Kohl’s Moves to Cloud-Centric Stores IT Model to Drive Speed and Efficiency

Moving entirely to a centralized, private cloud-based model for technology infrastructure at our stores has improved reliability and speed to market, supporting an enhanced store experience for our customers and associates

Kohl's today announced a new cloud-based approach to managing technology infrastructure across all of its more than 1,100 stores nationwide. The retailer's technology teams, in collaboration with Dell Technologies, designed and deployed a modernized system they are calling lean stores - which fully relies on a private cloud to manage all store technology operations at the individual store level. The new model will be fully integrated into every Kohl's store in time for the holiday shopping season.

"At Kohl's, our approach to technology is customer-first, and we're committed to finding the best ways to improve the in-store experience for our shoppers and associates. We felt it was critical to reinvest in our store infrastructure and re-engineer how we leverage data to elevate the in-store experience," said Siobhán Mc Feeney, Kohl's chief technology and digital officer. "Kohl's lean stores model is redefining the retail edge of the store footprint, and allows us to move quickly and remain agile, continue to innovate and deploy new tools, and enables us to respond to new technologies that emerge in the years to come."

Previously, the technology that powered each store's operations and experience - registers, associate handheld devices, WiFi, digital signage, and more - was housed and maintained within that store. Kohl's removed this legacy infrastructure rather than maintaining it and built a regional hub-based system that brings all data services and technology management into a private cloud for ease of operations and efficiency at scale. The new model fully relies on the cloud to house all store technology operations at the individual store level, enabling a more flexible architecture with centralized data. Kohl's can now leverage real-time data feeds to the store, which means software changes can be done at any time without disrupting store operations.

"In today's rapidly evolving retail landscape, delivering data-driven, personalized customer experiences is critical," said Arthur Lewis, president, Infrastructure Solutions Group, Dell Technologies. "Our work with Kohl's is redefining the in-store experience for both associates and shoppers."

The benefits of Kohl's store technology on the cloud include:

• Increased Reliability - Store data is highly available and accessible from multiple redundant sites, with data flowing to fewer locations
• Accelerated Time-to-Market - New features can be quickly experimented with and are faster and more granular to deploy, which means they can be put into play for shoppers and associates more quickly
• More Efficient Operations - No longer a need to update and maintain physical servers at each store location; no longer need to maintain application deployment on an individual store basis - which previously equated to 1,100+ disparate deployments

This means a better in-store experience for our customers and associates. For example, this holiday, when our associates are getting ready to unload a shipment of seasonal goods, we can push a new, updated software application directly to their handheld device at the very moment they need it, enabling them to get that product to the store floor and into our customers' hands quicker.