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RETAILCASE STUDY RETAIL EXECUTIVE SUMMIT

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2015

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270 Guitar Center Retail Locations

5 eCommerce Brands

Guitar Center, Musician’s Friend, Music 123, The Woodwinds & Brasswinds, Music & Arts

120+ Music & Arts stores

Specializing in Band & Orchestra, Lessons, and Rentals

OVERVIEW The Largest MI Retailer

200,000+ SKUs

FOOTPRINT

Oracle Commerce ATG & Endeca

Oracle Financials

Oracle Database

IBM / Sterling - OMS

Point of Service - Legacy

Oracle Right Now Technology

CURRENT FOOTPRINT

7-Year Legacy Pearl Platform

Foundation for Scale and Growth

Functionality to Manage Customer Experience

Lower Total Cost of Ownership

INITIAL DRIVERS & CATALYST FOR CHANGE Musician’s Friend & Music 123

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MIGRATION GROWING PAINS Musician’s Friend & Music 123

Beta Launch for Musician’s Friend 4-Months after M123 Launch

Coupled Redesign with Platform Migration

Business Driving Project

IT Not Heavily Consulted

No Site Separation or Other Aspects in V9

Dual Platform Launch

RESULTING ISSUES Musician’s Friend & Music 123

Did Not Stick To Core ATG Application Functionality

Future Difficulty with Upgrade Path

Missed SEO Strategy Resulting in Revenue Loss

Sites Managed with One Instance

Time Spent Stabilizing Platform and Teaching Business Users

Missed Learning Opportunities from M123 to MF

UPGRADE PATH Musician’s Friend & Music 123

Regression of Customizations

More Endeca Integrations to Manage: Homepage, PDP, and Templating

Unable to Upgrade in One Release Cycle

Team Not Using All Customizations

Endeca Brought on to Manage: Search and PLPs

Upgrade Path Determined

RESULTS Musician’s Friend & Music 123

Drive with Reusable Templates

Added New Focus Areas (ex: Private Reserve)

Strengthen A/B Testing Abilities

Adaptive Mobile Sites

No Longer Tied to IT Skills Only

Total Customer Experience Management

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Chose Oracle ATG

Major Upgrade from v9 to v10.2.

Stripped out the

customizations (site separation, Experience

Manager integration, etc)

Implemented ATG v9

Music 123

Fall 2009 October 2010 October 2013

Began Beta Testing

of Musicians Friend on ATG

v9

April 2011

Launched 100% of

Musicians Friend on ATG

v9

June 2011

TIMELINE Musician’s Friend

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LESSONS LEARNED Musician’s Friend & Music 123

Be Mindful About Other Business Impacts (ex: SEO)

IT Drives Business Solutions Architecture

Business Involvement with Requirements, Not Solutions

Focus Efforts on Migration Without Additional Scope (ex: Redesign)

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Guitar Center Migration

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Platform Goals

Steam line Technology

Standardize Integrations

Share Catalog Across Brands

INITIAL DRIVERS & CATALYST FOR CHANGE Guitar Center Migration

Single Platform Promotion Engine

Targeting and Multi-Channel Capabilities

Business Goals

Centralize Resources

Standardize Business Operations

Out of Box Enhancements

Advanced Analytics

Segmentation

Launch Guitar Center

Migration Project

Launched 100% of Guitar Center on

ATG 11

Jan 2014 August 2015

TIMELINE Guitar Center

RESULTS Guitar Center

Implemented OMS, SPO, In-Store Fulfillment & Contact Center Order Entry

Single Platform For Desktop and Mobile

20% Conversion Increase

Scalable, Stable, and Lower TCO

Everyone is Happy!

3 Major Brands on One Platform and Knowledge-base

LESSONS LEARNED Guitar Center

Clean Platform Made Upgrading Easy

Single Platform Streamlines Business Operations

Missed Used & Vintage Customer Experience

Vanilla Approach to Maintain Upgrade Path

Consider Business Impact Against Availability and Functionality

Stay on Course with Roadmap and Enhancements

Save Time and Costs Over Time

Do Not Over-Customize Core Systems

WORDS OF ADVICE

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UP NEXT

Mobile Enable Lessons and Services Scheduling

New Supply Chain System

Native Mobile Applications

CMS Applications

Mobile POS

Questions? Guitar Center