House of Fraser has developed not one web service but two at
disparate ends of its business. In both cases, cost was an
important factor. Jane Dudman reports.
House of Fraser is using web services to help it handle data more
efficiently in two areas of its business: one at the front end,
providing a loyalty scheme for customers; and the other at the
heart of its supplier chain. One project is based on Java, the
other on .net.
In May 2003, the department store chain, which has 47 shops,
launched its Recognition customer loyalty scheme. This relies
heavily on customer information held in an Oracle datawarehouse
that has been in place for many years. Every transaction is stored
in the datawarehouse, which is the basis for calculating loyalty
points for customers.
Keeping this database up to date is vital for the smooth running of
the customer loyalty scheme. House of Fraser uses a third-party
call centre for handling customer enquiries. Although it wanted to
ensure the database was fully updated both for internal use and for
use by the call centre staff, the retailer felt strongly that it
wanted to keep control of its customer information. This was one of
the major drivers for using web services in this area of its
business.
"We wanted one single set of data and a way for the call centre
supplier to come in, read and update our data in a controlled way,"
says Andrew Bond, development services manager at House of Fraser.
The call centre supplier has its own software, so it was important
that the system should be integrated into the call centre's
existing systems. "We needed to provide an application program
interface into our customer relationship management database and
since they use Microsoft and we use Oracle, web services was the
obvious answer," says Bond.
One of the attractions of web services is that they can be wrapped
around existing processes. This has considerable benefits,
according to Andy Cleverly, director of technology marketing at
Oracle. "We recognise that our customers have a key strategic
investment in their existing development and deployment
environment," he says.
"House of Fraser is the classic example of that. The loyalty card
system is on an Oracle datawarehouse and it has very
Oracle-oriented people. They have those skills and business
processes already written. In a sense, it is not about web services
per se; from an application development viewpoint, web services are
just a different transport mechanism."
New developments usually cost money. However, House of Fraser saved
by not re-training its IT staff in new skills and, more
importantly, the new loyalty scheme was built on the existing
Oracle database.
To do this, the retailer's IT team defined a set of web services
based on existing procedures in the database, such as creating a
new customer account. Using the JDeveloper tool, the development
team generated the web services description language from the
existing code base of PL/SSQL procedures. They were able to re-use
existing code by wrapping the procedures in web services interfaces
generated by JDeveloper. Bond says this is a relatively simple
process.
The new system has provided House of Fraser with big benefits, he
says, the main one being smooth integration and updating of all
customer data.
Another is being able to re-use processes. "We have taken those
store procedures as web services and used some of them in building
a new customer ordering system," he says. "This calls exactly the
same web services to get the customer details, so we have got that
for free."
At the other end of its business, House of Fraser has been
collaborating electronically with its suppliers for a long time,
using electronic data interchange. The software underpinning this
approach was costly and time-consuming to manage. Adding new
suppliers to the system could take several days.
Here, too, the retailer has opted for web services as part of the
move to become more efficient. By implementing a new B2B system,
House of Fraser aims to handle all its ordering electronically; to
share strategic data, such as sales information, with its
suppliers; and to enable smaller suppliers to use the online
system, by removing the charges involved in EDI.
The platform is based on Microsoft Biztalk Server, supplied by
integrator Solidsoft, with software from B2B supplier Covast. It
uses web services to update data across the enterprise in real
time. The aim is to deploy a single, fully-integrated system that
will reduce maintenance costs and provide a single location to view
electronic documents being exchanged with suppliers. The IT team is
using Microsoft's .net framework to develop the system and provide
a flexible, object-oriented development model.
Initially, the system will support the existing 300 suppliers
communicating with House of Fraser online, but this will be
expanded so eventually the system will handle up to 1,300 different
suppliers. Having used Microsoft for desktop and point-of-sale
systems, the retailer feels Microsoft servers have advanced in
terms of scalability and performance.
Implementing two types of web services development in different
parts of the business has been no more challenging than running any
two separate projects, says Bond. But the real impact of web
services has been the ability for the retailer to move forward from
its former approach to development. "We have a strong IT strategy,
based on making our back-end systems fairly homogenous," he says.
"We have always implemented standards where possible. But going
forward, we find we don't have to take exactly the same approach.
"Web services allow us to have a slightly more heterogeneous
environment. It means the integration issue is not so important and
it gives me more options to play with, enabling us to take more
best-of-breed systems than would otherwise be possible," he
says.
Bond sees web services as increasingly strategic to House of
Fraser. "They are one of those technologies that can solve real
business problems," he says.