SOA gives retailers a critical market advantage

There is no replacement for direct, personal interaction with customers in stores. The next best thing, however, is to be able to view a single, accurate picture of how the customer shops, what they buy, when and where. Many retailers already capture such details but struggle with delivering a consistent set of customer information across channels, merchandising and business operations, in order to provide a consistent and compelling shopping experience.

This need for shared information systems is driving retailers to adopt service-oriented architecture (SOA). SOA offers a flexible way to connect the many different silos of information throughout the retail organisation, providing users with a single view of customers and inventory.

SOA provides the ability to develop enterprise applications as modular business services that retailers can easily integrate and re-use as needed to provide consistent business logic across their various platforms.

Arnotts, the Republic of Ireland’s oldest and largest independent department store, recently selected Oracle’s SOA-enabled technology platform as part of a two-year IT overhaul. The Arnotts team, its staff, suppliers, distributors and management now all have visibility to, and can co-ordinate activities using a single synchronised plan for inventory, delivery, execution, promotions, events and more, helping to ensure the right amount of inventory is available in the right place and the right time. In total, about 90% of Arnotts’ business footprint has been affected by technology change and as the project heads towards completion, Arnotts is already seeing the benefits of a more efficient organisation, with sales improving, enhanced planning processes and more accurate forecasting of sales and seasonality.

The promise of SOA and what it can do for a retail business is too compelling to ignore. While many retail CIOs already have begun embracing SOA as a strategy, there is still work to be done in educating CEOs and other business leaders on how SOA can seriously impact business performance.