Executive Summary

Seven years ago, a national specialty retailer set out to modernize order and fulfillment across banners and regions, with a clear mandate: build a durable OMS foundation and add high-value capabilities in rapid, low-risk increments. With over six major DOM releases in the first two years of the relationship, the team moved from core orchestration to a broad, flexible toolkit that now powers day-to-day operations and ongoing digital growth.

The journey began with a finance-grade business case and a structured RFP that selected a new OMS and defined a clear MVP. A phased roadmap followed, bringing a new order-management core to life across regions and standing up store-enabled fulfillment just as customer behavior shifted toward digital and curbside—capabilities that proved critical during an unprecedented period of disruption (the pandemic).

Post go-live of the MVP, the retailer moved from “stand up” to “step up,” focusing on fast, compounding wins and continuous optimization. First came curbside pick-up as well as same-day delivery to multiple last-mile partners, rolling out nationwide in weeks and embedding tracking and proof-of-delivery across customer and care experiences. Following the initial North America-based core DOM deployment, the team quickly expanded the scope of the solution to include all European brands. In parallel, the team defined and launched smarter sourcing to prioritize aging store inventory, redirecting a meaningful share of online orders from under-productive locations and clearing excess stock within a single quarter. Most recently, the retailer introduced AI/ML predictive promise dates for vendor-fulfilled items, tightening stated arrival windows across PDP, Cart, and Checkout while preserving on-time reliability.

The result is a flywheel: a modern omnichannel foundation that keeps paying forward with faster delivery options, smarter inventory utilization, and more credible promises—positioning the business for its next wave of growth. 

The Opportunities

• Complex, multi-phase rollout. Spanning regions and banners required careful phasing, change management, and operational playbooks to protect day-to-day customer experience.

• Speed with control. As expectations rose (and later, during pandemic disruption), the retailer needed to add new options quickly—store fulfillment (Ship-from-store & Buyonline- pickup-in-store), curbside, same-day delivery—quickly became business-critical.

• Post-go-live value creation. With the core live, the opportunity shifted to new innovations and optimizations in flexible fulfillment: smarter sourcing, faster last mile, more credible promised dates, streamlined associate experiences, and lower cost to serve.

• Fragmented foundations and limited growth. Legacy processes and point integrations made it difficult to present consistent fulfillment options, accurate availability, and credible delivery dates across banners and countries.

• Executive alignment and prioritization. To secure funding and focus, the program needed a finance-grade business case, a clear MVP, and an executive-ready roadmap tying capability to revenue, margin, and customer experience.

• Vendor selection at enterprise scale. The team required a defensible evaluation that balanced function, the right fit for scale, extensibility, TCO, and roadmap fit, culminating in IBM Sterling OMS selection.