We helped a niche retailer achieve a transformation in the way analytics are used, with a data streaming solution that met all expectations on cross-functional goals, value creation, and superior engineering
InfoCepts transformed a retail giant’s warehouse operations with outside-the-box thinking to overcome legacy system and infrastructure challenges. Our turnkey solution broke down data silos and addressed inflight project requirements—delivering a tailored platform with a right-fit architecture.
In executing its expansion plans, our customer’s strategy was to host its ecommerce distribution operations using the same technology as for its offline format. It already had a legacy retail management solution in place, but all distribution center activities—including for the ecommerce business—had to be centrally run.
Its enterprise architecture comprised several technology platforms, and it sought to deliver real-time data flows and analytics use cases across multiple systems. But its legacy retail solution had a close-knit architecture, so it was difficult to process additional load or even have connectors to surrounding systems.
Our customer lacked in-house skills to manage the many moving parts of its planned solution, especially with a major transformation program underway. Project timing was critical, as was the need to control skyrocketing costs. They needed a non-invasive solution requiring minimal oversight from its already stretched internal team. The retailer sought the engineering agility to interconnect its solution with other applications.
The company considered an off-the-shelf product, but it appeared prohibitive in relation to expanded features as well as the budget.
Working with the InfoCepts strategic advisory team, our customer’s leadership quickly understood that a packaged replication solution would be an ideal fit. Having defined success criteria, it would include customizable integration with its downstream systems. Leadership also appreciated a plan to move from a role- or time-based arrangement to an operating model where the managed services partner would be responsible for the final outcome. InfoCepts structured the plan in four stages—Discovery, Plan, Deploy, and Operate.
In the Discovery phase, we worked directly with business and IT stakeholders to understand organizational priorities and define the end-to-end path for implementation. We focused on the distribution center touch points, validated proposed solution contours, and proactively identified any micro-dependencies on other projects.
During Planning, we baselined the permissible additional load on the warehouse management system and the data privacy requirement, all while setting up a high-performance data pipeline. InfoCepts also demonstrated our proprietary Real-Time Data Streamer (RTDS) to secure our customer’s in-principle approval. We also assessed priority use cases and customizations required for smart alerting, automated quality checks, and a cloud migration over the subsequent 18 months.
We then launched the Deploy phase with an agile implementation approach. We demonstrated mini-proof-of-concepts (POCs) on non-invasive change journaling, in addition to reducing data latency to a sub-second level for real-time analytics. As the project progressed, our customer could visualize later enhancements to be included in a Support phase to be run on DevOps models.
With a focus on time-to-value, InfoCepts completed the Operate phase in four months. Any hindrances were swiftly resolved during execution. The move from periodic batch processes to “all day streaming” immediately benefited the warehouse operations team; it could now manage shipments without dependencies that had been causing a daily delay of more than 90 minutes.
The Customer
Our customer is an iconic retail industry leader. It has a global presence in the full spectrum of fashion luxury categories—including women’s and men’s accessories, footwear, and apparel, as well as wearable technology, watches, jewelry, eyewear, and a full line of fragrance products.
Industry
Retail
Business Functions
Warehouse Management
Solution
Managed Services
Technologies
AWS MSK, S3, Talend, Snowflake, RDS MySQL
Solution Accelerators
Real-Time Data Streamer (RTDS)
Geography
North America
Year of Deployment
2020
InfoCepts has been very responsive to our needs, going above and beyond to make sure our implementation was thorough. I would recommend any organization that wants to change their data paradigm to look at the Real-Time Data Streamer as a key component in their toolbox.”
The entire rollout was less than a quarter of the estimated cost of the off-the-shelf product our customer had originally identified. The InfoCepts’ RTDS implementation also generated a few other benefits.
At the business desk:
For the implementation program team:
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