|
View from the Top -
Part 2 | Part
1
Read Part 1
|
COMPANY FILE
|
 |
|
Harrods in Knightsbridge is arguably
the most glamorous store in the world. It is also a
global brand associated with luxury and quality. With
a turnover of around £610 million, it opens its doors
annually to over 5 million visitors, serving them from
1 million square feet of sales space.
Harrods Estates, Harrods Bank and
Harrods Aviation are among the other companies that
belong to Harrods Holdings, as well as an online and
mail order business.
Harrods has a record of innovation,
introducing its famous sale in 1894 and the world’s
first escalator in 1898, with brandy on offer at the
top for nervous customers. It has always had famous
people as its customers: Sigmund Freud was embalmed
by Harrods’ funeral service, AA Milne bought the bear
that was to become Winnie the Pooh at the store for
his son, Christopher Robin. It was Harrods that Alfred
Hitchcock turned to when he wanted a supply of fresh
herrings in Hollywood.
In the 21st century, the retail environment
is changing rapidly and with more than 250 departments,
Harrods’ diversity is a challenge. Managing this diversity
and delivering to customers the personal service they
have come to expect requires flexibility at all levels
of the business, including IT. In response to this,
Harrods is currently implementing an advanced SOA-based
IT infrastructure.
|
Q: WHAT BENEFITS DID YOU EXPECT FROM IMPLEMENTING THIS
SOFTWARE?
A: The Sun software is key to Harrods’ major turnaround
in the way we manage information. We have made a huge step
forward in terms of our information strategy over the past
two years. Our retail environment is a particularly complex
one because of the very different requirements of various
business processes. Not only are the dynamics of the retail
business very fast, there is no single process model.
Fashion ordering is seasonal, while beauty and cosmetics
relies on weekly autoreplenishment. Food orders occur daily
and have short lead times. Furniture is a make-toorder process,
while our services require completely different processes.
We had many different functional areas, all of which had
their own solutions, creating silos of information. On top
of this, we are multichannel, selling in shops, through call
centres and online.
We perceived that an SOA infrastructure would break down
the customer information silos, making us able to respond
more quickly and efficiently to business requirements.
We also have ambitious plans for new systems over the next
year, such as our new loyalty programme offering which has
just been deployed, and we needed a common infrastructure
for all these systems so that they can be rolled out swiftly
and immediately integrate with each other and existing systems.
More...
If you are not registered with the site, please register now to read the rest of this page.
If you are registered, please sign in to read the rest of this page.
Conspectus 2006
|
Copyright © 2006
|
 |
|
