InformationWeek
Defining The Business Value Of Technology
June 14, 1999
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Brooks Brothers Inc., the upscale men's clothing chain, this month will begin using a system of hand-held devices that let employees take inventory, log incoming product shipments, locate specific products within a store, and print out new price labels. The devices from Symbol Technologies Inc., with menu-driven screens and bar-code readers, will use radio transmission to connect with the company's retail-management system, which manages inventory, purchasing and receiving, and pricing.
The data collected with the devices will also be sent from the operational systems to an Oracle data warehouse for analysis. "Initially, it will be used to look at merchandise management, determining if we have the right merchandise for the right customer at the right time," says CIO Neil Cameron. The analysis could help Brooks Brothers improve merchandise availability and reduce the amount of inventory that needs to be marked down for sale.
Lee Auto Parts has implemented a customer-loyalty program using smart cards in an effort to ward off competition from other chains that are expanding into the Chicago area, where it operates a dozen stores. The company has issued thousands of cards, which customers use to accumulate credits, or "points," that can be redeemed for merchandise."We felt that if we could give our customers a little extra, that would make them come back to our store," says Phill Porpora, president of Lee Auto Parts. The smart cards hold customer identification information as well as a tally of points the customer has earned, based on purchases. When customers visit the store, they insert the smart card into a terminal; the terminal connects to a database at the chain's headquarters that contains more detailed data about the customers, as well as their point totals.
In addition to turning occasional shoppers into loyal customers, the system, provided by SmartCard Solutions Inc. in Milwaukee, alerts management when a customer hasn't been in for a while and sends out a "We'd-like-you-back" letter. The smart cards used by Lee Auto Parts are made by Schlumberger Ltd. Last month, Schlumberger struck a deal to embed Pervasive Software Inc.'s Pervasive.SQL database on its Cyberflex Access smart cards by year's end.
IT managers who have had to build their own pervasive-computing and deep-computing links can look forward to new products that provide that connection.
IBM is developing transcoding technology based on the Extensible Markup Language, to be built into its WebSphere application server and other products, to let portable and embedded databases synchronize with company databases. That will let mobile workers--from meter readers to visiting nurses-- upload data to a central server. It will even provide a means for manufacturers to gather data from software embedded in everything from auto engines to home appliances. "The real value here is going to be to get that information up to a central data store so that the manufacturer can mine that data," says Janet Perna, database management general manager of IBM's software solutions division.
Global Architecture
Microsoft intends to make its Windows CE operating system a platform for ubiquitous computing devices ranging from handheld computers to TV set-top boxes. Last week, Bob Muglia, senior VP of Microsoft's business productivity group, unveiled plans for a "global data-access architecture" that will provide links between data appliances running Windows CE and back-end databases. Microsoft also demonstrated an early version of its SQL Server database for Windows CE-based devices and appliances.
The architecture will be based on Microsoft's ActiveX Data Objects and OLE DB interface specifications and provide a means for applications to access Microsoft and third-party data stores. The data-access components of the new architecture, scheduled for beta release later this year, will be distributed as part of the Microsoft Platform Builder for Windows CE.
Oracle's portable and embedded database offerings are already capable of bidirectional data synchronization with central systems. A new iConnect component built into Oracle8i Lite will allow replication of both data and applications between portable and business systems. Similarly, Cloudscape Inc., which sells a Java database for portable and embedded applications, is debuting this week its own Cloudsync software for bidirectional data and application synchronization (see story, "Database Synchronizer").
As products like these become more prevalent, they will also become an increasingly important piece of many companies' business-intelligence infrastructures. In what some call the "post-PC" world, pervasive computing appliances could become a primary means for businesses to gather information and stay abreast of customers' needs. IT organizations that fail to recognize this could find themselves squeezed as data collection widens.
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Illustration by James Yang
Photo of Temple by Greg Whitaker
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