In the fast paced modern retail world, it is imperative that companies stay abreast of the latest technology. This is true in all industries, and retail stores are no exception. One of the first industries to embrace business transaction management (BTM) was in fact the retail industry.
Early Adaption to BTM Solutions
There are many reasons that retail stores quickly jumped on the potential shown by business transaction management. One of the most important and impressive reasons for adopting this technology into IT system’s management was that BTM was and still is very efficient in what it can produce. It makes the running of the complex IT systems behind a retail store much more effective by reducing the MTTR (mean-time-to-repair) and MTBF (mean-time-between-failures) for software problems; thus, keeping operational expenditures lower than would otherwise be possible.
BTM can auto discover and then monitor all the transactions and their dependencies in a retail order process flow. For example, it discovers the applications that check inventory, captures an order, validates the order, calculates shipping and tax, takes payment and the integrations of retail order process with demand management, fulfillment, and ERP. For each of these applications it monitors in real-time the transactions they invoke and their outcomes.
BTM is attractive because it can be tailored specifically for any size of retail store. It can be scaled in terms of the features used to the needs of the business. Then as the business grows the right BTM solution has the ability to grow right with the business. This keeps cost low, as there is no need to continually replace an existing IT system or add new layers of functionality.
Instead, the retail store can activate more complex features, or simply have them added to what they already use. On top of this, BTM software lets its users monitor and reduce the number of business impacting problems from a range of infrastructure as varied as legacy applications with their roots in the 1960s to the latest SOA and cloud-based applications. This lets users attain the highest availability and performance out of their existing IT environments at the lowest cost, instead of forcing redesign, again keeping costs to a minimum and reducing the need for a much larger IT team.
Business Transaction Management and Application Performance Management
Retail stores must be able to monitor various applications and the transactions they invoke in an efficient, timely and professional manner in order to stay competitive and provide a high level of customer service. Stock levels, sales, purchases and other important data are directly related to bottom line profits.
With a high quality BTM solution in place, real time monitoring is a reality within the system. This drastically reduces any potential problems from occurring, and ensures that the response times for any bottlenecks in the system are kept to an absolute minimum.
Application performance management takes BTM one step further. APM monitors the performance of various business processes and the IT transactions that impact the supply chain. Then through the powerful correlation abilities of a complex event processing (CEP) engine, APM turns huge data sets into useable information.
This information could involve anything from supply chain management and raw materials to tracking stock levels and cash transactions. If it involves information, BTM/APM work together to keep a business’ computer connected activities flowing smoothly. As there are multiple applications required inside the IT environment, each one performing a different function, yet needing to interact with the other applications within the system, BTM/APM is the only way to maintain control. Without a BTM/APM solution high performance and constant 24/7 availability just cannot be maintained.
The Nastel AutoPilot BTM/APM Solution for Retail Stores
Nastels AutoPilot BTM/APM solution can deal with all the issues faced by retail stores. AutoPilot’s business transaction management component improves business process execution. The built-in complex event processing engine enables deep-dive diagnostics which find bottlenecks in the system before users are impacted and business processes are disrupted. This enables IT to resolve them before they cause mission critical events that impact profitability.
The application performance management component empowers retail stores with the ability to do more than maintain control of their IT environments. It allows IT to optimize the environment. All in all AutoPilot offers one of the best solutions for resolving real-time issues quickly, cutting IT infrastructure costs and keeping customer’s happyall things that impact the bottom line.