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Shiseido Co., Ltd. enhances the customer experience
Technology Category
- Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms
Applicable Industries
- Consumer Goods
Applicable Functions
- Sales & Marketing
Services
- Software Design & Engineering Services
The Challenge
Shiseido Co., Ltd., a leading cosmetics firm, wanted to enhance the customer experience by providing its Beauty Consultants (BCs) with a new way to engage with customers, influence product development and socially connect with each other. The company has been supporting BCs’ work with technology for nearly 30 years and began exploring mobility early on. To advance mobile innovation and offer better tools for customer engagement, product feedback and teamwork, Shiseido wanted to equip BCs with Apple iPad “Beauty Tablets,” which required developing new mobile apps for the tablet format. Creating apps for varied devices and operating environments can be difficult if developers have to become experts in the language and parameters of each mobile device.
About The Customer
Shiseido Co., Ltd. is one of the world’s leading cosmetics firms, aiming to create beauty and wellness. It operates multi-branded businesses in Europe, the United States and Asia. The Tokyo-based company employs some 46,000 people. Shiseido sells products with the help of 22,000 independent customer-facing Beauty Consultants (BCs), department store employees who work at Shiseido cosmetics counters. The company has been supporting BCs’ work with technology for nearly 30 years and began exploring mobility early on.
The Solution
Shiseido implemented the IBM® MobileFirst Platform Foundation (formerly IBM Worklight® Foundation) solution. This development platform supports popular devices with the simplicity of a single, shared code base. Shiseido’s developers used it to create a Beauty Tablet app using familiar web languages, and were able to reuse some code from the cell phone apps. The platform also helps to manage security and streamlines app prototyping, testing and quality control. The MobileFirst Platform Foundation software helped Shiseido overcome challenges to progress from project planning to deployment of 10,000 tablets in just one year. With no new hires, existing personnel have deployed a range of mobile apps ahead of schedule, and maintenance costs have dropped significantly.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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