More details to come.

1. Scott Johnson
Head of Ecommerce Technology,
Harrods
#Perform2018

2. Scott Johnson
Redefining Luxury:
A Digital Transformation Story
Head of Ecommerce Technology

3. LARGEST IN EUROPE
Europe’s largest department store, over 1 million
square feet of retail space, across 7 floors and 330
departments
OVER 65 MILLION VISITORS
More than 65 million domestic and international visitors
connect with our brand – through harrods.com, at our
Knightsbridge store, or our London airport boutiques
TOP TOURIST DESTINATION
London’s 3rd most visited tourist destination
£2 BILLION (US$2.7 BILLION) SALES
8th consecutive years of profit and sales growth
Who Are We?

4. o 1834 – Charles Henry Harrod opened a small grocery store in London’s East End
o 1849 – Moved to the Knightsbridge area of London, near Hyde Park
o 1880 - Expanded to become a thriving department store selling everything from medicines and perfumes to clothing and food
o 1883 – Destroyed by fire
Resilience and determination required to go the extra mile and exceed customer expectationHarrods DNA
Harrods Customer Service Origins

5. "At the heart of our success are our customers. They’re
the reason we exist, and we never forget it."
Our service standards are the same
regardless of how big or small the
spending may be

6. To maintain our place as the worlds leading luxury retailer, we must continually reassess our definition of
luxury, and make changes to ensure we satisfy the evolving needs of our discerning customers
Every year we serve millions of customers
from around the world
But our customers are continually evolving…
Global Reach

7. BUILD
EXCELLENCE
DELIVER
EXCELLENCE
SUPPORT
EXCELLENCE
Create an environment that houses the world’s best
brands and products, and ensure we continue to set the
global standard in customer experience
We will thrive to understand, anticipate and exceed our
customers’ desires
Through solid foundations we will ensure we can meet the
demands of future growth
Over £200 million (US$ 277 million) investment in our store and digital offering
The most ambitious investment and store renovation project we have undertaken in our 180-year history
“Excellence is built into our DNA."
Redefining Luxury

8. Opened in December 2017, the first phase of a 2 year restoration of the famous Harrods food halls
Pending Final
Image
Roastery and Bake Hall
Store

9. 9
Complete redevelopment of the prestigious Cartier Boutique in the Fine Jewellery Room
Cartier Boutique
Store
Shoe Heaven
42,000 square feet shoe floor housing over 50 brands

10. Harrods.com - 2011
Renowned in-store service should be fully matched online
Provide greater product breadth by introducing premium
brands
Ensure Harrods international customers, often having
multiple homes in different countries, can easily shop
online when not in London
Online

11. o Online proposition significantly different to Store
o No clear online strategy, very little investment
o Poor user experience – navigation, search, checkout journey
o No Content Management System
o No Mobile capability
o Poor analytics integration
o Aging unstable technology platform
VISITORS16m Fashion35%
Challenges
Starting Point

12. Repositioning
Vision & Roadmap
Focus on Fashion
Website Redesign
Brand Portfolio
Team Structure
Fixing the Basics
Mobile
Checkout
Browse
Fulfilment
New Divisions
Content & Commerce
Style Insider
Global Acceleration
Harrods Campaigns
Brand Campaigns
Re-platform
Foundation For
Growth, Not The
Solution
Accelerated Growth
TEST & LEARN BUILD GROW
Transformation Plan

13. Harrods.com UI
REST API
o Three Enterprise platforms reviewed against 600 criteria + roadmap
o All three vendors initially proposed the out-of-the-box Starter Store:
o A step backwards vs. current website
o Starter Stores all look similar
o Bloated HTML layer
o Complex customisation required
o Headless WebSphere Commerce + custom Harrods managed website
Technology
Replatform AKAMAI

14. o Multiple product templates to display product in a more relevant way
o Responsive design – single site, mobile first approach
o Speed – efficient user journeys, adaptive JavaScript use
o End to end thinking – visual consistency from store through to site, and then email
Design & User Experience
Replatform

15. Style Notes – interviews, edits, trends and features on all things fashion, beauty and lifestyle, plus the latest show reports
o Better design:
o Fully modular - virtually endless layout options
o Improved + more photography
o Improved integration between content and product
o Improved sharing capability
Early Results
o More content – better for SEO
o Conversion is double site average
o Increased fashion authority
o More brands - increased product offering
o Partnering directly with brands
Replatform
Content & Commerce

16. IBM WebSphere Commerce
IBM Sterling Commerce
Harrods.com UI
Integration Bus
Call Centre UI
PricingProduct Inventory Customer
Fraud
Payment Gateways
Intl. Fulfilment
Search
Analytics
CMS
Akamai
System Integration
Replatform
Address Verification

17. Load testing ahead of platform launch
Website became unresponsive part way through the test
REST API calls from website to WebSphere Commerce timing out
Dynatrace quickly showed that the issue was high garbage
collection pause time in WebSphere Commerce
Identified that further WebSphere Commerce cache tuning was
necessary
Proactive monitoring here now provides first indication that we
have a capacity issue
Scenario:
Problem:
Diagnosis:
Minimize Downtime
Replatform

18. Busy week day during December
Non UK delivery journey in checkout slowed down
Increased response time for API calls from website to third party
Dynatrace monitoring showed that the third party system response time had increased
from sub 1 second to up to 36 seconds
Scenario:
Problem:
Diagnosis:
Minimize Downtime
Replatform

19. What’s Next?

20. THANK YOU