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The challenge
of a global POS rollout
A world renowned designer, manufacturer,
distributor, and retailer of fashion and
luxury goods was preparing to rollout a new,
global point-of-sale solution. With nearly
280 stores in 37 countries, the
implementation posed some complex, daunting
challenges. Procedural inefficiencies,
limited resource availability, and a
shortage of quality assurance expertise
threatened to undermine the project. To
tackle these issues, the retailer enlisted
the help of Sophelle to provide much needed
project management and quality assurance
reinforcements.
Sophelle's
Assessment
Sophelle consultants discovered that many of
the retailer’s business processes were
informal and unnecessarily cumbersome.
Existing requirements gathering methods were
particularly complicated, and as a result
the POS vendor-client relationship was, at
times, strained. After conducting a thorough
analysis, Sophelle determined that the
introduction of formalized procedures and
process enhancements could significantly
impact the project’s efficiency.
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Challenge - Limited quality
assurance resources and expertise
threatened to undermine a complex
POS rollout.
Solution - Additional resources,
improved processes, and the
introduction of QA tools and best
practices.
Result - A smooth, successful
rollout of the new POS system. |
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Additionally, there were no Quality
Assurance professionals on staff and
existing staff were inexperienced in testing
best practices and test automation. Testing
procedures were entirely manual. With new
POS code releases arriving on a twice-weekly
basis, the turnaround time for each manual
test cycle was prohibitively long.
Solution
The retailer relied heavily on Sophelle’s
strong project management experience and
quality assurance expertise. Sophelle
delivered process improvements in 3 major
areas:
Vendor Interaction
A combination of Sophelle’s vendor
management experience and the establishment
of a more efficient client-vendor
interaction process served to improve
client-vendor relations that had previously
been strained.
Project Management
By adopting industry best practices tailored
to the client’s unique circumstance and
culture, Sophelle provided overall project
management, leading the other regional
project managers.
Testing
Sophelle quickly enhanced the state of the
retailer’s quality assurance and testing
processes. Sophelle provided professional QA
resources and instituted best practices.
Formal test management tools and procedures
were introduced. Mercury Quality Center was
implemented, facilitating accountability and
providing global visibility to the entire
software development lifecycle. Mercury QuickTest Pro was deployed for automated
testing.
Result
Sophelle’s efforts greatly streamlined
vendor-retailer collaboration efforts and
improved ongoing relationships. The
introduction of automated testing to the
quality assurance process was huge success.
Over 280 test scripts were automated,
reducing test cycle time from over 60-person
hours to less than 4 hours, and greatly
improving testing accuracy. Sophelle
produced a series of user-friendly reference
guides clearly documenting the details of
the newly introduced tools and processes.
The result was a situation that allowed for
extremely rapid development and deployment
of the global POS system. The retailer was
able to meet a very aggressive delivery
timetable and their users have expressed
great satisfaction with the new system. |
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