Case Study: Follett Corporation achieves increased revenue and unified inventory management with IBM Sterling Order Management

An order management system unifies 1,200 independent online stores

Follett Corporation, a major higher-education retailer with 1,200 independent online stores, needed a way to unify its e-commerce operations and reduce lost sales when local stores ran out of stock. It partnered with IBM and used IBM Sterling B2B Integrator, IBM Sterling Order Management, and IBM MQ to create a single order management approach across its sites.

IBM helped Follett turn those separate stores into cooperating channels that share inventory, catalogs, and fulfillment. The result was increased revenue, greater product availability through an “endless aisle” model with drop-ship and distribution centers, and built-in history and audit data for support, troubleshooting, and reporting; Follett also extended the solution to an additional 400 K–12 stores.

Follett Corporation

Pete Bukantis

Manager of IT