SOA: The Architecture of Choice for Demand-Driven Retail

Overview

Retail is undergoing a massive transformation, driven by unprecedented customer expectations of instant and personalized response. To compete in a global marketplace with intensified competition, it is no longer sufficient to maintain high levels of operational excellence and efficiency. Retailers must also address diminishing customer loyalty, viral word-of-mouth, and expectations of seamless customer service across interaction channels - and do so not autonomously, but as part of a global supply-chain network. They cannot take their focus away from operational excellence, but must differentiate in service, product, and access to their customers. To meet these challenges, retailers must adopt more flexible business processes and practices, and integrate customer and operational data across their entire supply chain.