Retail and Hospitality
Case Study:
Windows Mobile at Tesco
24 April 2008
To cope with massive growth and expansion Tesco.com opened a store designed solely for fulfilling online orders serving the whole of south London. The Tesco drivers needed a navigational device to ensure they found the most efficient delivery routes and maintained the company’s excellent customer service.
Tesco.com has several million registered customers and processes more than 4,000 orders an hour, generating sales of over €1.4 billion in the 2005 fiscal year. However, a customer-centric business will never stop trying to improve even a successful formula. With this in mind Tesco planned to launch a new dotcom store in Croydon, UK.
The store would be closed to the public and filled with trained pickers executing online orders for the whole of south London. This was different because pickers have historically fulfilled orders at Tesco stores close to the addresses of online customers. With just the single location covering such a vast area of the capital, delivery drivers needed to travel longer distances and thus were less likely to be familiar with the road network.
Tesco decided it needed a navigation system to provide support. Drivers already carried handheld devices that supported an application for executing home deliveries so it made sense to combine a navigational solution with the existing system.
Jon Higgins, IT director of Tesco.com says: “Creating a single, integrated solution would really add value for customers. It would maximise the accuracy of our delivery schedules and, with such a precise system for location, create an opportunity to extend customer services. For example, messaging customers with very precise estimated times of arrival.”
Tesco decided to base the software environment of the handhelds on Microsoft Windows Mobile technology. This ensured a secure, versatile, and familiar software infrastructure for advanced integration with enterprise level systems. For example, with Windows Mobile at the core, developers at Tesco were able to build the handhelds’ main application, called Reach, in less than eight weeks with only one developer.
With Windows Mobile as the software environment, Tesco had the ideal infrastructure to integrate a satellite navigational solution with the Reach application running on the drivers’ Intermec 700 Series Pocket PC devices.
On the recommendation of Microsoft, the company engaged with ALK Technologies, which has developed a number of solutions for meeting companies transport needs. Working specifically with the ALK Technologies’ European Division, Tesco decided to implement the CoPilot Live Professional for Pocket PC system.
Dan Popkin, sales director of ALK Technologies adds: “Windows Mobile dramatically simplifies the development lifecycle and enables us to support a broad range of devices such as the Intermec 700 Series without significant work. For Tesco, it meant development focused purely on integrating the solution with Reach.” To integrate CoPilot Live Professional, developers used a software development kit provided by ALK Technologies and the Microsoft .NET Compact Framework.
The new dotcom store opened in March 2006, at which point drivers began using the new integrated Reach solution with CoPilot Live Professional for Pocket PC. The new satellite navigation solution combines seamlessly with the existing Reach application. For instance, when drivers collect their Pocket PCs before deliveries begin, the navigation system will have already synchronised with the customers’ addresses and planned the driver’s most efficient route. Once seated in the vehicle, the driver hits the ‘go’ prompt on screen and the route to the day’s first delivery address is displayed.
The advanced integration provided by the software environment means the navigation software recognises when a delivery has been completed and directs to the next address on the schedule. At the heart of the success of Tesco is a commitment to improving customer service. A key part of this strategy is giving people the tools that help them deliver value where it counts. The delivery-driver handheld devices support this idea perfectly. Taking advantage of the Windows Mobile infrastructure and easily integrating a satellite navigation solution, drivers can maintain their accuracy over much larger distances. This means better support for the strategic development of Tesco.com as it incorporates the dotcom store model.
The solution enables developers to use secure infrastructure to deliver seamless integration rapidly. The simplicity of programming for Windows Mobile environments also minimises the number of developers needed to work on the integration of the satellite navigation system. Higgins had to dedicate only two people to the project and they completed the work in just 12 weeks.
Higgins comments: “It is important to use your IT resources efficiently when you have a busy schedule of projects. The Windows Mobile platform helps us gain the most from the talents of our developers and maximise the effectiveness of our project resourcing.”
At a fundamental level, the Microsoft technology Tesco selected supports people’s innovative skills and realises great ideas quickly and cost-effectively.
With Windows Mobile, the company achieved its goal of easily integrating a satellite navigation solution with the existing handheld device. It also minimised the project’s lifecycle, helping ensure the company’s competitive advantage.
“With Microsoft technologies, such as Windows Mobile, a business gains incredible flexibility,” says Higgins. “With the simplicity of the .NET Framework technologies, we can create and integrate new solutions that improve services, fast. It fits perfectly with our company culture of being agile.”
This case study first appeared in the Spring 2008 edition of Retailspeak magazine.