FUJITSU Retail Solution Market Place Future-proofing Retail by architecting for tomorrow

Transcription

1 FUJITSU Retail Solution Market Place Future-proofing Retail by architecting for tomorrow Contents Creating a Retail Solution for today s needs and business requirements is relatively easy The Retail Journey At the heart of Retail Service Oriented Application: future-proofing Retail The Service Layers Page 1 of 5

2 Creating a Retail Solution for today s needs and business requirements is relatively easy We understand what we have to do and how we have to do it; we understand the channels we re selling into and across; and thanks to the wealth of data we ve collected, we increasingly understand our customers and how they like to interact with our brand, our offerings and our associates. The big question, and one that s very hard to answer is what will Retail look like tomorrow and how will we deliver successfully then? Understanding that we can t see into the future to predict what will come, and understanding that the retail environment has changed dramatically over the last few years, Fujitsu has chosen to go back to basic principles and architected our FUJITSU Retail Solution Market Place to future-proof by architecting for tomorrow s unknowns. The Retail Journey Over the last few years, the retail business has managed unprecedented change, but the rate of change is accelerating with more complex integration and touch points, including those that have yet to be developed. Most retailers invest in retail software solutions for 7-10 years, and some more. Therefore the question the business stakeholders need to ask is not whether the offering can meet the immediate need for feature/function, but whether it has been architected to cope with future integration points which are not yet even understood. Changing Touch Points POS Kiosks Customer Google Glass Web Associate Smart Watch Functional Changes Rules Core Business Rules Pop-Up Stores Risk Tolerance Customer Specific Needs Changing Integration Points Unique Devices HR Payment So, although today s selling solutions can perform many of the functions and provide many of the features required for today s retailing, they are simply not flexible enough, agile enough or ultimately sustainable enough to survive in the demanding world of tomorrow s retail. To understand what needs to be done, you have to understand where Retail has come from. Most retail software vendors have a large monolithic retail framework that has developed over time. New features and functionality have been added over time, complexity has increased, spaghetti code has increased and risk and fragility have increased ERP CRM proportionally. By adding in service interfaces between the retail solution and the touch points, some retail vendors suggest they offer a Service Oriented architecture. ERP Monolithic Application Store Based Model But it remains difficult to isolate changes to one area of the code without inadvertently disturbing the stability of the rest of the application. And importantly, an application that was only ever designed to meet the demands of the store cannot easily support the level of enterprise integration now demanded by retailers. At the heart of Retail CRM The core business rules at the heart of the retail business are well understood and remain relatively static. But around this core, as illustrated in the adjacent diagram : The number of touch points is increasing we know that innovations such as the smart watch and Google Glass are arriving. How will we incorporate these new technologies into our retail landscape effectively? Integration points are constantly changing we have ever more data sources, which drive new ways for people to operate and interact; we have new payment options and a requirement to coordinate activities across channels, so we need to adapt to incorporate these new approaches without breaking the integrity of core business rules The business environment is demanding more security, more flexible workflow patterns, less risk tolerance, more ability to change to satisfy changing functional demands And all with the constant need to reduce the total cost of ownership, but deliver greater business value So how do you future-proof Retail? Point of Sale Payment 3 rd Party Page of 5

3 Service Oriented Application: future-proofing Retail You start with a radically simple approach which goes back to basics and re-architects from scratch. You dispense with the idea of service oriented architecture and you create a Service Oriented Application. In other words, an application that uses services both within as well as beyond its core. Enterprise Model 5 Layers of service Client The User Layer Sales Pricing Promotion Sales Service Manager Rules Engine Client specified workflow Encapsulates the business rules Validation Finance Basket Access Converts data to suit the application Customer Authorization Security Supplies data needed Identifying the reusable core functions The Fujitsu approach in FUJITSU Market Place has been to create a set of retail functions, not just store functions, but those functions common across all channels within the retail enterprise. This creates functions that can act discretely within and across channels, and importantly, in a structure that can be added to over time as functional requirements change The key is that adding functions doesn t disturb the overall architecture or stability. As needs change, the list of functions grows, but by adding strict governance controls, the functions are kept complete and discrete, with no functional overlap. So while the functional value increases over time, it is achieved without adding in increasing complexity, duplicity and fragility. So how does this work? Within each core function are fi e separate service layers. Each service layer communicates with the others via a service interface, and each service is a black box to the others. A service has no need to know how another service is implemented only how it needs to interact through the interface. Therefore, services can be extended or re-written, and the entire application will function as before via the interfaces. Each service communicates with the others across a message bus. This allows each service to be implemented in different physical locations. A service could be configured to be on the end user device, on the store server, on the enterprise server, or in the cloud. The rest of the application would be unaware of the change it is simply sending data to and receiving responses from a location on the bus. The Service Layers The Rules Engine is key it describes the business rules that need to be delivered across the enterprise. Using the rules engine to deliver the functions is the user interface. The user interface is driven by services: the Client and the Manager. The Client Service delivers the user interface, changing this service will allow you to deliver a different Client for different devices and form factors. The Manager service allows different devices to access the business rules in the most appropriate way. The workflow for a sale is likely to be different, because of screen real estate limitations when using a 5 inch device than a 15 screen. By keeping the workflow separate we can create great flexibility or respond to changing needs and form factors, without upsetting the stability of the rest of the function or application. So it s now easy to create separate workflow for different devices and therefore support a range of different mobile devices. sources are always accessed via a Access service which converts data to/from the source format into that required for the retail solution. Keeping this data access service separate now enables the data source to be replaced without changing the application itself, but merely by modifying the data access service to interface to and convert data to/from the new data source. Page 3 of 5

4 Additional touch points use Rules Engine Sales Service Client Manager Rules Engine Access So, adding new service layers to extend functionality becomes easy and fast compared to the past. New Clients are added by creating a new client service and workflow manager service and connecting them to the message bus. Clients can now extend across the enterprise, so by adding an e-commerce Client and, you can offer enterprise wide pricing and promotions. MESSAGE BUS Recognizing this, we ve created the data model to support enterprise data. Client E-Commerce Enterprise Client E-Commerce Enterprise New Service Oriented Applications are the future! By allowing, supporting and managing changes to be made in one service without impacting the rest of the application, you create a sustainable application that starts and stays easy to support, maintain and administer. Providing you with the flexibility and agility to add new functions over time, but without creating a monolithic mass of spaghetti This approach allows services to be delivered by non-fujitsu applications. By providing an enterprise transaction repository, transactions can be stored and used across the enterprise ensuring that all channels are consistently informed in real-time. But, because our approach is flexible, if you already have a central transaction repository, your service can be used instead. Returning to core principles and re-architecting from scratch has reduced our core code by approximately 60%. Not because we ve reduced functionality, far from it, but we ve been able to take advantage of the improved utilities within the.net framework to provide infrastructure services. Ultimately, this reduces support complexity and increases stability of the overall solution which means fewer calls to the Store Service Desk, fewer bugs to report, and faster business requirements change. Creating flexibility in where the services run enables multiple deployment options. Moving one or more services to run in the enterprise, or the cloud means you can deliver a range of deployment options: thick store, thin store, cloud and more. And finally, and most importantly, we ve ensured our application architecture future proofs FUJITSU Market Place by supporting the ability to add functions, services and integration points that we don t currently know about, without impacting or de-stabilizing the core structure itself. Page 4 of 5

5 About Fujitsu America Fujitsu America, Inc., is a leading ICT solutions provider for organizations in the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean. Fujitsu enables clients to meet their business objectives through integrated offerings and solutions, including consulting, systems integration, managed services, outsourcing and cloud services for infrastructure, platforms and applications; data center and field services; and server, storage, software and mobile/tablet technologies. For more information, please visit: and FUJITSU AMERICA, INC. Address: 150 East Arques Avenue Sunnyvale, CA , U.S.A. Telephone: or Website: Contact Form: Have a question? us at: AskFujitsu@us.fujitsu.com Fujitsu and the Fujitsu logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Fujitsu Limited in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks referenced herein are the property of their respective owners. The statements provided herein are for informational purposes only and may be amended or altered by Fujitsu America, Inc. without notice or liability. Product description data represents Fujitsu design objectives and is provided for comparative purposes; actual results may vary based on a variety of factors. Specifications are subject to change without notice. Copyright 014 Fujitsu America, Inc. All rights reserved. FPC / Page 5 of 5