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Transforming omni-channel retail even faster

Technology Category
  • Application Infrastructure & Middleware - API Integration & Management
Applicable Industries
  • Retail
Applicable Functions
  • Sales & Marketing
  • Business Operation
Use Cases
  • Supply Chain Visibility
  • Real-Time Location System (RTLS)
Services
  • System Integration
  • Software Design & Engineering Services
The Challenge
Kiabi, a French retailing powerhouse, was facing a burgeoning customer volume, data overload and inconsistency, and a market-wide transition to omni-channel retail. The company's consistent growth of nearly 9% annually, expansion from 5 to 32 countries, and a customer base increasingly composed of Millennials, a group constantly online, in-touch and communicating, put a strain on their legacy systems. Their website slowed to a crawl and their data was riddled with errors. IT had to align to the company’s business functions—and fast—for Kiabi to turn themselves into the omnichannel business they had envisioned.
About The Customer
Kiabi is a French retailing powerhouse that transformed the retail clothing industry in 1978 by offering modern fashion for the whole family. Since 2002, Kiabi has doubled in size, expanded from 5 to 32 countries, grown to 9,000, increased revenue to €1.8 billion a year, and gone all-in on digitalization and omni-channel retailing. Many of their new customers were Millennials, a group unlike anything the company had encountered before—constantly online, in-touch and communicating.
The Solution
Kiabi implemented Software AG's ARIS and webMethods to visualize and restructure their processes, and speed up and extend their customer contact. Independent solutions would enable them to be service-oriented and event-driven, increase their flexibility and make changes to their systems without downtime or making compromises. The most pressing need was to overcome a 40% increase in data volume and a laggy website. So in 2012, Kiabi implemented Software AG’s in-memory data solution. By keeping databases loaded in memory rather than on traditional hard-drive servers, Kiabi reduced web page load-time by 300%, from 3.6 to 1.2 seconds. The solution was adopted in months, and had an immediate impact on revenue as digital natives—easily frustrated by delays—were no longer abandoning their online shopping carts. In addition, by linking all of their retail channel experiences through a single, unified platform, Kiabi saw its online revenue skyrocket to €130 million a year.
Operational Impact
  • Slashed application development time by 50%
  • Improved website performance from 3.6 to 1.2 seconds
  • Expanded online presence from 5 to 32 countries
Quantitative Benefit
  • Reduced web page load-time by 300%, from 3.6 to 1.2 seconds
  • Online revenue skyrocketed to €130 million a year

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