Travis Perkins, a UK-based builders’ merchant, has put considerable resources into improving its websites and building a mobile channel, because customers expect to be able to shop online with their mobile devices. Builders always have a smartphone with them; it’s the tool of choice when they’re on site. DIYers expect to shop online at any time.
Travis Perkins has more than 20 brands that serve the construction industry and the home improvement market. The company has more than 2,000 retail outlets in the United Kingdom and Ireland selling general building materials, tools, landscaping materials, and more.
To control some of its essential data processes, Travis Perkins uses IBM Business Process Manager (BPM) on Cloud and has instituted multiple high-level data governance processes. This means data is available to help Travis Perkins customers get the products they expect ready for pick-up at the branch or delivered to their site.
Travis Perkins is now poised to overcome challenges presented by older systems at some of the merchant branches that weren’t originally set up to follow current validation standards for data entry. It will also be able to start dealing with data silos, a consequence of its growth through acquisition which resulted in multiple sets of information in different systems with no interconnectivity.
Better data governance means better customer service
The company recognized that, as it moved forward, it was important to be able to scale to provide performance solutions for key applications. IBM Cloud is a good way for the company to achieve that goal. One of its current projects, Highway to Cloud, will see Travis Perkins move as many key applications as possible into a cloud-based environment within the next three years. It has already moved some websites to the cloud, and most of its newer software applications (including the IBM BPM on Cloud data governance solution) are software-as-a-service offerings.
The company’s IT department wants to transform from an order taker to an order shaper, which means the department will work closely with the business to define requirements, helping it achieve what it wants to do, such as using data to detect patterns in buyer behavior and to be better equipped to market to customers.
To learn more, view the press release or case study.
More about IBM Cloud Business Process Manager.
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Quelle: Thoughts on Cloud
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