KTEK Solutions Inc. helping Frito-Lay sell more chips!

You have probably seen the ads "buy a bag of large Lays and get a free dip!". These ads are a result of organized and calculated promotions negotiated between the Key Account Managers (KAM) of the Frito-Lay sales force and Frito-Lay retailers like Wal-Mart. These promotions are created for the purpose of generating more business and increased volume of a particular brand of potato chips.

Frito-Lay used a Desktop based software called a Global Promotions Systems (GPM) to create and maintain their product promotions. Also, they used this software to manage all the sales activities generated as a result of the promotions. These promotions resided in a Database on GPM back-end. The key account Managers used a more flexible Internet based planning tool to layout the details of the anticipated promotion. Once the deal was finalized, the KAMs manually fed the information directly into the back-end GPM database to create an operational Promotion. The GPM system was used to maintain all operational Promotions.

What Frito-Lay needed was an automated system that would link the Web based planning system to the GPM operational system. This would eliminate the manual step of feeding the planning data into the back-end operational database and remove any element of human error during the manual step. Frito-Lay wanted to integrate and connect the web based planning system to the back-end operational system via a controlled interface.

For this, KTek Solutions Inc. gathered the best of its people with the System Integration and Promotions industry experience.

Frito-Lay issued a requisition for this project opened solely to KTek Solutions Inc. due to KTek's knowledge and expertise required to deliver this solution.

KTek used Java and CORBA as the Technology of choice to create a new Volume Builder Planning interface on top of the existing operational Promotions System. KTek created new Java based Programming Interfaces in Interface Definition Language (IDL) that used CORBA to allow the Web based planning system to seamlessly connect with the Java based operational GPM System. KTek utilized CORBA IDLs to publish this interface. The Web based Planning System just called these interface modules whenever they need to tap into the operational GPM system. KTek implemented these interface modules on the back-end as services published by the interfaces in Java. The two systems were connected and the data started to flow through the pipe between them. The planning system now had access to the operational system via a controlled and published interface.

THE PROBLEM

• Frito-Lay needed to connect the Web based planning system to the back-end operational GPM system via a published and controlled interface.
• They wanted to allow data to flow through between the two the system over Web HTTP and IIOP protocols.

THE SOLUTION

• KTek Solutions Inc. gathered qualified people to solve this problem and deliver the product with a solution.
• KTek created a CORBA based interface to connect the Web based Planning system to the back-end operational system.
• KTek implemented the interface modules on the back-end as services published by the interfaces in Java.

THE BENEFITS

• The manual step of feeding the planning data into the operational GPM system was replaced with an automated interface.
• A controlled interface from the planning system to the operational system was provided.
• Key Account Managers can now spend more time creating new Promotion deals than processing them.