Application Support: Major Retailer optimizes applications performance by 10% improved system response time

Challenge

As technology has evolved over the years, the client has created a patchwork of disparate systems on different platforms throughout the company. Some applications lack consistency in capability and are rarely integrated in terms of function or data. This could have presented a competitive disadvantage for the client, as innovations are made available over time.

The significant challenges that the client faced in its IT area are:

• High IT resource cost involved to maintain the diverse set of application systems


• Disparate systems on different platforms that do not talk or connect to each other


• Legacy applications based on outdated architecture making it difficult to change processes and business rules


• Business critical systems required round-the-clock support, from highly skilled professionals

The need was to scale and optimise the client’s application systems and support improved levels of business resilience.

Meeting the Challenge: CSC’s Approach

Meeting these challenges required an experienced partner with proven retail expertise and integrated system development capabilities. CSC India is helping the world's leading retailers achieve their market objectives by providing the scalability to manage retail initiatives across multiple global markets simultaneously, without increasing the burden on in-house staff.

Seeing CSC’s retail expertise, the client signed up a contract with CSC where CSC will be responsible for maintaining and enhancing the client’s software applications. Currently, six high performance self-directing teams spanning across multiple technology platforms, which range from mainframes to web-based applications, are operational in this project. These teams are working with the client's customers located across different cities in the US to provide a unique and proven process and structure for enabling and sustaining high levels of performance. The India component of this deal has 75 percent of the resources who support most of the applications 24x7, from its Hyderabad and Chennai centres.

CSC India offshore and onshore team worked together from the very beginning, enhancing the client’s application systems through:

• Skilled professionals taking over the application portfolios and working towards better integration


• Remediation of code to improve application performance


• Process improvements for system stability


• Web based application interfaces developed to match up with the competition


• 24x7 production support

Convinced of CSC’s delivery capabilities, the client engaged CSC in a major development initiative to integrate the inventory and point-of-sale (POS) systems across all its outlets in the US. CSC India team consisting of Java Architects/Designers and Developers was formed to help design, develop and deploy the new integrated system.

Results & Business Benefits

CSC’s solution has a direct impact on profitability through a decrease in costs by improving the efficiency and scalability of operations.

• High availability of critical business applications with application downtime reduced to zero


• Improved system response time due to reduction of CPU average load from 14% to less than 3%


• Enhanced customer experience and better inventory management


• More cohesive IT applications through better integration


• Easier maintenance of round-the-clock support and faster turnaround times through staff based in different time zones


• Reduction in IT resource expense through outsourcing