Case Study: Arcadia Group achieves on-time U.S. store launch and liberates legacy ERP with ThoughtWorks' Guerilla SOA

Arcadia Group - Customer Case Study

Arcadia Group, a leading UK retailer expanding into the U.S., faced a tight deadline to integrate a U.S. warehouse with its Asia suppliers while running supply-chain processes on an inflexible legacy RPG/DB2 ERP. With less than six months to open a flagship store and a six-month estimate to change the legacy system, the company needed a faster, lower-risk solution.

ThoughtWorks delivered a Guerilla SOA approach: after a short assessment they built a lightweight Java web-services layer and web front-end, coached Arcadia’s legacy team in agile and object-oriented techniques, and used automated builds and strong QA. In ten weeks the services were live, the store opened with stocked shelves, costs and time-consuming ERP replacement were avoided, and Arcadia gained an incremental, maintainable path to modernize its platform and skills.

Arcadia Group