Vendor claims three of the worldÂ’s five largest retailers ring up savings with application modernisation solutions

Vendor claims three of the world’s five largest retailers ring up savings with application modernisation solutions

Micro Focus, an enterprise application modernisation, testing and management solutions provider, has announced three of the world’s five largest global retailers rely on its application modernisation solutions to reduce costs and improve competitive differentiation and customer satisfaction.

Micro Focus modernisation solutions, which are being used by retailers such as Wal-Mart and Tesco, enable customers to reduce IT costs by as much as 90% and increase developer productivity by more than 30%.

Hailing global retail reach

In total, Micro Focus said it has more than 2,000 retail customers across the globe. Retailers using Micro Focus modernisation solutions are able to cost-effectively deliver new applications and services, respond quickly to changing customer requirements and deliver new business functionality up to 40% faster. These development benefits can help retailers develop a significant competitive advantage, it added.

When looking to modernise their IT systems, some retail organisations opt to completely re-write mission-critical mainframe applications, or to replace them with an off-the-shelf package. These options often result in projects running over-budget and tying up IT resources for years. In addition, they typically result in the loss of invaluable intellectual property that has often been built up for decades, and provides critical competitive differentiation.

However, succeeding in today’s low-growth, low margin retail industry requires the release of capital to enable business transformation, according to the vendor. Modernising existing mainframe applications enables retailers to successfully shift focus from short-term stability to long-term business growth and prosperity.

Helping giants maximise margin

Tesco uses Micro Focus to modernise and extend its supply chain management system to support international expansion.

“The retail industry has been hit particularly hard by the economic downturn, and the traditionally razor-thin margins make it even more critical for retailers to, not only cut IT costs, but avoid burdensome, recurring mainframe costs over the long term,” said Ken Powell, president of North American operations at Micro Focus.

“At Micro Focus we work with our retail customers to identify which applications make sense for modernisation and execute modernisation strategies that reduce hard costs and enable increased flexibility, competitive differentiation, and business growth.”