Transoft Case Study

tRanSoFtCaSeStuDy
application integration
Soa For legacy
Transoft helps DBC Foodservice bring home the bacon
DBC Foodservice, most famous brand Danish Bacon, faced a real
challenge – a need to upgrade their service to customers by adding an
e-commerce facility, whilst integrating to their web-unfriendly legacy
back-office solution. Transoft offered them a recipe for success.
oRganiZation pRoFile
BuSineSS Challenge
DBC Foodservice's range of over 8,000
products offers caterers a real 'one stop
shop' for all their foodservice needs. From
fresh to frozen, from sweet to savoury, from
starters to desserts, DBC can supply every
type of food a caterer requires.
For DBC, the customer comes first, second
and third. Finding new ways to enhance
the customer service they offer is crucial to
their continued success.
A product portfolio combining leading
brands with their own 'd' brand range
ensures they have the right products at the
right price for all requirements.
As a national company that prides itself on
providing unrivalled levels of service, DBC
aims to ensure its 6,000 product lines are
efficiently delivered to all of its 20,000
customers.
DBC is a national company providing a
local service.
• They have the buying power of a large
organization to secure the best deal on all
leading brands.
• They pride themselves on always being
competitive.
• With over 20,000 customers, they ensure
their customers get best value on all their
orders.
In order to remain ultra-competitive, DBC
continually reviews the way it serves its
customers, searching for ways to make it
easier and more convenient for them to do
business. DBC recognized the power of the
Internet at an early stage.
Starting to use the Web as a simple
communication channel, they soon moved
towards using it as a primary means of
enhancing customer service.
However, a Web front-end is only part
of the story of building successful
e-commerce.
Without real-time connectivity to core
business systems you simply have a
Website, not a truly efficient e-commerce
solution.
Through a long-standing relationship with
their back-office systems provider,
Computer Systems for Distribution (CSfD),
DBC developed a strategy to provide online product ordering and tracking for their
customers through its website.
CSfD, a leading software house providing
fully integrated business solutions to the
distribution and logistics sector, are
experienced in implementing on-line
systems on a customer’s own server.
However, creating the e-commerce solution
with a live link to the legacy back-office
software was an area where they needed
some outside help.
That’s where Transoft came in.
Solution DeployeD
DBC customers range in size from single
restaurants to local authorities. Many of
their users are non-technical people i.e.
head cooks, chefs etc. This was one of the
driving factors behind the need to develop
an e-commerce solution that was as easy
as picking up the phone.
Following a review of other e-commerce
sites, DBC were successfully able to avoid
many of the common pitfalls early on. When
they created a wish-list for their own
system, it certainly had to include straightthrough order processing into their core
business systems.
The Modernization Experts
Alistair Allan, IT Manager at DBC,
commented:
“It would have been pointless to attempt a
half-way house. We have seen so many
Websites where orders were simply emails in
disguise, requiring manual intervention to
become product requests; leaving customers
uncertain as to whether an item was in stock,
or even available. We wanted a system that
would advise a customer in real-time if an
item were not available and, if not, be able to
suggest alternative products or sizes whilst
they were still on-line completing their order.”
‘‘
A customer places an
order on our Website and
a minute later it becomes
a pick note in our
warehouse. We've been
extremely demanding of
our e-commerce project
suppliers from the outset.
With the inclusion of
Transoft's products into the
solution, they have been
able to deliver everything
we have asked.
‘‘
Alistair Allan
IT Manager
DBC Foodservice
CSfD was appointed as the prime contractor
on a project to supply and support a
comprehensive Web-based self-service
wholesale distribution system. By providing
this solution to its customers, DBC would be
able to offer true 24/7 customer service,
through an easy-to-use Web interface. This
solution would provide customers with the
flexibility to order at times that suited them,
rather than when the phones lines were open.
Apart from the potential to reduce their own
customer servicing costs, DBC wanted a
system that would also enable its customers
to select products, place and track orders –
and all in real time.
The integration between the new e-commerce
system and the legacy CSfD back-office
system was a crucial component in delivering
the function DBC had specified. By using
Transoft APPIntegrate the project kept to an
aggressively tight timescale and helped
deliver the solution within budget.
CSfD provided a modular-based solution of
22 core e-business component services –
such as order tracking, product search,
shopping basket and check-out. This highly
configurable solution is capable of meeting a
client's individual requirements from a set of
standard modules.
Transoft's APPIntegrate was an essential
element of the total solution. By employing
this technology, the project was able to deliver
straight-through, on-line processing.
What’s more, the Transoft solution was
incredibly reliable, offered fully scalable
connectivity to DBC's core business systems
and ensured the system had high traffic
tolerance.
By delivering legacy business logic and data
as HTML, via component-based XML
services, Transoft APPIntegrate enables rapid
development of solutions. Transoft delivers
the required integration of Web front-ends
with core business legacy (COBOL, RPG, C,
Basic etc.) applications.
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Because it's written in Java and deployed as
a Java Servlet, applications developed using
the Transoft XML Transformation Adapter
provide excellent performance and scalability.
The Transoft solution is a standard offering
that delivers the required integration on a
wide range of Web servers and platforms
without modification.
The platforms supported by Transoft products
range from Microsoft Internet Information
Server (IIS) on Windows to APACHE on UNIX
or Linux. Connections to the Transoft
Language and Data Adapters provide an
efficient, seamless and speedy integration
from the front to the back-end – delivering
real-time straight-through processing.
BeneFitS aChieveD
The original pilot scheme went live with a
small group of customers, to confirm the
system met its objectives in terms of ease-ofuse and efficiency. The trial proved highly
successful. It even resulted in suggestions for
additional enhancements, which were
included in the launch phase of the project.
These enhancements included an historic and
repeat order system plus early notification of
incomplete lines. These enhancements
helped in further shortening the time needed
for a customer to place an order.
Following the launch, DBC were exceedingly
pleased with the take-up of customers
registering and using their e-commerce site.
The feedback from many of the initial users
showed that DBC had hit the mark. They had
been successful in providing customers with
an intuitive, easy-to-use interface for ordering
its products.
The site continues to receive enhancements
and additional features with each new phase
of development. The third phase enables
customers to carry out template ordering
using a modifiable saved shopping list. This
will help save customers time and effort on
items that are ordered regularly.
Alistair Allan again:
“DBC's main aim is to continue to provide
added value to its customers and to ensure it
delivers a higher service satisfaction level.”
DBC also plan to add a number of other
features to the system, enhancing the
customer service experience still further. One
of these will allow customers to obtain copy
invoices – saving valuable time for both DBC
and its customers.
The advantages of connecting the Web frontend to the core business systems using
APPIntegrate are clear, as Alistair Allan
comments:
“A customer places an order on our Website
and a minute later it becomes a pick note in
our warehouse. We've been extremely
demanding of our e-commerce project
suppliers from the outset. With the inclusion of
Transoft's products into the solution, they
have been able to deliver everything we have
asked.”
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Group Limited and Transoft Inc 2012. All rights reserved.