Client Overview

Home Retail Group is one of the UK’s leading general merchandise retailers, with a portfolio of own and exclusive product brands.  Their brands include Argos and Habitat, which are two of the UK’s leading retail brands. Between them, they have nearly 100 years of market heritage and consumer awareness.  Their brands include Bush and Alba (consumer electronics), Chad Valley (one of the largest toy brands in the UK), Schreiber and Hygena (furniture) and Heart of House (home furnishings).  Home Retail Group is responsible for over 840 stores, over 60,000 products, and over 180M customer transactions!

Business Needs and Objectives:

Home Retail Group had to migrate their retail credit solution to a new platform. The requirements encompassed the migration of a large volume of customer details, the deployment of a new processing system (TS2), a new user GUI front end, integration to existing business systems, new credit decision-making as well as the implementation of a new archive strategy and functionality. All of these changes were required to be applied across both Home Retail Group’s store and internet channels. The program had such a vast scope across the business that Home Retail Group described it as “a business heart and lungs transplant” and it was to be the largest store card migration ever undertaken in the UK.  The program was given a fixed end date two years in advance and the core criteria was set that there should be no negative impact on their customers’ experience.

The Qualitest Solution

We were able to provide a fully Managed Testing Service delivered by a team with the required testing skills and business knowledge to execute successful testing across the program. We established strong communication channels with senior stakeholders, provided expertise in migration testing and ensured the test preparation and execution aligned to an efficient and effective testing process, tailored against a fixed delivery date.   Our efficient and effective testing was one of the key factors in our client achieving success.

Key Benefits

  • The project was delivered on time, to budget and met all customer experience criteria set out by the client
  • There were no significant production issues, protecting the client’s market place reputation
  • Our client realized significant savings to the on-going business operation from day one
  • The process we introduced for the core test team have seen Financial Services testing become a key in-house capability
  • The program also won the prestigious 2012 Best Technology Initiative of the year in “The Card Awards”

Testimonial

“[We] can be proud of the role they played in helping us to migrate to our next generation store card and account management solution – they’re truly a company of testing professionals, and they highlighted their specialist capabilities in supporting this major project for Home Retail Group.”   —- Chris, Program Manager