The Client
Our client is a leading Australian retailer boasting a 26.6% market share with 6.34M customers annually and employing more than 100,000 people. They have partnered with HCLTech for more than a decade — it’s a partnership built on long-term vision and trust that’s enabled the supermarket chain to add the resources and technology solutions necessary to seamlessly meet an unexpected surge in online demand.
The Challenge
A sudden and unexpected demand for online capabilities
Our relationship began in 2010, when the retailer sought to modernize its internal and customer-facing technologies. Since then, HCLTech has been involved in a variety of projects, including DC operations for the corporate offices and its stores, platform operations (Windows, VMWare, Linux, AIX backups), database operations (Oracle, DB2, SQL), user access management, capacity-based network operations and patch management.
The latest challenge — and the focus of this case study — is upgrading the client’s ecommerce platform and online stores.
The Objective
Implement a future-proof ecommerce strategy
The retailer wanted an optimal deployment of technology that would create internal efficiencies and provide customers with fast access to goods and services. It viewed its ecommerce technology as a key strategy for protecting margins and enhancing shareholder value in a ferociously competitive marketplace.
They were impressed with not only HCLTech’s managed services but also our research and development capabilities, our retail-specific services and our view of long-term partnerships built on trust, transparency and flexibility.
The Solution
eCommerce modernization built upon a secure, agile, scalable, on-demand hybrid cloud environment, like AWS
The project focused on key business outcomes like better customer service and experience delivery capabilities, and reduced maintenance costs. These improvements would allow them to handle a sudden and sustained surge in online activity.
HCLTech supported the client and helped them seamlessly maintain operations and meet the unprecedented demand with a total of 46 functional changes across 18 releases over three years — each designed to improve the customer experience without business disruption.
Most recently, HCLTech has added business intelligence dashboards for the client’s separate business units and implemented lifecycle management processes.
The Impact
The fully functional ecommerce solution and strategy are now up and running
Our enduring partnership has been built on the philosophy of:
“One team. Build reliably. Release frequently. Deploy fast. Deliver quality. Generate end-to-end visibility. Target lean associate management software (AMS).”
During the ecommerce surge and beyond, the client was able to:
- Accommodate fluctuations in demand
- Gain visibility across all business units
- Implement lifecycle management
