WebSphere Commerce:

More companies cite as a top concern the lack of integration of inventory and order management systems. Most companies have multiple order and inventory systems in place. A complex legacy environment such as this prevents easy, seamless access to order and inventory information. Yet customers want to place, view or modify orders and returns in any channel they choose, and they want an instant view of availability before placing an order or visiting the store. Unintegrated order and inventory systems hinder companies from responding to customer expectations.

The subsystem has been extended and improved to provide enhanced support for cross-channel business processes and efficiently serve new constituents such as contact center representatives, gift registrants, and distribution channel partners. Additional integration interfaces have been added to facilitate communication with external systems (for example, POS systems, kiosks, Enterprise Resource Planning, and fulfillment systems), and a new "plug-in" based payment processing capability has been added.

WebSphere Commerce Cross-channel Order Management key features include:

• Multiple constituents such as call center, gift registry and channel partners

• Web services for OMS integration

• Enhanced order capture options
  - Customer requested arrival date (CRAD) and expedited orders
  - Special instructions (delivery, gift wrap)
  - Multiple payments and releases per order
  - Quote to order; Order to quote

• Order fulfillment
  - Inventory allocation priority and consolidated inventory caching (soft and hard ATP)
  - Payment plug-in architecture
  - Order decomposition / order brokering
  - Fulfillment routing

Benefits of Cross-channel Order Management:

• Improved customer satisfaction:
  - More order placing options
  - Better visibility into inventory and order history
  - Seamless order experience across all channels

• Reduced order processing costs through automation and streamlining

• Greater efficiency through single view of transactions across multiple channels

On the first day of offering buy online, pick up in store, 60 of REI's 66 stores received pickup orders from online customers. The service "exceeded all sales projections." A third of customers who use the service spend an additional $90 in the store.

An Aberdeen report found that, after equipping call center representatives to proactively sell, the contact centers of best-in-class companies generated 120 percent more revenue per service request.