (software-as-
a-service) platform, that is basically on-demand systems that aresupervised by the
vendor and have no physical on-site implementation(Michel, 2014