Tomax Deploys Reactive Programming to Overhaul POS and In-Store Computing User Experience at Leading Retailers
Customer Company Size
Large Corporate
Region
- America
Country
- United States
Product
- Retail.net
- Typesafe Reactive Platform
- Scala
Tech Stack
- Scala
- Java
- Akka
- Node.js
Implementation Scale
- Enterprise-wide Deployment
Impact Metrics
- Productivity Improvements
- Customer Satisfaction
- Digital Expertise
Technology Category
- Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms
- Analytics & Modeling - Predictive Analytics
- Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Middleware, SDKs & Libraries
Applicable Industries
- Retail
Applicable Functions
- Business Operation
- Sales & Marketing
Use Cases
- Inventory Management
- Predictive Maintenance
- Retail Store Automation
Services
- Software Design & Engineering Services
- System Integration
About The Customer
Tomax Corporation offers a cloud-based Retail.net solution, an integrated, modular solution suite spanning retail activities including master data management, merchandising, operations, point-of-sale, and workforce management. Representing over 50 retail chains with over 15,000 storefronts and millions of customers and store associates each month, Tomax provides the retail industry’s first and most advanced real-time, on-demand retail management software-as-a-service suite. Tomax also provides world-class services, ranging from custom development, consulting, and implementation through application management and hosting. Marquee retail customers include Hallmark, Party City, L.L. Bean, NAPA, and Benjamin Moore.
The Challenge
When Tomax Corporation launched Retail.net over a decade ago, it was the first technology and solutions provider to take the SaaS route and pursue a true demand-driven retail system that could scale up and scale down to meet the needs of shoppers, store associates, and suppliers alike. As the mobile revolution took the retail world by storm, Tomax realized it needed to revamp its core technology platform to deliver a far more flexible and extensible suite of offerings to keep customers happy. Retailers were rapidly moving away from purpose-built POS and inventory management devices towards software built on standard smartphones and tablets. Shoppers, too, were increasingly accessing retailer’s systems, either in-store or outside, from mobile devices. Similarly, the rise of multi-channel retail, both as a sales channel and as a management and information vector, necessitated that Tomax rethink its core technology offering. At the same time, the mainstream adoption of cloud computing called into question the old enterprise practice of overprovisioning IT infrastructure to meet peak demand, which for retailers can be as much as 50x depending on seasonality. Lastly, Tomax felt that it needed to take the next step up from Java and towards one of the newer programming languages better equipped to handle the massive concurrencies of mobile environments and the scaling flexibility required to properly leverage the new world of public, private, and hybrid cloud computing.
The Solution
Lewis and the Tomax technical team decided to narrow down their search to modern non-blocking programming languages that could more easily handle numerous simultaneous computing requests on a single machine, virtual or physical. They considered Node.js and Ruby, two popular alternatives but quickly focused on Typesafe’s Scala language. Typesafe’s easy compatibility with diverse client-side environments, including iOS, Android, HTML5, and Windows, would effectively future-proof Tomax’s back-end software for years to come. Lewis and Fernandez also liked the Akka clustering technologies for the native capabilities to perform key cloud-related tasks such as autoscaling and load balancing. Akka’s robust fault tolerance and ability to quickly bring entire systems back up after a server crash, too, would provide Tomax customers peace of mind and near guaranteed IT operational continuity.
Operational Impact
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