Robert LeBlanc Quotes on Business & Commerce (2 Quotes)

To build its SOA environment, Staples first had to dissect its business processes into its component functions, such as inventory checking, build-to-order, order history, and so on. Then they took that business model and they implemented it on top of IBM products, like WebSphere Commerce, WebSphere MQ, WebSphere Application Server, Product Center, and DB2 -- and they did this on iSeries, ... Now they have a kind of full, SOA environment that enables them to bring new services to the marketplace much quicker, allows them to integrate any piece of the company they have or acquisitions very quickly, and gives a single, seamless view of their customer set across multiple channels. So they've gotten extremely good business value from being able to do that.

According to Robert LeBlanc, general manager for WebSphere for IBM Software Group, Staples became an early adopter of SOA two years ago, working closely with IBM to build a scalable, integrated, multichannel retailing solution. They needed scalability, because the old system did not scale, ... and they started to grow and expand their business. And they really needed a new style of architecture. ... They wanted to go over the system once and reuse the pieces over and over again as they were bringing new services to their customer set.