By migrating to a hybrid cloud, the retailer will gain agility and efficiency in its IT infrastructure, in addition to improving the customer experience in different sales channels.
IBM announced that Leroy Merlin, one of the largest retail chains in the construction segment, is taking a significant step towards providing Brazilian consumers with a unique experience online and in physical stores. By adopting a hybrid cloud strategy, IBM was able to offer the retailer a more agile, stable and efficient environment for managing digital platform applications, including sales and administrative systems.
With ever-increasing demand for personalized shopping experiences, retailers around the world are looking to technology to win the race. In a recent IBM Business Value Institute study, 70% of retail companies mentioned that they are increasing their investments in channel and store digitization, while 71% said they see the customer experience impacting the business landscape more than the products themselves.
Operating in Brazil for over 20 years, Leroy Merlin has over 40 stores across the country that are complemented by telephone and internet sales. The retailer is migrating important workloads to the IBM Cloud, such as point-of-sale applications, SAP and e-commerce, creating a hybrid cloud model that will provide more flexibility and speed in business operations.
“Our vision is to become a single destination for all Brazilian home and construction needs, serving the customer wherever they are and in the way they prefer to buy”, says Marcelo Figueiredo, Director of Infrastructure and Digital Workplace at Leroy Merlin . "We are confident that IBM's hybrid cloud will enable us to accelerate our transformation to respond to customer demands across all channels and keep Leroy Merlin at the forefront of the construction market."
By creating a hybrid cloud environment, IBM's Services division was able to significantly reduce the time required to create new IT environments for Leroy Merlin - from 10 to 3 days, compared to traditional infrastructure - while maintaining security and availability. This makes it possible for Leroy Merlin to launch new cloud-based applications and bring new features to end users much faster. This agility is a strong competitive advantage, as time-to-market for new products and services is an important differentiator and a major component of the customer's omnichannel strategy.
“IBM's Services division has been a partner in Leroy Merlin's digital transformation journey for more than 10 years, modernizing the sales, SAP and administrative environments and supporting the client's application development processes. We are committed to leading them to this next important step of innovation by migrating part of the company's infrastructure to the cloud”, explains Frank Koja, VP of Technology Services at IBM Brazil. “Cloud is the foundation of digital reinvention and the adoption of this technology gives companies the possibility to offer a more stable and faster experience to their end customers”, he says.
Online shopping experience
In recent years, Leroy Merlin has also invested in its transformation into an omnichannel company, bringing new services and facilities to its customers, who can now search for and buy products aided by a chatbot that uses Watson on the IBM Cloud. LIA (acronym for Leroy Merlin Artificial Intelligence) works on the retailer's website to answer about store addresses, exchange system, available services and opening hours, available on the company's website 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
With ever-increasing demand for personalized shopping experiences, retailers around the world are looking to technology to win the race. In a recent IBM Business Value Institute study, 70% of retail companies mentioned that they are increasing their investments in channel and store digitization, while 71% said they see the customer experience impacting the business landscape more than the products themselves.
Operating in Brazil for over 20 years, Leroy Merlin has over 40 stores across the country that are complemented by telephone and internet sales. The retailer is migrating important workloads to the IBM Cloud, such as point-of-sale applications, SAP and e-commerce, creating a hybrid cloud model that will provide more flexibility and speed in business operations.
“Our vision is to become a single destination for all Brazilian home and construction needs, serving the customer wherever they are and in the way they prefer to buy”, says Marcelo Figueiredo, Director of Infrastructure and Digital Workplace at Leroy Merlin . "We are confident that IBM's hybrid cloud will enable us to accelerate our transformation to respond to customer demands across all channels and keep Leroy Merlin at the forefront of the construction market."
By creating a hybrid cloud environment, IBM's Services division was able to significantly reduce the time required to create new IT environments for Leroy Merlin - from 10 to 3 days, compared to traditional infrastructure - while maintaining security and availability. This makes it possible for Leroy Merlin to launch new cloud-based applications and bring new features to end users much faster. This agility is a strong competitive advantage, as time-to-market for new products and services is an important differentiator and a major component of the customer's omnichannel strategy.
“IBM's Services division has been a partner in Leroy Merlin's digital transformation journey for more than 10 years, modernizing the sales, SAP and administrative environments and supporting the client's application development processes. We are committed to leading them to this next important step of innovation by migrating part of the company's infrastructure to the cloud”, explains Frank Koja, VP of Technology Services at IBM Brazil. “Cloud is the foundation of digital reinvention and the adoption of this technology gives companies the possibility to offer a more stable and faster experience to their end customers”, he says.
Online shopping experience
In recent years, Leroy Merlin has also invested in its transformation into an omnichannel company, bringing new services and facilities to its customers, who can now search for and buy products aided by a chatbot that uses Watson on the IBM Cloud. LIA (acronym for Leroy Merlin Artificial Intelligence) works on the retailer's website to answer about store addresses, exchange system, available services and opening hours, available on the company's website 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
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