Upload
dinhhuong
View
214
Download
0
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Helping Retailers Connect with Customers
Retail is a people business, whether the product is
groceries, videos, or luxury hotel rooms. Intuition,
instincts, and information each play a key role in
merchandising and selling. But increasingly what’s
needed is insight into customers and the business itself.
The challenges have never been greater.
Delivering the level of service that’s expected today
means providing the personal touch whether a
customer is shopping in the store, doing business
on an affi liate’s Web site, or calling Product Support.
Retailers are historically data rich and information
poor, sitting on islands of information—about
inventory, customer buying habits, and sales trends—
contained in separate applications.
Today, the information overload is intensifi ed, as
data is collected from channels as diverse as gas pumps,
PDAs, and online storefronts. The magnitude of data is
taking a quantum leap with the increased use of RFID
(radio frequency identifi cation) tags on inventory.
Making Strategic Use of Technology
To thrive in the face of intense competition requires
real-time retailing. It means using software more
strategically—to gain insight into consumers and
store operations, to capture processes and improve
performance across the value chain, to know what’s
in hot demand this morning, and be able to predict
accurately what customers will buy next season.
From fast food outlets to shopping malls,
businesses are moving to real-time retailing and
strengthening relationships with customers by using
cost-effective, innovative solutions from Microsoft
and its Certifi ed Partners.
• The sales force of an innovative winery in New
Zealand has real-time access to inventory to help
close sales when visiting customers. Villa Maria
Estate Limited anticipates making 10 percent
more customer calls now that its sales reps carry
PDAs. This enables them to view orders, credits,
and promotional activity, and to determine stock
availability in real time. Payback is expected
within 12 months from the application, built with
Microsoft technology.
• Trans World Entertainment is turning browsers
into buyers by personalizing customers’ experience
according to their entertainment preferences.
The number and average size of purchases has
increased as a result. The specialty music and video
retailer reaches customers across a broad range
of physical and online touch points, including
a personalized Web site, in-store listening and
viewing stations, and in-store kiosks. Each of its
700 mall-based FYE (For Your Entertainment) stores
runs a Microsoft® Windows® 2000–based server,
using its support for Internet standards to pull
catalog data from back-end systems and its built-in
streaming media capabilities to drive the in-store
devices. The kiosks were completed and taken
live in just six weeks, enabling FYE to introduce
their new services and vision in time for the critical
holiday shopping season.
“We are alerted almost
immediately when
a suspicious activity
occurs, allowing us
to get to the source
of the problem
immediately and focus
on the recovery. In the
past, detecting such
activities in real time
was inconceivable for
us, and getting to the
problem took days and
weeks. Now it takes
minutes and hours.”
– John Davis,
Director of Loss
Prevention for Virgin
Entertainment Group
• Drive-through customers get their meal orders
25 percent faster and RGT Management is saving
more than $1 million annually thanks to a fl exible
business intelligence solution that automatically
draws data from across its 60 quick-serve
restaurants and proactively alerts managers to
variances and trends. Before implementing the
solution, the company relied on a 12-year-old
legacy system and multiple manual processes
to analyze its business performance. The QSRx
solution from XFormity, a Microsoft Premium
Certifi ed Partner, enables managers to view the
reports on a Web portal or from mobile phones
and PDAs when they’re away from their desks.
RGT calculates an ROI of more than 30 to 1.
connectingBUSINESS AND INFORMATIONTECHNOLOGYIT—and software in particular—has a direct impact
throughout retailing, from the POS system at check-
out to the payroll system on the desktop that makes
sure sales associates get paid. The typical retail
enterprise relies on mainframe and other legacy
systems that don’t connect with each other or with
newer applications and technologies, from ringing up
sales to cutting payroll checks to restocking shelves.
Many of today’s challenges with technology
stem from disconnects between the software we
so often rely upon and the processes—purchasing,
merchandising, and selling products—that are the
lifeblood of a successful retail concern. IT complexity
has forced retailers in the past to focus too much on
the technology itself and too little on integrating and
deploying information to create business value.
Advances in software are changing that—
providing fl exible, standardized ways to integrate
systems and collaborate across the value chain from
suppliers to customers. With new technology comes
new ways of thinking about IT, using it to add value
to the enterprise by capturing business processes to
better refl ect how businesses and people actually
work. Forward-thinking retailers are using IT not just
to optimize single-purpose applications, but to link
them from the sales fl oor to the top fl oor to glean
insights, improve decision-making, optimize resources,
head off problems, and act on new opportunities
before the competition.
“The amount of revenue
that we have already
protected in the first
six months has more
than covered our cost
of development. Now,
that’s what I call price
performance.”
– Martin Wilkinson,
Profit Protection
Manager for Marks
& Spencer, Britain’s
largest retail chain
At Microsoft, we are committed to helping
retailers realize their potential by using information
technology—from servers to desktop applications—
as a strategic business asset.
the powerOF INNOVATIVE SOFTWARE
Using technology for smart retailing is about much
more than linking a couple of applications or putting
PDAs in the hands of employees. The biggest gains
for retailers will come in using innovative software to
improve visibility into store operations and shoppers,
to make decisions based on useful analysis instead
of disconnected data, and to react to change quickly
rather than do business as usual.
Using advances in technology, retailers can
create solutions for smarter shopping, smarter selling,
and smarter operations that help:
• Win customer loyalty by providing personalized
service based on interactions across multiple
channels.
• Manage and move merchandise better, from
forecasting demand to stocking the right mix to
optimizing prices.
• Free store managers from the back offi ce to spend
more time on the sales fl oor.
Each wave of innovation in the Microsoft
platform will build on the benefi ts available today,
while further expanding the realm of what’s possible.
The Microsoft platform is being used in
shopping malls, boutiques, and online storefronts
around the world to establish insight and oversight,
capture processes and intellectual property, and free
employees from routine tasks so they can form richer
relationships with customers.
Connected Systems
Building on the Microsoft platform enables increased
connectivity across the enterprise, with the ability to
integrate Microsoft and third-party technology in
modular ways. This provides for high degrees of reuse
and greater fl exibility in evolving applications over time.
Built on Web service standards, Microsoft .NET connects
a broad range of personal and business technologies,
enabling sales associates, store managers, directors at
headquarters, suppliers, and customers to access and
use important information, whenever and wherever it is
needed. .NET is the comprehensive Microsoft strategy
to enable Web service connectivity across its entire line
of products and services.
Integrated Platform
The Microsoft platform provides end-to-end
technology used the world over—from the sales
fl oor to the front offi ce. Microsoft technology helps
organizations rapidly build, deploy, and maintain
solutions that support constant interaction and
WEB SERVICES
What are Web services? If
you ask a developer, you’ll
hear something like, “self-
describing software modules,
semantically encapsulating
discrete functionality,
wrapped in and accessible
via standard Internet com-
munication protocols like
XML and SOAP.”
If you ask a business leader
who has implemented Web
service-based solutions,
you’ll hear a different kind
of answer: Web services help
the business connect with
customers and partners;
they enable the business to
extend existing services to
new customers; they unlock
information so it can flow to
every employee who needs
it; they reduce development
time and expense for new
projects. You’ll hear less
about what Web services are
and more about what they
enable the business to do.
controllingYOUR BOTTOM LINE
To control costs in an industry of razor-thin profi t
margins, retailers need to know where everything is
in the supply chain, understand the demand for each
of these items, and make smart replenishment and
reallocation decisions quickly. Effi cient operations
require seamlessly exchanging information as products
move from supplier to store to customer.
Improve Store Operations
Operating effi ciently improves both service to
customers and the bottom line. The ability to respond
quickly to changing customer demands and introduce
new products and services on a store-by-store basis is
crucial for 7-Eleven. Each of its 5,800 convenience
stores relies on the company-wide retail information
system to evaluate and report sales, order inventory,
and relay information to suppliers. The most important
factor in upgrading the system was the time required
to deploy new capabilities to its stores. 7-Eleven’s
analysis showed it could reduce the development
and deployment time for new system capabilities
by 50 percent by using Microsoft Windows Server
SystemTM integrated server software. In addition, its
detailed study of cost factors ranging from licensing
to operations found a 20 percent lower total cost of
ownership (TCO) for Microsoft Windows ServerTM 2003
than for Linux.
outreach with customers, partners, and employees.
Collaboration, application integration, and
customizable content are built into a single platform,
enabling companies to enhance customer satisfaction,
strengthen partner relationships, and increase overall
employee productivity.
Best Platform Economics
Microsoft technology has the advantage of lower
total cost of ownership, with performance equal to or
better than competitors. Retailers can use Microsoft
software to get more value out of legacy systems or
can reduce the cost of IT operations by migrating from
expensive UNIX platforms, porting SAP and Siebel
applications to Windows, and consolidating servers.
Using the ubiquitous, familiar Offi ce interface for data
from across the enterprise cuts training costs and
boosts knowledge worker productivity. Building with
Microsoft Visual Studio® .NET, in use by more than 2.5
million developers worldwide, allows manufacturers to
tap into a deep pool of affordable developer talent.
A rich ecosystem of retail industry partners,
including leading systems integrators (SIs),
independent software vendors (ISVs) and original
equipment manufacturers (OEMs), are aligning their
solutions with the Microsoft Smarter Retailing Initiative,
ensuring that retailers can choose the partners and
solutions that best fi t their needs over time. Microsoft
has learned from its own experience in retail with the
MSN® Shopping portal and the Microsoft Product
Information Center. In addition, Microsoft Consulting
Services’ Retail Practice is staffed with consultants with
years of direct retail technology experience.
“We’re a retailer, not a
technology company,
and could never have
afforded to build all
this from scratch. Using
.NET, we were able to
deliver a huge amount
of functionality and
customer value in just
six weeks, and at a very
reasonable cost.”
– Steve Skiba,
Chief Technology Officer
for FYE.com
Cut Costs by Reducing Shrinkage
What company doesn’t want to prevent fraud by
being able to spot suspicious activity as it takes place?
Fraud-detection solutions built on Microsoft software
can do just that, as Marks & Spencer found when it
automated its manual Profi t Protection program, and
reduced fraud by 10 percent. The system proactively
identifi es dishonest transactions, and alerts in-store
Profi t Protection investigators carrying mobile digital
devices. Britain’s leading clothing retailer expects a
return on investment (ROI) for the fi rst year of 415
percent. Use of XML and Microsoft BizTalk® Server
more easily and effectively integrates data into
existing back-end systems, thus providing near real-
time analytics for improved store management.
66 percent less using Visual Studio .NET than its prior
development environment, and support costs are
19 percent lower. Core coding was decreased from
six months to six weeks, an effective improvement
of 400 percent in development effi ciency.
Gain Insight into Operations
Microsoft software is helping managers in the store
and at corporate headquarters get a clear view into
the business when it matters.
Managers spend 20 percent more time on the
sales fl oor and 20 percent less time resolving product
inventory issues since Virgin Entertainment Group
started using a portal developed with Microsoft
technology. With operations in North America, Europe,
and Japan, the company needed a more effi cient and
cost-effective way to link corporate headquarters
with its regional stores. To address this need, Virgin
and Xavor, a Microsoft Certifi ed Partner, created a
corporate information portal and collaborative team
sites using Microsoft technology. This solution is
helping its 1,500 employees fi nd and analyze relevant
information across the enterprise so they can fully
Boost Sales Force Productivity
As the world’s largest manufacturer, seller,
and distributor of Pepsi-Cola beverages, the
Pepsi Bottling Group (PBG) has to contend with
a proliferation of SKUs, a complex pricing scheme,
multiple customer development agreements, periodic
promotions, and lists of authorized products that can
vary from store to store—even within a chain. To help
sales reps effi ciently track all this information, PBG
outfi tted them with Pocket PCs and a next-generation
application built on the Microsoft platform. The Pocket
PCs tie into the back offi ce using 802.11b wireless
connectivity when available, or through a dial-up line.
The application has reduced costs through better
management of products and trade promotions.
Improve ROI on IT with Rapid Development
and Extension of Legacy Systems
By making it easier to write and reuse code, Microsoft
software reduces development costs and frees IT to
focus on business priorities. Speeding development
by using Web services to connect existing and new
systems creates competitive advantage, as Marks
& Spencer found. Development costs for its Web
services–based fraud-detection application are
leverage the knowledge that exists within their
organization. The solution freed up 15 percent of a
typical manager’s time for higher-value tasks and cut
IT support costs by more than 15 percent.
To reduce signifi cant losses from employee
theft in its music and entertainment stores, Virgin
Entertainment Group deployed a new point-of-sale
reporting solution based on Microsoft technology.
The multichannel entertainment retailer gets real-time
data monitoring, suspicious activity alerts, and long-
term trend analysis to identify and prevent employee
theft. Access to fi ltered data is simpler, making it easier
for managers to perform analysis. By overcoming long
lag times in data reporting, Virgin detects 50 percent
more fraud, improving the likelihood of loss recovery.
Virgin again worked with Xavor, a Microsoft Certifi ed
Partner, to implement the solution.
buildingCUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS
Squeezing every penny out of supply chain costs is a
necessity, but even mass merchandisers like Wal-Mart
build their business on relationships. The single biggest
challenge is winning customer loyalty. To do this
requires knowledge about each shopper and an ability
to collaborate with customers to provide the services
and products they want when they want them.
Touch Customers Across Multiple Channels
The Microsoft platform makes it easier to link with
partners’ systems to reach new customers and let
them do business with you in new ways. L’Oréal,
a world leader in the beauty industry, uses Shop-
In-A-Shop (SIAS), built with Microsoft technology,
to integrate with the e-commerce sites of its retail
partners in a manner similar to placing counters for
selected L’Oréal brands in upscale department stores.
Changes made on L’Oréal servers are automatically
refl ected on the sites of its partners, so consumers
get consistent, up-to-date information no matter
where they shop. The company expects its solution
built on the Microsoft platform to lower total cost of
ownership (TCO) by 20–30 percent now that changes
to any product-specifi c data need only be made in
one place.
Brazilian specialty retailer WebRacing increased
orders 20 percent by personalizing presentation of
its Internet storefront for off-road motorcycles and
gear. Average sales rose by 25 percent as a result of
a cross-selling tool the company developed using
Microsoft software. After launching the solution,
cancelled orders fell by half and complaint calls to its
1-800 number were reduced 30 percent. In addition,
Web services applications enable the administrative
team to display reports on sales and orders on their
cellular phones and Pocket PCs. One of the innovative
technologies at the foundation of the Microsoft
platform, Web services enable applications to share
data and functionality across programming languages,
platforms, and devices.
MICROSOFT .NET
.NET is the Microsoft Web
services strategy to con-
nect information, people,
systems, and devices through
software. .NET is integrated
across the Microsoft plat-
form, providing the ability
to quickly build, deploy,
manage, and use connected,
security-enhanced solutions
with XML Web services.
These solutions enable
faster, more agile business
integration, and the promise
of information anytime, any-
where, on any device. The
Microsoft platform includes
everything a business needs
to develop and deploy a Web
service—connected IT archi-
tecture: servers to host Web
services, development tools to
create them, applications to
use them, and a worldwide
network of more than
35,000 Microsoft Certified
Partner organizations.
Serve Customers Better
Despite the growth of Web site self-service, call
centers remain a key channel for customer service.
User-friendly Web portals that tap disparate systems
can help improve customer service, reduce training
time, and spare employee frustration by shielding
them from the complexity of backend systems. The
popular cruise line Carnival is handling customer calls
30–40 percent faster with an application created in
just 45 days on the Microsoft platform. Call center
representatives use the application to validate
past-guest data, walk callers through a travel
preferences survey, and insert the order for requested
materials—all while keeping calls short thanks to
faster communication with the backend database.
Reach New Customers
Expanding services to your existing customer base
while attracting new business at the same time is a
winning combination. Kinko’s is rapidly extending
its existing e-business infrastructure to customer
desktops with the help of Web services and Microsoft
technology. With File, Print…Kinko’s (FPK), customers
can easily prepare documents for printing and
submit those documents online to any Kinko’s
U.S. location for pickup, local delivery, or shipping
of the printed materials to a destination of the
customer’s choice. Using Microsoft .NET technology
on both the client and the server, the company’s
FPK smart client solution bridges the gaps between
the programs that customers use to create business
documents, the fi le preparation utilities that ensure
customer intentions are captured correctly, and the
e-business infrastructure that Kinko’s uses to service
its customers. The solution gives customers another
channel into the capabilities of Kinko’s stores while
delivering what business customers value most—
customer service, quality, and speed.
real-timeSOLUTIONS FOR RETAILING
Merchandisers are using the Microsoft platform today
to make information available to the people who need
it, whether it’s a store detective catching fraud in the
check-out line, a customer going online to verify the
status of an order, or a sales rep closing a deal at the
customer’s place of business.
In discount chains and specialty stores, retailers
are achieving results and creating value today by
connecting systems with cost-effective solutions built
on the integrated Microsoft platform. In doing so,
businesses are taking advantage of the latest wave of
technical achievement and laying the groundwork for
future advancements.
Because Microsoft technologies provide an open,
standards-based way to connect systems, retailers
can use them to dramatically enhance the customer
buying experience by consolidating information from
existing databases and new channels to tailor service to
customers. Using Microsoft software, online superstore
Buy.com created a personalized shopping portal in just
two weeks that provides customers with faster access
to products of interest, account information, and order
status. Now, shoppers get a customizable view of new,
top-selling, and “special offer” products based on their
personal preferences.
“We push a lot of
information to the
stores and expect a
lot from the managers.
Redundancy and lack
of automation in this
process means our
managers can’t train
employees, or sell
product to customers.
This is very costly
to us…We had to
stop overwhelming
people with unneeded
information.
SharePoint® Portal
Server will give us this
capability.”
– Lisa Sullivan,
Director of Operations,
Virgin Entertainment
Group
retail’s futureSMARTER SHOPPINGSMARTER SELLING
Advancements in the next version of the Windows
operating system will help retailers operate in real
time and take personalized service to new levels. Visit
a connected store of the future to see how.
A shopper—let’s call her Amy—is in the market
for a big-screen TV. Her favorite discount electronics
store is having a big sale today so she drops by.
On a kiosk store layout map, Amy fi nds the
location of big-screen TVs. Before heading to that
area, she uses the kiosk to fi nd out if the specifi c
model she wants is in stock. So quickly that Amy has
no idea of the extensive search, the computer checks
the inventory systems of that store, then nearby stores,
the company’s distribution center, and fi nally the
manufacturer before locating the TV she wants. The
kiosk lets her know it’s not in stock at that store, but
asks if she’d like to get the TV at the quoted price.
Hmmm… Amy hits the button that lets her deal
with a real person. In a fl ash, a department manager
approaches. He tells her the TV can be delivered by
week’s end and uses his mobile terminal to schedule
a fi rm delivery date. No need to wait in a check-out
line. The manager rings up the sale on his handheld
terminal. Rather than wait for a receipt, Amy has it sent
by e-mail to her at home.
Such connected customer service will be
easier with the Real-Time Collaboration (RTC) and
communication features being built into the Microsoft
platform. RTC enables systems to identify who’s in
the store and what roles they play, in order to route a
message to the best available person. The next version
of the Windows operating system will make Web
services protocols run more effi ciently to support the
real-time collection and processing of information
beyond the store, so employees can tap central
systems to schedule deliveries and check supplier
inventory systems to clinch a sale.
“Our new solution
will give customers
another channel into
the capabilities of
our stores—a way
to do business with
Kinko’s that delivers
more of what business
customers value the
most: customer service,
quality, and speed.”
– Dan Connors,
Executive Vice
President and Chief
Administrative Officer
of Kinko’s
Now let’s see what’s happening on the loading
dock, where a pallet of new merchandise has just been
delivered. As the goods enter the store, an RFID reader
scans the pallet and the cartons on it. The actual
delivery is checked against the expected shipment
from the distribution center, thus automating the
task of order verifi cation. The receiving clerk confi rms
receipt with a click on an application on his wireless
pocket PC. A prioritized stocking list is automatically
generated, and sent to stocking clerks who use it
to replenish out-of-stock items fi rst as they move
merchandise to the sales fl oor.
To accommodate the increasing deployment of
RFID technology, Microsoft is building RFID capabilities
into its Smarter Retailing Initiative Architecture. The
upcoming version of Windows incorporates features
of Microsoft SQL ServerTM into its fi le system, enabling
powerful, fast sharing and searching of RFID data
among multiple applications for real-time retailing.
We now return to Amy, who has stopped at
a supermarket on her way home. As she enters the
store, the cell phone in her purse is recognized on
the store network. Amy has signed up on the store’s
Web site to have her past purchases tracked and to
receive information by phone while she’s in the store.
Identifying customers as they enter the store—rather
than when they check out and leave—helps the store
treat Amy like the loyal customer she is, even though
she’s not at her neighborhood market. Her cell phone
displays her shopping list with items shown in order
of their location in this store. When she approaches
the cereal aisle, she is reminded that she usually buys
Cheerios, even though it’s not on her list today. When
she pauses at the fi sh counter, her cell phone displays
a special price on sauce for the halibut, which she buys
whenever it’s in season.
Behind the scenes, information about the
locations of Amy and products in the store is being
combined with her past purchases in the CRM system.
Data is updated in real time and synchronized with
applications on the store cash registers, grocery
cart computer screens, and the smart phone in her
hand. Keeping up with the shopper in real time
is made easier with the next release of Windows,
which vastly simplifi es connectivity among systems
and allows multiple applications to easily share and
visualize information related to the customer, using
standardized data schemas.
For more on Microsoft efforts in Retailing, please see:
http://www.microsoft.com/smartretail.
MICROSOFTWINDOWS
“LONGHORN”
Microsoft is currently in the
early stages of building the
next version of Windows,
codenamed “Longhorn.” It
is being designed to provide
the foundation for a new
industry wave of innova-
tion—ultimately enabling
businesses to use technology
more effectively, with
far fewer barriers, while
enabling customers to better
realize the full benefits of
technology.
Current technologies such
as Windows XP, the .NET
Framework, and Visual
Studio .NET are the first
step towards the realization
of a new model of computing,
one designed around end-to-
end experiences that improve
the productivity and decision-
making abilities of organiza-
tions while informing and
entertaining customers at
home. “Longhorn” continues
these advancements as
personal computing becomes
a powerful asset in the
everyday lives of millions of
people worldwide.
links for more informationPocket PC application helps the Pepsi Bottling Group sell soda more effectivelyhttp://www.microsoft.com/resources/casestudies/CaseStudy.asp?casestudyid=13819
Hutchinson-Priceline Travel Ltd chooses Microsoft Windows Server 2003 to empower Asian travelers to “choose their own airline” and save http://www.microsoft.com/asia/case/Search2.asp?CaseID=205
Villa Maria leads with new intelligence in sales force http://www.microsoft.com/nz/casestudies/villa_maria.mspx
Trans World Entertainment delivers a unique consumer experience with Microsoft .NEThttp://www.microsoft.com/resources/casestudies/CaseStudy.asp?CaseStudyID=11311
Marks & Spencer reduces loss at retail stores using XML Web services application developed on Visual Studio .NET; achieves fi rst year return on investment of 415 percenthttp://www.microsoft.com/resources/casestudies/CaseStudy.asp?CaseStudyID=12376
L’Oréal selects Microsoft .NET platform as new standard for worldwide Web presencehttp://www.microsoft.com/resources/casestudies/CaseStudy.asp?CaseStudyID=11160
Sixty-restaurant franchisee reaps 30:1 ROI + from .NET-connected business intelligence solutionhttp://www.microsoft.com/resources/casestudies/CaseStudy.asp?CaseStudyID=13995
Dollar Rent A Car breathes new life into legacy systems using .NET-connected softwarehttp://www.microsoft.com/resources/casestudies/CaseStudy.asp?CaseStudyID=11626
World’s leading online grocer migrates to .NEThttp://www.microsoft.com/resources/casestudies/CaseStudy.asp?CaseStudyID=13066
Buy.com Builds Personalized Portal for Shoppers in Two Weeks http://www.microsoft.com/resources/casestudies/CaseStudy.asp?CaseStudyID=11072
Virgin Entertainment Group Uses Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies to Boost Sales and ReduceOperational Costs http://www.microsoft.com/resources/casestudies/CaseStudy.asp?CaseStudyID=15057
Entertainment Retailer Cuts Fraud with Real-Time Data Reportinghttp://www.microsoft.com/resources/casestudies/CaseStudy.asp?CaseStudyID=15075
Kinko’s Delivers Greater Convenience, Quality, and Speed for Business Customershttp://www.microsoft.com/resources/casestudies/CaseStudy.asp?CaseStudyID=14803
Carnival Cruise Lines Bets on Microsoft .NEThttp://www.microsoft.com/resources/casestudies/CaseStudy.asp?CaseStudyID=11273
Windows 2000 Server and Exchange 2000 Server streamline communications for 5,300 7 Eleven stores nationwide, avoiding daunting infrastructure costs and easing IT administrationhttp://www.microsoft.com/resources/casestudies/CaseStudy.asp?CaseStudyID=13218
The information contained in this document represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation on the issues discussed as of the date of publication. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information presented after the date of publication. This document is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS DOCUMENT. © 2004 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, BizTalk, MSN, the .NET logo, SharePoint, Visual Studio, Windows, Windows Server, and Windows Server System are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.Part No: 098-100477