Digital Transformation and Cloud Governance
Key Points
- The rise of smartphones and digital retail has forced the builders‑merchant market to shift from a traditional model to a multi‑channel experience, requiring thousands of products to be accurately displayed online for mobile shoppers.
- Managing product, supplier, and customer data is a major challenge, prompting the adoption of IBM’s governance tools to streamline data collection, approvals, and change processes without becoming overly restrictive.
- To support rapid growth and flexibility, the company launched the “Faster Cloud” initiative, migrating key applications—including IBM IPP on the cloud—into a scalable, managed cloud environment that reduces infrastructure overhead.
- Enhancing the mobile experience now includes a responsive app/website that shows real‑time branch stock, lets customers choose delivery or in‑store pick‑up, and integrates directly with inventory systems.
- The IT department is transitioning from a purely support role to a strategic partner, collaborating closely with business units to shape requirements and deliver solutions that drive efficiency and customer satisfaction.
Full Transcript
# Digital Transformation and Cloud Governance **Source:** [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiTUYMlqWI8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiTUYMlqWI8) **Duration:** 00:03:35 ## Summary - The rise of smartphones and digital retail has forced the builders‑merchant market to shift from a traditional model to a multi‑channel experience, requiring thousands of products to be accurately displayed online for mobile shoppers. - Managing product, supplier, and customer data is a major challenge, prompting the adoption of IBM’s governance tools to streamline data collection, approvals, and change processes without becoming overly restrictive. - To support rapid growth and flexibility, the company launched the “Faster Cloud” initiative, migrating key applications—including IBM IPP on the cloud—into a scalable, managed cloud environment that reduces infrastructure overhead. - Enhancing the mobile experience now includes a responsive app/website that shows real‑time branch stock, lets customers choose delivery or in‑store pick‑up, and integrates directly with inventory systems. - The IT department is transitioning from a purely support role to a strategic partner, collaborating closely with business units to shape requirements and deliver solutions that drive efficiency and customer satisfaction. ## Sections - [00:00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiTUYMlqWI8&t=0s) **Multi‑Channel Retail Data Management** - The speaker describes transitioning a traditional builder‑merchant business to a digital, multi‑channel model—publishing thousands of products online—and the need for a flexible IBM‑based governance tool to control product, supplier, and customer data with appropriate approval steps while remaining scalable. ## Full Transcript
[Music]
customer relationships are very
important Travis Bacchus the builders
merchants market has been fairly
traditional the digital revolution the
smartphone and the way that retail now
works in the digital arena has changed
that fairly substantially for us so our
customers now expect a multi-channel
experience and we've had to work very
hard to get around ten thousand products
onto our websites with images and with
enough information that customers can
use a mobile phone or the website to
actually find and make a purchasing
decision on that product while it's
exposed is problems with data validation
on entry process that we use to govern
our data
[Music]
one of the challenges I have in my role
is being able to decipher and what is
important for the business and the data
element side obviously product
information is important for our
customers supplier information is
important for us as a business as is our
customer information I notice they need
for a tool to effectively allow us to
govern the processes of data collection
data change ensure that we having the
correct approval steps as it goes
through but also not have a process
that's too restrictive iBM has been a
very important tool for us and to help
build that process and to ensure the
process in fatir to and gather approval
steps and additional information
additional processes rights but only
when they're essential when they require
as we move forward as a business as a
need to be able to scale efficiently and
dynamically we recognize that cloud is a
good way for us to be able to achieve
that we have a project underway called
faster cloud and that essentially is a
project whereby we're trying to move as
many of our key applications as possible
into a cloud-based environment for
example we've purchased IBM I ppm on the
cloud the great thing about that is we
don't have to worry too much about of
greaters or handle for us
the infrastructure side is dealt with
and we're able to split up new
environments quickly and easily and
that's requiring that gives us I think
much better scalability and performance
options and essentially gives us the
fossa serve as a group and also of
customers and a better solution we need
to offer our customers a great
experience with their mobile phone and a
they can find the products that they
want through mobile app or through a
mobile website and ensure that that
product is hidden stock in the branch
that would give them stock information
and then being able to order and select
whether they want that product delivered
to site or whether they want to get to
store particular IT in business need to
work together hand-in-hand in the past
IT has been looked at
as an order-taker as opposed to an auto
shaper what is changing for me and
certainly something that I'm promoting
within my department is that we work
more closely with business to shape the
requirements understand why the business
want to do what they want to do
hopefully help them achieve that in a
more efficient and innovative way when
it comes to processes