{"id":3768,"date":"2021-04-06T13:33:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-06T17:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prolifics.com\/us\/?p=3768"},"modified":"2025-10-06T16:53:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T11:23:09","slug":"modernization-and-integration-lead-to-better-customer-experience-for-international-retailer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prolifics.com\/usa\/resource-center\/case-studies\/modernization-and-integration-lead-to-better-customer-experience-for-international-retailer","title":{"rendered":"Modernization, Integration Create Better Customer Experience for Retailer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

About our client, an International Retailer<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This International Retailer (IR) has been a Prolifics client for a decade. The company\u2019s brand names in apparel and accessories are well-known globally, and over the years IR has become a complete fashion lifestyle for its customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Challenge<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Retail in General<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Retail is changing \u2013 fast \u2013 due to the demands of tech-savvy customers who expect the \u201comnichannel experience\u201d \u2013 a high level, seamless interaction whether they\u2019re shopping online, in-store, through mobile or calling in. Any disconnect in the flow can make for a disappointing experience, leading to less loyal customers and ultimately lower revenue. COVID-19 accelerated this already ongoing change as retailers had to ratchet up their online presence and create new supply chains and delivery options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To meet these higher customer expectations, retailers need more data for more information and analysis so they can react to their customers\u2019 needs. Older, on-premise legacy systems that silo data are not up to this task. Integration\/modernization is the key first step toward providing the omnichannel experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our Client, an International Retailer – Pre-COVID-19<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This International Retailer (IR) had a series of legacy systems: ERP, invoicing, inventory, marketing, manufacturing, supply chain and more. These were on-premise, homegrown systems and databases, or purchased third-party systems and applications. Some systems were running on older machines and mainframes, some were running on distributed systems, but mostly all were in-house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These systems did not communicate well with each other, if at all, so the ability to be flexible, pivot, change and scale wasn\u2019t there. IR wanted to interact better with its customers, to get more information and to get it faster, so they could fulfill customer needs in real time (versus batched processing) and do it remotely. The company knew that customers are now more and more demanding across all platforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, IR began its digital transformation, albeit in a slower, \u201csomeday\u201d manner. The process was underway \u2013 IR was modernizing and upgrading their environment, looking to migrate certain things to the cloud, and take advantage of software as a service (SaaS) options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In-Store Coupon Misses the Mark<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The marketing department for IR implemented a real-time, in-store coupon. The customers could scan a QR or barcode with their phones while shopping. The scan sent customers to a site where they\u2019d have to fill out a form (name, email, phone number, etc.) to sign up at IR and get the digital coupon. But, when the customer went to the register to check-out, the point-of-sale (POS) system was not real-time integrated with the coupon system. For the POS system to honor the coupon, the salesclerk had to enter in all the customer\u2019s info again. Customer experience: “I literally just typed all this in to get the coupon and now the cashier has to ask me all of those same questions again.”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The COVID-19 Environment<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

For IR, COVID-19 simply made everything more urgent. The great majority of the company\u2019s sales came from in-store shoppers who physically picked out and bought merchandise. Millions of dollars of revenue flowed through the stores, and those stores were now shut down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IR certainly had an online presence and did online sales, but it was a much smaller volume compared to the in-store sales. Because of COVID-19, the only revenue they would realize for a then unknown time would come through the website. They needed to ensure scalability, responsiveness, and real time integration of inventory and shipping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, the company immediately experienced issues with customers buying something online, only to find out the next day (after inventory batch processing) that the item was out of stock. This made for a poor customer experience during a time when everyone was turning to online purchasing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For IR, the \u201csomeday\u201d for digital transformation became \u201cyesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Action<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To the cloud<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Among the first actions Prolifics took was helping IR move a large set of legacy, on-premise systems and databases to the cloud<\/a>. With our assistance, IR took a \u201cbest-of-breed\u201d approach to these cloud environments, based on its systems and the strengths of the providers. As examples, the order management system went to IBM\u2019s Cloud; the data warehouse to AWS (Amazon); and the product information management (PIM) to Azure (Microsoft). The company also brought aboard dozens of new SaaS applications. Some other systems did remain on-prem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Talking to each other<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Another piece of the digital transformation process was Prolifics making sure of the integration between the clouds, between the clouds and on-premise, and in all the configurations. Any system A, cloud or on-prem, had to be able to talk to any system B, whether cloud or on-prem. So, while IR was in the process of transforming its business by building out these new cloud and SaaS capabilities, we needed to connect all the \u201cpipes\u201d among the components. This gave rise to a new Prolifics solution, discussed in the Technology section below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moving toward DaaS<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The next level of transformation, which we\u2019ve started with IR, is data as a service (DaaS). In these instances, when an IR application needs data from another application, they\u2019ll use Prolifics-built microservices for the particular request at hand to get the specific data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Result<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Let the data flow<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The major result of our work is that more data is flowing in real time. Timely and accurate data can be in multiple places at once, or can go where the company needs it, when they need it. This movement to real-time integration gives IR more information and the ability to analyze that information more quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This gives IR the flexibility to pivot and change as their customers pivot and change. That’s the ultimate benefit they’re achieving \u2013 the ability to drive their business in the right direction, with greater confidence, to meet the needs and demands of their customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In-Store Coupon Corrected<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prolifics ensured that the point-of-sale system received an instant update from the third-party vendor that handled the scan and coupon capability for IR. Our fix basically made the information flow live \u2013 making the problem of the double ask for information and the related customer dissatisfaction go away.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Technology<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n