Creating a Smarter Shopping Experience with IBM Solutions at Carter's

Creating a Smarter Shopping Experience with IBM Solutions at Carter's Session - 6578

Eddie Lizondro Sr Manager, Integration Carter’s

Satya Kallur Director Perficient, Inc.

Agenda

• Carter’s – Introduction

• Understanding Carter’s Business and Customers

• Business and Technology challenges

• IBM tools used in the overall Solution

• Carter’s Integration landscape

• Approach

• Future steps

• IT Trends in Retail industry

1

Carter’s Story

2

• Leading U.S. brand of children’s clothing, gifts and accessories

• Approx. 15,000 Employees

• Retail, Wholesale, eCommerce and International business units

• 530+ Carter’s/200+ OshKosh B’Gosh stores

• 26 consecutive years of growth

• $2.8 Billion Revenue

• History Highlights:

1865 – Carter’s founded by William Carter

1895 – Oshkosh B’Gosh founded in WI

2005 – Carter’s acquired Oshkosh B’Gosh

2011 – Carter’s acquired Bonnie Togs (Canadian children’s apparel

retailer with 59 stores and plans to grow to 160)

2011 – launched eCommerce business

2012 – built Braselton, GA Distribution Center (1.2 million square

foot omni-channel facility)

2013 – consolidated corporate headquarters to Atlanta, GA

Carter’s Core Systems

3

Understanding Carter’s Customers through the Generations..

4

Po

pu

lati

on

by A

ge (

as

of

20

13

)

BOOMERS (age 50-68)

GEN Xers (age 35-49)

MILLENNIALS (age 14-34)

TBD Gen (age 0-13)

Market growth opportunity with population

swell entering child-bearing years

Millennial Moms

5

Value: Shops more frequently and spends more, but

prefers discount/off-price clothing and specialty stores

Digital: Knows a world with 24/7 connectivity and

immediate, expansive access to information

Social Media: Spends more time consuming media,

especially smartphones and tablets

Word of Mouth: Trusts other Moms more than brands

Personalization: Expects brand to know her and

speak to her via her preferred methods

Who she is What matters to her

• 24 – 34 year old Mom

• 83% of first time moms

• Largest generational segment:

80 million

• $1.3 trillion in annual spending

• Carter’s ranks #1 with Millennials

as well as Baby Boomers

• OshKosh is positioned mid-pack

competitively with Millennials; top

3 for Baby Boomers

Challenges

• Business Challenges

• Why invest in IT and/or newer technology?

• Support growth in both domestic as well as

international segments

• Consolidate supply and demand into a

single solution

• Increase the collaboration with wholesale

and mass customers

• Support for multiple distribution centers US

and International

• Integrate the processes and organization for

the replenishment of Carter’s stores

• Building towards OMNI-Channel visibility

6

Challenges (contd.)

• Technology challenges

• Small IT staff

• Seamless integration with the vendors to improve the quality,

consistency and to reduce the costs

• Multiple legacy systems

• Consolidate the applications supporting various channels to

make it OMNI-Channel

• Existing IT Culture

7

IBM Solutions used

• Sterling Order Management Systems

• Order Management and fulfillment services

• WebSphere Message Broker

• Enterprise Service Bus for Carter’s

• IBM DataPower

• Security Gateway

• Sterling EDI

• EDI and data translation engine

8

Carter’s Integration Landscape

9

Trusted Zone

Tax Calculation

Gift Cards

Drop Ship Vendor

Email Service Provider

eCom Portal

Credit Card Authorization

Business User / Call Center

Web Store

Call Centervia UI

Identity Management/

Access Management

IP Filtering

WebSphere Message Broker

Product Hub

Sterling Order Management

SystemGeneral Ledger

Other Data Sources

FTP Server

EDI Engine

Data WareHouse

Address Verification

Service

WebSphere DataPower XB62

Warehouse Management

System

Account Payable

Logistics

Product Life Cycle

ManagementGoods Tracking

Q Mgr

S S S

<SOAP>XML

File Based IntegrationService Service Service Service

Interface Interface Interface Interface

Error Handling

Error Notification

Auditing /Logging

Scheduler

Monitoring

Patterns

Legend

Applications(Internal)

Applications(External)

Roles

Internet

Project Challenges

• Multiple projects with different team executing them

• Multiple versions of the same applications existed

• Sun setting legacy applications and moving business functions

to newer standard systems

• Business functions being moved in phases in different projects

• New tools and applications being implemented as part of overall

Solution

• WebSphere Message Broker

• DataPower

• Sterling OMS

• Legacy systems primarily interacting via files and DB calls and

in batch mode

10

Approach

11

• Enable Carter’s team on use of

ESB and patterns typically used

• Establish strong foundation by

setting patterns for the interfaces

across all projects

• Pub-sub

• Asynchronous

• Canonical models

• Collector patterns

• Established Integration standards

and best practices to be used

across all projects

Approach (contd.)

12

• Establish frameworks for the

Integration layer

• Logging

• Error Handling

• Error notification

• Scheduler framework

• Interfaces across projects built in

an incremental fashion

Additional IBM solutions being considered

• BlueWorks Live

• BPM

• UrbanCode

• IBM API Management

13

Technology trends in Retail Industry

Interoperability in Retail industry

15

16

IT trends in Retail industry

• Modernize IT – Services and APIs

• OMNI-Channel visibility

• Security

• Securing IT applications and assets

• Deliver the same Customer experience across all channels

• Mobility

• DevOps maturity

• Scalability and Flexibility

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