Technology Category
- Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Event-Driven Application
- Functional Applications - Inventory Management Systems
Applicable Industries
- E-Commerce
- Retail
Applicable Functions
- Product Research & Development
- Warehouse & Inventory Management
Use Cases
- Inventory Management
- Retail Store Automation
Services
- Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services
- System Integration
About The Customer
Ulta Beauty, Inc. is the largest beauty retailer in the U.S. and the premier destination for cosmetics, fragrance, skincare products, hair care products, and salons. The company operates more than 1,450 retail stores across the country and maintains a popular e-commerce website, which includes a collection of beauty tips, tutorials, and social content. Ulta Beauty's CEO, Dave Kimbell, and IT director, Omar Koncobo, led the company's transition from an old business model to a more sustainable IT infrastructure that is quickly migrating to the cloud.
The Challenge
Ulta Beauty, a leading U.S. beauty retailer, faced a significant challenge during the COVID-19 pandemic. The rapid growth of online shopping necessitated a renovation of its e-commerce presence and a shift towards a more efficient, cloud-based architecture. The company needed a versatile, scalable, and powerful in-memory database that could support a microservices architecture and offer robust caching capabilities. The goal was to manage the rapid growth and create a cohesive customer experience, both online and in its retail stores. The company also aimed to transition from an old business model, based on legacy applications and on-premises information systems, to a more sustainable IT infrastructure that could quickly migrate to the cloud.
The Solution
Ulta Beauty chose to migrate to Redis Enterprise on Google Cloud to manage its rapid growth and create a new digital presence. Redis Cloud handles application layer caching via an in-memory database that requires zero storage. This solution reduced development efforts, simplified integration with third-party technologies, and anchored a curbside pickup service that kept inventory moving during the pandemic. The migration to Redis Cloud also allowed Ulta to automate development tasks that formerly consumed lots of cycles for Ulta Beauty’s innovation team, including designing a “digital store of the future” and refreshing the Ulta website with new personalization tools for shoppers. Redis Cloud's advanced caching capabilities and the ability to optimize the data layer for a microservices architecture were key factors in Ulta Beauty's decision to migrate.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
Case Study missing?
Start adding your own!
Register with your work email and create a new case study profile for your business.
Related Case Studies.
Case Study
Improving Production Line Efficiency with Ethernet Micro RTU Controller
Moxa was asked to provide a connectivity solution for one of the world's leading cosmetics companies. This multinational corporation, with retail presence in 130 countries, 23 global braches, and over 66,000 employees, sought to improve the efficiency of their production process by migrating from manual monitoring to an automatic productivity monitoring system. The production line was being monitored by ABB Real-TPI, a factory information system that offers data collection and analysis to improve plant efficiency. Due to software limitations, the customer needed an OPC server and a corresponding I/O solution to collect data from additional sensor devices for the Real-TPI system. The goal is to enable the factory information system to more thoroughly collect data from every corner of the production line. This will improve its ability to measure Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) and translate into increased production efficiencies. System Requirements • Instant status updates while still consuming minimal bandwidth to relieve strain on limited factory networks • Interoperable with ABB Real-TPI • Small form factor appropriate for deployment where space is scarce • Remote software management and configuration to simplify operations
Case Study
Digital Retail Security Solutions
Sennco wanted to help its retail customers increase sales and profits by developing an innovative alarm system as opposed to conventional connected alarms that are permanently tethered to display products. These traditional security systems were cumbersome and intrusive to the customer shopping experience. Additionally, they provided no useful data or analytics.
Case Study
How Sirqul’s IoT Platform is Crafting Carrefour’s New In-Store Experiences
Carrefour Taiwan’s goal is to be completely digital by end of 2018. Out-dated manual methods for analysis and assumptions limited Carrefour’s ability to change the customer experience and were void of real-time decision-making capabilities. Rather than relying solely on sales data, assumptions, and disparate systems, Carrefour Taiwan’s CEO led an initiative to find a connected IoT solution that could give the team the ability to make real-time changes and more informed decisions. Prior to implementing, Carrefour struggled to address their conversion rates and did not have the proper insights into the customer decision-making process nor how to make an immediate impact without losing customer confidence.
Case Study
Ensures Cold Milk in Your Supermarket
As of 2014, AK-Centralen has over 1,500 Danish supermarkets equipped, and utilizes 16 operators, and is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. AK-Centralen needed the ability to monitor the cooling alarms from around the country, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Each and every time the door to a milk cooler or a freezer does not close properly, an alarm goes off on a computer screen in a control building in southwestern Odense. This type of alarm will go off approximately 140,000 times per year, equating to roughly 400 alarms in a 24-hour period. Should an alarm go off, then there is only a limited amount of time to act before dairy products or frozen pizza must be disposed of, and this type of waste can quickly start to cost a supermarket a great deal of money.
Case Study
Supermarket Energy Savings
The client had previously deployed a one-meter-per-store monitoring program. Given the manner in which energy consumption changes with external temperature, hour of the day, day of week and month of year, a single meter solution lacked the ability to detect the difference between a true problem and a changing store environment. Most importantly, a single meter solution could never identify root cause of energy consumption changes. This approach never reduced the number of truck-rolls or man-hours required to find and resolve issues.