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An Overview of Software as a Service in Retail

Abstract

IT is evolving rapidly, and the retail industry is looking at how it can improve business. Retailers are facingthe challenge of how best to meet the need of an increasingly demanding customer base, while reducingthe overall costs. In addition to meeting customer demands, retailers are facing the challenges ofintegrating their various functionalities and channels, which are mostly run as silos.

One of the emerging trends in the technology space is something known as Software as a Service(SaaS). This paper provides an overview of different architectures, their pros and cons, and the keytechnologies that are reinventing the centralized architecture now known as Software as a Service.

Introduction

The retail industry is known to lag behind other industries in adopting new technology. One of the majorreasons is the razor-thin margins with which retailers work, which demand the quick return on investment(ROI) that are usually granted only by established technologies and methodologies

Looking back, the evolution of retail architecture has thus followed what happened in other industrialsectors, moving from mainframe-based centralized architecture towards a departmental architecture

where mini and personal computers brought data processing inside the stores. However, this shift createdthe new problem of data exchange with corporate systems. The evolution continued with client-server andthen distributed architectures and now is evolving towards service-oriented architecture (SOA). Also, newconcepts likeSoftware as a Service (SaaS), which are achieving considerable success in the customer-relations management (CRM) sector, are not present yet in the store applications; but the situation ischanging. This paper will provide an overview of SaaS and applicable technologies and their benefits tothe retail industry.

Business Challenges

Retail presents some peculiar challenges. Inside the store, there are two very distinct software functions:the store front, which is the "public" part devoted to check out that accesses data on products, customers,promotions, and so on; and the store back-office or "private" part of the store systems, for stockmanagement, replenishment, reporting, labor scheduling, and inventory management. In some reallysmall-footprint stores, both functions are carried out on the same physical computer, but they remain verydistinct in nature.

Figure 1. Retail store with front-end and back-office applications (Click on the picture for a largerimage)

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Point-of-Sale Transactions

In retail, the point-of-sale (POS) transactions are extremely important, yet have unique issues whencompared to similar transactions in the B2B world. An obvious question is: Why is the problem of a delayin issuing a small valued ticket (due to a hardware or software failure, or just slow response time) socritical? The same problem for higher-valued invoices in a B2B transaction creates a limited problem, to

the extent that it is not even noticed. The reason for this is twofold:

Stores make their profits from a high number of low-value transactions, usually concentrated inpart of the day or part of the week and the check-out operations cannot be delayed during thesetimes.

A POS interruption, even for a limited time, may cause not only significant economic losses but,even more important, losses of customers gained with expensive and long effort.

The bottom line is that POS is more mission-critical than the back office. POS must function at all times,irrespective of connectivity in the store, whereas back-office functions can wait for the connectivity tocomeback. It also points to the possibility of back-office functions running either inside the store orprovided by a service providers over the Internet.

The Distributed vs. Centralized Architecture Dilemma

Outside the store, there are many centralized activities, such as logistics, marketing, bookkeeping, and soon. The efficiency of the retail activity depends on quantity and quality of data flow inside and outside thestore. Software architectural choices are very important and difficult, because reliability and data sharingare conflicting factors.

Traditionally, POS systems are autonomous systems that exchange flat files in batch mode with back-office systems for stock management and reporting. In the same offline mode and after a role change, theback-office system exchanges sales and item data with corporate systems and other partners. This isdefined as distributedarchitecture where operations are supported by a local database, so that noexternal failure can stop such vital operations.

The distributed architecture has a reliability and scalability advantage because it has no single point offailure and processing is distributed, but requires a complex synchronization activity among autonomoussystems with their own databases and an expensive deployment. Store-sales information must beuploaded to the corporate systems and item and promotion information must be downloaded to the storesystems. In addition, deployment of new applications, patches, and updates is not easy. There is also theissue of monitoring systems at the stores to ensure that the critical systems are functioning normally at alltimes.

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Figure 2. Distributed architecture (Click on the picture for a larger image)

In the centralizedarchitecture, the store front-end systems (POS terminals, self service kiosks, and soforth) are connected online to the store server over a network and exchange sales information in realtime. In the same way, the store back-office systems can be connected online to the corporate systemsfor exchanging sales and item information. Permanent connection over a network makes richer dataavailable, such as a customer's previous transactions, specific promotions, real-time loyalty-points

management, stock availability, and next delivery date.

A centralized architecture with a single database solves the synchronization problem, but introduces asingle point of failure and scalability limit, both inside the store for POS management and outside forconnection to corporate systems. The central server failure or a network failure stops the businesscompletely, with very serious consequences.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to achieve the advantages of the distributed architecture (such asreliability and scalability) without the burden of database synchronization. Many organizations that needservices given only by an online access to centralized data, being on the store or in the HQ, useredundant servers and connections or emergency operations, but at higher costs and complexity.

When data exchanges among autonomous and heterogeneous systems are performed through flat files,

eventually with some "impedance-mismatch" problems or even with some data loss, the architecture isdefined as departmental.

When the data exchange among subsystems is performed by design with maximum fidelity, no data loss,and automatic updates, the architecture is defined as distributed. Sometimes, the term "distributedarchitecture" is used for "grid computing," the sharing of resources through a network of genericcomputers arranged to create a virtual super computer. In our case, the term "distributed" is used just to

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emphasize a high integration level among subsystems obtained at the application level, and not at theoperating system level.

Only recently have the big enterprise resource planning (ERP) players offered vertical solutions for retailalways deriving from acquisitions and after some efforts on user interface (UI), business rules, and dataintegration. The majority of retail systems in use today are situated in the spectrum from departmental to

distributed architectures, with a gradual migration from the first to the second.

Figure 3. Centralized architecture (Click on the picture for a larger image)

Client-Server Architecture

In the client-server architectureas the name impliesthe client asks for some service, which the serverwill fulfill. The client-server architecture represented an improvement over centralized architecture,because presentation and user-interaction functions are transferred from the server to the clientnormally, on a PC with a processing power much higher than the old green terminals. This reduces theload on the server and leads to an improved system scalability and responsiveness to the user. However,it does not solve the "single-point-of-failure" issue.

In the retail industry, the client-server architecture is used more often inside the storeconnecting POS to

the back of the storeand less outside using a unique centralized server for an entire chain of stores.

Centralized-Architecture Revival

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With the increasing availability of high-speed Internet connections, centralized architecture is gaining newlife, not with old mainframes and green screens, but with modern and rich graphical user experiencethrough Windows Terminal Server from Microsoft, similar products from Citrix, or browser-basedapplications. Also client-server applications, which depend heavily on the connectivity, received a hugeboost due to the widespread availability of virtual private networks (VPN).

The application software providers (ASP) of 10 years ago were based on a centralized architecture inwhich data, business logic, presentation, and user interfaces resided in a data centerleaving in-storepersonal computers underutilized.

ASPs offered solutions that provided following advantages:

No upfront licensing costs

No deployment hassles

Can be accessed from anywhere

Promised around-the-clock availability

However, some of these promises did not really materialize, such as the around-the-clock availability, asthere were outages at the ASPs. The user experience suffered also from bad response time when the lowscalability of the architecture added up with Internet latency. Therefore, the first generation of ASPsolutions did not achieve much success, due to their limited improvements, compared to traditionalsoftware. The correct way would have been to redesign the applications for providing service over theInternet, which requires completely different thinking.

In the retail industry, the success of ASP-based solutions was even lower, because the mission-criticalnature of POS operations demands availability of service and local data even during the loss ofconnectivity. In other words, offline operations are critical in retail from both business and psychologicalpoints of view.

Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)

Real-time connectivity among store systems, corporate systems, supplier systems, logistics, and otherservice providers through the Internet is a great condition that all retailers strive for. Extensive researchhas been devoted to overcome the limitations of terminal- or browser-based solutions.

AJAX and other rich Internet application (RIA) technologies are an answer to real-time connectivity andresponsiveness. However, they are not a solution for a POS where only a local application with a localdatabase can provide the necessary functionality and availability.

To meet this need, there is a new modelbased on XML and Web servicesthat is delivering richservices from an array of heterogeneous applications in a distributed architecture. Service orientation(SO) is the natural evolution of current development models. The 1980s saw the object-oriented models;then, there was the component-based development model in the 1990s; and, now, we have serviceorientation. Service orientation retains the benefits of component-based development (self-description,

encapsulation, dynamic discovery, and loading), but there is a shift in paradigm from remotely invokingmethods on objects, to one of passing messages among services. Schemas describe not only thestructure of messages, but also behavioral contracts to define acceptable message-exchange patternsand policies to define service semantics. This promotes interoperability and, thus, provides adaptabilitybenefits, as messages can be sent from one service to another without considering how the servicehandling those messages has been implemented.

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Figure 4. SOA architecture (Click on the picture for a larger image)

Service orientation provides an evolutionary approach to building distributed software that facilitatesloosely coupled integration with its inherent scalability and resilience. With the advent of the WS-*specifications, Web services architecture has made service-oriented software development feasible byvirtue of mainstream development tools support and broad industry interoperability. Although mostfrequently implemented using industry-standard Web services, service orientation is independent oftechnology and its architectural patterns, and can be used to connect with legacy systems, too.

Unfortunately, the benefits offered by service orientation and SOA have been obscured by the hype andconfusion that increasingly surround the terms. As awareness and excitement around SOA have swelled,the clear lines that once defined service orientation have been blurred. However SO does offer somespecific benefits when used for the right purpose.

To increase SOA systems scalability, the service should be as stateless as possible. Not having to lookupthe client's state from the previous interaction conserves CPU resources. In addition, the couplingbetween service users and providers should be as loose as possible or, in other words, asynchronous.Compared to traditional client-server architectures (in which each client waits idly for its turn to beserved), in SOA architectures, the client usually switches to other tasks while waiting for the answer.

Smart Client

When an application exhibits the following properties, it is called a smart clientand has the followingcharacteristics:

Utilizes local resources (CPU, GPU, and so on)

Consumes Web services

Operates online/offline where appropriate

Intelligent deployment/update

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Figure 5. Smart-client properties

Close examination of these characteristics reveals that these are the same requirements as a POSapplication.

On the other side, as store's back-office functions are less critical and can, therefore, be designed to workonly when connected to the centralized systems, a rich AJAX-based client can be a good choice. But,especially with complex applications, there are many benefits of smart clients. They marry the best of the

Web with the best of Windows, lower operation and development costs (especially when offlinecapabilities are limited), increase user experience and satisfaction, and align with future technology.Moreover, they can be easily deployed with ClickOnce, where the cost is as low as browser-basedsolutions.

Software as a Service

Service orientation brings many benefits with it in building agile, configurable, and scalable services. Theloosely coupled benefit of SO helps in building a centralized service that can be easily configured, canscale based on the use, and can support multitenancy.

When a service is being built to support many customer needs, it is best to consider building it asconfigurable and scalable service that uses metadata to provide different experiences to customers. Acentralized service that can support many customers with different requirements through metadata-basedconfiguration is defined "multitenant" and offers the best ROI, because it can provide differentexperiences to different customers through configuration, reducing the cost of infrastructure. Using ahousing metaphor, a multitenant system is comparable to a block where a number of different flats shareland, stairs, roof, and so on.

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A single instance of service that can serve multiple customers over the Internet is now known as Softwareas a Service (SaaS) and can be broadly defined as "software deployed as a hosted service and accessedover the Internet." SaaS is going to have a major impact on the software industry, because it will changethe way in which people build, sell, buy, and use software. For this to happen, however, software vendorsneed resources and information about developing SaaS applications effectively.

SaaS as a concept is often associated with the ASPs of the 1990s, which provided "shrink-wrap"applications to business users over the Internet. As mentioned previously, in some ways, these earlyattempts at Internet-delivered software had more in common with traditional on-premise applications thanwith modern SaaS applications, such as licensing and architecture. Because these applications wereoriginally built as single-tenant applications, their ability to share data and processes with otherapplications was limited, and they tended to offer few economic benefits over their locally installedcounterparts. Today, SaaS applications are expected to take advantage of the benefits of centralizationthrough a single-instance, multitenant architecture, and to provide a feature-rich experience competitivewith comparable on-premise applications. A typical SaaS application is offered either directly by thevendor or by an intermediary party called an aggregator, which bundles SaaS offerings from differentvendors and offers them as part of a unified application platform.

On the technical side, the SaaS provider hosts the application and data centrallydeploying patches and

upgrades to the application transparently, and delivering access to end users over the Internet through abrowser or smart-client application. Many vendors provide application programming interfaces (API) thatexpose the applications' data and functionality to developers for use in creating composite applications. Avariety of security mechanisms can be used to keep sensitive data safe in transmission and storage.Applications providers might provide tools that allow customers to modify the data schema, workflow, andother aspects of the application's operation for their use. Figure 6 shows a sample SaaS architecture.

Figure 6. Sample SaaS architecture

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SaaS can include a number of services and applications that are not commonly expected to be found inthis category. For example, consider Web-based e-mail services, such as Microsoft Hotmail. AlthoughHotmail might not be the first example that comes to mind when you think of SaaS, it meets all of thebasic criteria: A vendor hosts all of the program logic and data, and provides end users with access to thisdata over the public Internet, through a Web-based user interface.

Moving from the general to specific, we can identify two major categories of SaaS:

Line-of-business services(LOB)offered to enterprises and organizations of all sizesLOBservices are often large, customizable business solutions aimed at facilitating businessprocesses, such as finances, supply-chain management, and customer relations. Typically, theseservices are sold to customers on a subscription basis.

Consumer-oriented servicesoffered to the general publicConsumer-oriented services aresometimes sold on a subscription basis, but often are provided to consumers at no cost, and aresupported by advertising.

In retail, there are many opportunities in the LOB category, such as back-office inventory-managementapplications, payment-processing applications, reporting services, and so on. We cover this in more depthin the following section.

SaaS Benefits in Retail

SOA and SaaS concepts allow important cost reductions to better serve existing markets and openentirely new ones. With his article "The Long Tail," in the October 2004 issue ofWired(see theReferences section), Chris Anderson popularized the idea of the "long tail" in explaining why onlineretailers such as Amazon.com are uniquely positioned to fill a huge demand that traditional retailerscannot serve cost-effectively.

Retail follows the famous 80/20 rule: The most popular merchandise (which is usually 20 percent) isbought by 80 percent of the customers. So, retailers are forced to decide whether to carry the remaining80 percent of non-popular merchandise in the store or carry more of the popular merchandise. Thetraditional "brick-and-mortar" retailers concentrate on selling the more popular items, because they cannotpossibly stock non-popular merchandise. Online retailers, however, do not have to worry about limitedshelf space. Shipping items to customers directly from large warehouses around the world, they canadvertise and sell the millionth most popular title as easily as the most popular one. Access to this longtail of low-volume sales translates into a huge amount of revenue.

So, what does this have to do with SaaS? Retailers face several challenges when they evaluate softwareto run their businesses:

Upfront investmentThe cost of the central system is usually not directly proportional to thenumber of stores, weighing more on small or new chains.

Deployment costTraditional software must be installed and maintained by competenttechnicians traveling from store to store with high cost and limited peak capacity. Also, remotemaintenance over the Internet is usually done one store at a time.

Technical competenceSuccessful retailers are usually more competent on customer needsand products/services than on IT operations.

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Data-sharing difficultiesIt is quite easy to share data with HQ, but complex to do with thirdpartiessuch as independent logistics, product catalogues, and market analysisor whenexchanging customer data with other non-competing chains for joint-loyalty programs.

Cost of new software-feature implementationThe new feature, even if already available,must be bought and deployed over some test stores. If acceptable, the general deploymentcannot be immediate.

What SaaS offers is an opportunity to provide customized services to many small customers using asingle platform, which cannot be accomplished through traditional means. A widely known example ofSaaS is SalesForce.Com, which is able to offer CRM capabilities to many customers over the Internetusing a single system. This ability to offer functionality to multiple tenants is the biggest advantage ofSaaS.

There are many other areas in which retailers can benefit from SaaS applications. For example, a retailenterprise, switching from old systems to a SaaS POS integrated with their ERP, allows theimplementation of very sophisticated and new fidelity initiatives, so they can securely share data withother non-competing chains through centralized retail Web services. New features can be tried andadopted only when they fit the business model and the customer composition, without any spike ininternal IT effort or risk. Because of this, with SaaS, an independent store can use the same software as

the large enterprise retailereventually, using it in more creative and effective ways.

There is one key difference in the process of how traditional software is sold, deployed, and usedcompared to SaaS-based applications. Selling SaaS is like selling mobile-phone ringtones ordownloadable music: It should be possible for a customer to visit a SaaS provider's site, subscribe to theservice, pay with a credit card, customize the service, and begin using itall without human interventionon the part of the service provider. This does not mean that a more personal approach is completelyeliminated. It can still be used for larger retailers with more extensive needs. But designing the sales,marketing, provisioning, and customization processes from the ground up to work automatically makes itpossible to offer an automated approach as a choice; also, it has the happy side effect of simplifying thework that the support personnel of the service provider must perform to accomplish the same tasks onbehalf of a customer.

Figure 7 shows the SaaS maturity model as mentioned in the SaaS paper (see the Referencessection).According to this model, as soon as the services architecture is achieved, some of the services can beoutsourced to a SaaS-based service provider over the Internet. In this retail-based example, the fourthmodel shows that the end-user application is composed of servicessome of which are hosted internallyand some of which are provided by the SaaS-based service provider. This composition layer can berealized using either an AJAX-based thin client or a smart client. The selection should be based on thebusiness function and requirements for up time.

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Figure 7. SaaS maturity model (Click on the picture for a larger image)

If a retailer decides to use SaaS-based POS, the best option is to be smart-clientbased, which can beeasily deployed over the Internet. Local databases must be synchronized, but the effort is paid back withincreased reliability and scalability.

Compared to traditional offline POS, a smart-clientbased one exploits fully the online connectivity to

central resources offering additional services and work offline only when connectivity is temporarily lostand, therefore, will not upset the delicate POS transactions, as customers will not be affected if theservice goes offline, whereas a traditional offline POS performs always in the lowest mode.

In retail, the availability demand for back-office applications is lower than for front-office and, thus, can bebased on Web 2.0 technologies, such as AJAX and Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere(WPF/E); but, for complex applications, a smart client offers a more robust and optimized developmentenvironment.

Key Microsoft Technologies

Key Microsoft technologies that help in realizing this architecture start with Microsoft .NET Framework

3.0, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), and Windows Workflow Foundation (WF). These twokey components of .NET Framework 3.0 help in creating Web services and workflows to realize thisarchitecture. .NET Framework 3.0 is released, and it is available on both the Windows Vista and MicrosoftWindows XP platforms.

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Some of the other technologies are highlighted in this section.

ClickOnce

ClickOnce is a technology for application delivery and maintenance over the Internet in a simple andsecure way. The application package can be published on a Web site and installed through a Web page.A ClickOnce application can operate on the workstation in isolated mode, protecting it from incompatibilityand reliability problems that may arise when a new application is installed on an already working system.

Initial installation and subsequent updates happen only after verification of the software maker andwithout administrative credentials from the user, increasing the trust and acceptance of this technology.These and other features reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) for the user and allow the developer todistribute the smart-client application to thousands of workstations with small effort.

SQL Server 2005

Central Web services and local smart clients are based on the Microsoft SQL Server family of databases.SQL Server 2005 is used on the central retail Web services where native XML data management is veryuseful, along with advanced maintenance and storage services. SQL Server Express is used on smartclients, because it is equally feature-rich, but lighter and installable through ClickOnce.

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)

WCF is the new unified programming model for communications. It has complete flexibility of:

Transport.

Encoding.

Message-exchange pattern.

Security.

WCF provides a unified software layer for exchanging data with every standard platform and in anycondition. Security is very important, and WCF assures integrity and confidentiality of data exchangedwith the retail Web services. WCF also increases the reliability and efficiency of the available channel.

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Figure 8. WCF architecture (Click on the picture for a larger image)

Store back-office applications can be linked to the retail Web services through a WCF HTTP channelsupporting WS-* specifications, to make it interoperable with non-Windows applications. Alternatively,WCF makes available a high-performance channel based on TCPfully exploiting improvements inthe .NET Framework 3.0. Store back-office applications can automatically select the best protocol for theavailable channel; and, inside the store, WCF allows a peer-to-peer cooperation among the workstations.

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)

Another power technology is the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). WPF is the new user-experience platform, and is part of .NET Framework 3.0 for building highly interactive and sophisticateduser interfaces that provided a rich experience to users that was previously difficult with Windows Forms.

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Figure 9. WPF architecture (Click on the picture for a larger image)

WPF solves this difficult problem and makes it very easy to build graphically rich user experiences forskilled and unskilled users. Also, with WPF, it is possible for the first time for interaction designers andprogrammers to cooperate using the new language, known as Extensible Application Markup Language(XAML, pronounced "zammel"). XAML is a declarative XML-based language that is used to define objectsand their properties, relationships, and interactions. XAML is used also as a user-interface markuplanguage to define UI elements, data binding, eventing, and other features, as well as in WF, in whichworkflows themselves can be defined using XAML.

Conclusion

The IT industry is going through a major change and technology is enabling this disruption. The loweringcost of bandwidth, the availability of computing in new and cheaper forms factors and devices, and theincreases in productivity and usability have caused a massive growth in services over the Internet. Theretail industry, which operates on razor-thin margins, can certainly take advantage of these services toreduce overall cost and enhance services. Microsoft technologies play a key role in enabling retailers totake advantage of this new paradigm.

References

Anderson, Chris. "The Long Tail." WiredMagazine. Issue 12.10, October 2004.

Chong, Frederick, and Gianpaolo Carraro. "Architecture Strategies for Catching the Long Tail." MicrosoftDeveloper Network, April 2006.

Carraro, Gianpaolo, and Fred Chong. "Software as a Service (SaaS): An Enterprise Perspective."Microsoft Developer Network, October 2006.

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About the authors

Wladimiro Bedin was born in 1950; is married, with two sons; and holds a doctorate degree from PadovaUniversity (Italy), performed research at KDD in Tokyo (Japan), and holds a MBA from CUOA Vicenza

(Italy). After some direct experience in retail, Wladimiro founded BEDIN Shop Systems, the first ItalianMicrosoft Certified Partner, specializing in software for retail. In 1989, the company released the firststore-management system for Windows and, in 2002, the first .NET POS, achieving several nominationsat SMAU Industrial Design and Retail Application Developers (RAD) Awards.

Moin Moinuddin is an Industry Architect at Microsoft and is responsible for evangelizing Microsoftplatform and products to the Architects in the community. He is passionate about the payments industryand, especially, the emerging technologies in the payment-processing space. Moinuddin works withArchitects at customers and partners. He is also responsible for influencing internal product teams indevelopment of new products, to meet requirements from the community. He evangelizes initiatives anddevelopments in the retail and payment industry to the Microsoft product teams and the Microsoft field. Asan Industry Architect, Moinuddin regularly speaks at payment and retail conferences and generates whitepapers that show how to build future payment and retail products by using Microsoft platform and tools. In

addition, Moinuddin represents Microsoft at the National Retail Federation's ARTS group, where he chairsthe subcommittee that is working on creating standards for the retail industry and represents Microsoft onthe SOA blueprint committee.

Prior to joining Microsoft, Moinuddin spent 12 years in retail and payment-processing companies. He wasa key member that developed POS solution for the retail industry, and then was part of a startup that builtone of the largest payment gateways for processing credit-card, electronic-check transactions. WhenVISA first announced CISP, Moinuddin spearheaded the effort to rearchitect the complete platform tomeet the compliance requirements. Ever since then, Moinuddin has been closely involved with CISP and,now, PCI DSS initiative.

On the personal front, Moinuddin lives in Bellevue, WA (U.S.), with his wife and two children. Moinuddinholds a B.S in Computer Science from Osmania University, India, and a M.S. in Computer Science from

the University of North Carolina, Charlotte (U.S.).

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