Case Studies: Retail

Tesco.com, the world’s largest online grocery retailer, is dedicated to ensuring a convenient and efficient shopping experience for customers. Since the first online shopping trial in 1996, the number of shoppers has increased rapidly – approximately 25% annually. To support this growth and continue to give customers swift and easy access to products they want, when they want them, Tesco.com upgraded the IT infrastructure to SQL Server 2005. Working with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, Tesco.com was able to complete the implementation quickly and easily. Now, Tesco.com can improve service by ensuring shoppers’ “My Favourites” lists are quickly updated with their latest purchases. Even first-time users can access a favourites list based on in-store purchases. For Tesco customers, this means increased convenience and time saved when placing an order.

One of Argentina's largest grocery chains, Disco S.A. relies on an automatic replenishment system to manage inventory. Originally running on Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000, Disco upgraded to Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and revised procedures to achieve significant performance gains. Running on SQL Server 2005, the automatic replenishment system manages the company's entire distribution system, giving managers at Disco up-to-the-minute information on inventory in every store.

Based in Seoul, Korea, E.Land Group’s Retail Division has become a major force in fashion and discount retailing, partly through its expertise in brand management and merchandising. E.Land Group has four product lines that it sells through 93 of its own discount stores. The success of E.Land Group has enabled it to expand through a number of mergers and acquisitions in recent years. In order to help standardize its operations on SAP ERP, the company decided to move the SAP ERP data from newly acquired properties, which had been running on a UNIX\Oracle platform onto a multi-terabyte SAP ERP database hosted on Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005 Enterprise Edition (64-bit) running on Microsoft Windows Server® 2003 Datacenter Edition for Itanium-based Systems.

Weight Watchers International wanted to learn about technology options for a point-of-service solution that would streamline operations and a data warehouse solution that would improve business intelligence. The company attended two separate Microsoft® Technology Center engagements and came away with clear technology decisions, specific architecture recommendations, cost-effective solutions, and the ability to deploy those solutions quickly.