Microsoft Windows Server System
Customer Solution Case Study
Tommy Hilfiger Delivers Full-Scale Online
Retail Presence in Less Than Six Months
Overview
Country or Region: United States
Industry: Retail
Customer Profile
With approximately 5,800 employees,
sportswear marketer Tommy Hilfiger
generates roughly U.S.$1.8 billion in
annual sales. Its principal executive offices
are in Hong Kong, and U.S. headquarters
are in New York City.
Business Situation
The company had six months to develop a
full-scale online retail presence, plus it
needed to update its core business systems to improve information flow throughout the enterprise. Initial attempts with
Linux were unsuccessful.
Solution
By switching from Linux to Microsoft®
Windows Server System™, Tommy Hilfiger
built its new Web site in only six months.
The firm also implemented Microsoft
Business Solutions–Axapta® to support the
Web site and now is rolling out Microsoft
Axapta globally.
Benefits
 Rapid time-to-market
 Reduced business risk
 Estimated 25 to 30 percent lower IT
operating costs
 Strong return on investment
“We expect that consolidation on Microsoft software
across the enterprise will deliver an estimated 25 to
30 percent reduction in IT operating costs.”
Eric Singleton, Chief Information Officer, Tommy Hilfiger USA, Inc.
After a year of attempting to develop an online retail presence using
Linux, Tommy Hilfiger had made little progress. The company had
six months to complete the project and, beyond that, had to
address a set of legacy applications that no longer met its needs.
Working with Cactus Commerce and Columbus IT, Tommy Hilfiger
met both goals by standardizing on Microsoft® software, including
Microsoft Windows Server System™ for the Web site and Microsoft
Business Solutions–Axapta® (now part of Microsoft Dynamics™) for
global enterprise resource planning. With its new solution, Tommy
Hilfiger gains a unified information infrastructure that extends from
the company’s online presence to its global retail and wholesale
operations and upon which new applications that improve business
capabilities can rapidly be deployed. Tommy Hilfiger anticipates
new business capabilities, an estimated 25–30 percent decrease
in IT operating costs, improved competitive advantage, and an
additional return on investment through compressed product
design times and supply chain optimization.
“By standardizing on
Microsoft software, we
get a common,
integrated development
environment and
products that are
designed and tested to
work together.”
Eric Singleton, Chief Information Officer,
Tommy Hilfiger USA, Inc.
Situation
Tommy Hilfiger began his career in fashion
more than 35 years ago, at the age of 18. His
desire to design clothes “for the people” is
still a guiding principle behind Tommy Hilfiger
Corporation—now a U.S.$1.8 billion company
and one of the world’s best-known providers
of sportswear and other apparel for men,
women, and children. Through licensing
arrangements, the company also sells
accessories, footwear, fragrances, and home
furnishings. Tommy Hilfiger products are sold
through company-owned stores as well as
through department stores and specialty
stores in the United States, Canada, Mexico,
Central America, South America, Europe,
Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, and other Asian
countries.
Eric Singleton, Tommy Hilfiger’s Chief
Information Officer, joined the company in
October 2004. Upon arriving, he faced two
immediate challenges. First and foremost, he
had to deliver a world-class e-commerce Web
site within six months, as mandated by
Tommy Hilfiger Chief Executive Officer David
Dyer. Second, he had to address the company’s core business information systems,
which consisted of a number of legacy
applications that had evolved over the past
10 to 12 years without a cohesive strategy
and, as a result, could no longer meet the
company’s needs.
At the time, the company’s online presence
consisted of three “mini” Web sites that sold
watches, fragrances, and golf apparel. These
pilot sites were based on eOneCommerce
e-commerce software running on Red Hat
Linux and were supported by a MySQL
database. Although Tommy Hilfiger had been
working on the Web sites for 12 months, the
company still faced a number of development
challenges. The Web sites did not integrate
well with existing AS/400-based applications
for order management and fulfillment,
limiting the number of online transactions
that could be supported to a few hundred per
day. Limited integration also forced warehouse personnel to implement manual
workarounds, such as printing an order in
one system and looking it up in another for
fulfillment. The Linux solution also lacked the
sophisticated merchandising and catalog
management features that the company
needed.
For Singleton, however, who had to formulate
a technology strategy for the company, the
main problem with the Web site wasn’t its
limited feature set. Instead, it was that Linux
did not fit in his vision for a cohesive,
enterprisewide information infrastructure.
“Linux was chosen based on the perceptions
of a few strong-feeling technical folks—I suspect based in part on the misperception that
Linux is free,” says Singleton. “However, saving a few dollars up front is pointless if I end
up paying more for ongoing support and
system administration. The selection of Linux
was not made in the context of an overall
technology strategy, nor was it based on an
analysis of what it would take to deliver a
world-class retail Web site. Attempting to do
the job on Linux would have taken an enormous amount of work, and it still would not
have been a good fit with the other changes
that had to be made.”
To support the company’s planned online
retail presence, Singleton knew he had to
start by looking past the Web site and
addressing the core systems on which
Tommy Hilfiger runs its business. “Our old
systems weren’t flexible or scalable enough
to support retail transaction volumes,” says
Singleton. “Instead, we needed a modern
transaction-processing system; a great Web
site is no good if we can’t fulfill orders. In
addition, our AS/400 applications were
expensive to support, and their lack of
integration prevented us from optimizing
the business in areas such as new product
“With Microsoft Axapta
and Windows Server
System, we can satisfy
all operating and
functional areas of the
business within a single
environment.”
Eric Singleton, Chief Information Officer,
Tommy Hilfiger USA, Inc.
development, merchandising, point of sale,
supply chain, and business intelligence. The
right thing for us was to start from scratch—
with a solid strategy—and build things
correctly.”
Solution
Tommy Hilfiger met its deadline for delivering
a full-scale online retail presence—including
the new back-end applications required to
support it—with a technology strategy based
entirely on Microsoft® software. Major solution components include:

Comprehensive Web presence based on
Microsoft Windows Server System™
integrated server software, including the
Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003
operating system, Microsoft Commerce
Server 2002, Microsoft BizTalk® Server
2004, and Microsoft SQL Server™ 2000.

New enterprise resource planning (ERP)
system based on Microsoft Business
Solutions–Axapta® software, which today
supports the Web site and is being
extended to support the company’s global
operations.
The Microsoft Visual Studio® .NET 2003
development system and the Microsoft .NET
Framework—an integral component of the
Windows® operating system for building Web
sites, Web services, and smart client applications—provided an integrated tool set and
programming model for development of all
solution components.
Tommy Hilfiger designed, developed, and
deployed both the Web presence and the
ERP system in only six months. Microsoft
Gold Certified Partner Cactus Commerce
assisted with design and development of the
Web site, and Microsoft Gold Certified Partner
Columbus IT Partner helped deploy Microsoft
Axapta, now part of Microsoft Dynamics™
business software.
“Windows Server System and Axapta were a
perfect fit for us,” says Singleton. “By standardizing on Microsoft software, we get a
common, integrated development environment and products that are designed and
tested to work together. I couldn’t be more
pleased with the progress we’ve made over
the last year.”
Development of a Technology Strategy
The process that led Tommy Hilfiger
Corporation to choose Microsoft software
began shortly after Singleton’s arrival at the
company, when he determined that it first
needed a comprehensive technology strategy
and a strategic approach to change. “We had
to be on the mark with respect to our strategy
and approach, and had to execute on that
strategy before the business changed,” says
Singleton. “I envisioned a homogeneous
enterprise—one where information flowed
freely between systems to support our online,
retail, and wholesale businesses.”
Because of timelines, Singleton first had to
address the e-commerce site, including the
back-end systems for order management and
fulfillment. He had to ensure that the backend solution that was chosen for the Web site
could seamlessly integrate with the new
back-end systems used to run the rest of the
company—themselves still to be determined.
The best way to meet that need was with a
single ERP solution that could be rapidly
deployed to support the new Web site and,
after that deadline was met, be extended to
run the company’s global retail and wholesale operations as well.
“I saw an opportunity to take a $1.8 billion
business with defined product lines and, if
we laid things out correctly, rebuild the company’s entire global information architecture
in one environment,” says Singleton. “It was a
rare chance to start from scratch and create
a scenario that most chief information officers can only dream about—a chance to
“Running the entire
business on Windows
will help us better
employ our most
valuable asset: the great
people who work here.”
Tommy Hilfiger, Principal Designer and
Honorary Chairman of the Board,
Tommy Hilfiger Corporation
standardize in one environment and, in that
environment, deploy an integrated set of
business applications that can coexist
without barriers.”
Software Selection
After formulating a high-level strategy,
Singleton started to examine options. He
first looked at key business applications,
starting with an ERP system that could
support the entire company. Then he began
to look at more specialized business
applications—such as those for point of sale,
apparel design, and merchandising—to
ensure that they could seamlessly integrate
with the ERP systems under consideration.
In the end, Microsoft Business Solutions–
Axapta was a perfect fit for the business.
“We selected Microsoft Axapta for several
reasons, including rapid implementation, a
deployment success rate of close to 100
percent, and thousands of installations
worldwide,” says Singleton. “Because it was
a Microsoft product, we knew that it would
integrate well with the other, more specialized Windows-based applications that we
wanted to deploy. In the end, it all added up
to exactly what were looking for. We selected
Columbus IT as our Axapta implementation
partner due to their proven dependability,
deep Axapta experience and expertise,
implementation methodology, and
international coverage.”
Evaluation of software for the Web site followed the selection of Microsoft Business
Solutions. “We drove the selection of solution
components from the ERP system and
pushed outward,” says Singleton. “Building
the e-commerce site using Commerce Server
and BizTalk Server made perfect sense
because we were already using other parts
of Windows Server System to support
Axapta—namely, Windows Server 2003 and
SQL Server 2000. The opportunity to standardize on Windows Server System across
both solutions was very appealing as it
ensured integration between the two.”
As a final step in selecting Windows Server
System, Tommy Hilfiger personnel attended
a two-day session at the Microsoft
Technology Center (MTC) in Waltham,
Massachusetts, along with personnel from
Cactus Commerce and Columbus IT Partner.
By the end of the second day, Tommy Hilfiger
had a high-level architecture for the Web
site—and was confident that there would be
no integration issues between the Web site
and the ERP system.
“Our time at the Microsoft Technology Center
far exceeded expectations,” says Singleton.
“We made more progress on solution design
in those two days than we had in a year with
Linux. By the time we left the MTC, we knew
that Windows Server System would work as
we needed it to—without compromise—and
that it offered the best and shortest path to
success.”
Implementation and Architecture
At the end of February 2005, one week after
the MTC visit, Cactus Commerce started
developing the Web site. (Deployment of
Microsoft Business Solutions–Axapta by
Columbus IT Partner was already underway.)
Development was completed by mid-May,
Microsoft Axapta went live in late June, and
the company’s new online retail presence
went live in mid-July. Merchandising personnel added products over the following two
months, and Tommy Hilfiger announced the
relaunch of Tommy.com on September 15,
2005.
Figure 1 (on the next page) illustrates the
logical architecture of Tommy Hilfiger’s new
e-commerce solution, which was built using
Visual Studio .NET 2003 and runs on the
.NET Framework. Having a single development environment and programming model
that could be used across all parts of the
solution provided significant advantages in
the areas of integration and developer
productivity.
The presentation and business logic layers
reside on three HP ProLiant DL380 G4 server
computers running Windows Server 2003
Enterprise Edition and Commerce Server
2002 Enterprise Edition, with a fourth server
used to serve images for the Web site.
Developers took advantage of the extensive
feature set provided by Commerce Server—
including its merchandising capabilities,
Product Catalog System, and Business
Processing Pipeline System—to accelerate
solution development.
Figure 1. Through standardization
on Microsoft software, Tommy
Hilfiger will unify its information
infrastructure across the
enterprise.
“Commerce Server gave us a far richer feature set out of the box than we ever could
have developed with our previous approach
based on Linux,” says Singleton. “Commerce
Server gave us exactly what we needed to
deploy a world-class online retail site in such
a short time.”
A single database layer supports both the
e-commerce site and Microsoft Axapta. The
layer resides on two HP ProLiant DL580 G3
servers running Windows Server 2003
Enterprise Edition and SQL Server 2000
Enterprise Edition. To maximize availability,
the servers are configured in an active-active
cluster using Windows Clustering, a feature of
Windows Server 2003. Under normal conditions, one database server supports the
e-commerce site, and the other supports
Microsoft Axapta. In case of a server failure,
the workload for the failed server is transferred to the other server.
The integration layer resides on a cluster of
two HP ProLiant DL380 G3 servers running
Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition and
BizTalk Server 2004 Enterprise Edition.
Orchestration by BizTalk Server directs the
flow of information—such as orders, order
status, and inventory data—among the
e-commerce site, the Microsoft Axapta ERP
system for the online presence, and the
company’s existing JD Edwards ERP system,
which handles financial reporting for the
company.
The Microsoft Business Solutions implementation resides on HP ProLiant BL20p G3
servers running Windows Server 2003.
Microsoft Axapta handles basic accounting
functions—general ledger, accounts payable,
“I’ve never seen an
entire corporation come
together so quickly
under a single
information
architecture. To see
what we’re achieving,
and the pace at which
we’re achieving it, is
tremendously exciting.”
Eric Singleton, Chief Information Officer,
Tommy Hilfiger USA, Inc.
and accounts receivable—as well as trade
and logistics, order management, inventory
management, warehouse management, and
purchasing. Orders placed on the Web site
flow through BizTalk Server to Microsoft
Axapta, which manages the orders through
fulfillment.

Unified Information Infrastructure
With its online retail presence successfully up
and running, Tommy Hilfiger is expanding its
rollout of Microsoft Business Solutions–
Axapta to include the rest of its operations.
The company recently increased its number
of user licenses from 30 to approximately
1,200—enough to support all worldwide
operations—and is working on an execution
plan for worldwide deployment. Tommy
Hilfiger will begin with its Canadian retail and
wholesale businesses, expand to include the
United States, and then deploy Microsoft
Axapta globally. The timeline for completion
of the project is approximately 12 to 14
months.
“The integration of more specialized business
applications into our new information infrastructure is unfolding exactly as planned,”
says Singleton.
“With Microsoft Axapta and Windows Server
System, we can satisfy all operating and functional areas of the business within a single
environment,” says Singleton. “By the time
rollout of Axapta is complete, we’ll have true
information integration across the enterprise,
instead of a number of stand-alone
applications that communicate through a
series of interfaces.”
Together with its global rollout of Microsoft
Business Solutions–Axapta, Tommy Hilfiger
will deploy several additional solutions that
will plug into the company’s new information
infrastructure to meet specific business
needs. Among those applications are:

Transactionware GM point-of-sale and
other retail solutions from Triversity.
Targit business intelligence solution, which
will first be used for e-commerce operations and later expanded to include retail.
 Solutions from OptiTex for apparel design
and pattern making.
 Solutions from TXT E-Solutions for
merchandising and planning.
Each of the applications is expected to deliver
significant business advantages. For example, the apparel design and pattern-making
application will reduce the time that it takes
to bring a new garment to market. Today, a
design is created by hand, transferred to
Adobe Photoshop, and then passed to a
pattern-making group. After a pattern is
created, a printed copy is placed in a FedEx
envelope and sent to a factory in China. The
factory cuts a sample garment and ships it
back to New York, where the garment is
examined on a live model. Designers then
make changes to the pattern and send it to
China for a new sample to be made—a process that may take several iterations until the
garment design is finalized and that typically
took many months.
With the new software, designers will be able
to fit the garment to an on-screen avatar and
have a pattern generated automatically. At
the factory, personnel running the same
software will feed the pattern directly into
a cutting machine to create a sample—in
essence, creating a direct path from designer
to factory. The merchandising and merchandise allocation application will use similar
computer-aided design techniques for merchandising in the company’s retail stores,
again with the program tying into Microsoft
Business Solutions–Axapta and other
systems.
“From where I sit, having
a healthy vendor like
Microsoft—one with a
mature structure and
governance model—is
worth its weight in
gold.… Linux just doesn’t
offer the reliability and
maturity we need.”
Eric Singleton, Chief Information Officer,
Tommy Hilfiger USA, Inc.
Benefits
Through the use of Microsoft software,
Tommy Hilfiger met both its short-term and
long-term needs: development of a comprehensive online retail presence, and a homogeneous IT infrastructure that will allow
information to flow freely throughout the
enterprise. Benefits of the company’s
approach based on the Windows operating
system include rapid time-to-market, reduced
business risk, lower IT costs, and strong
return on investment in terms of both cost
savings and new business capabilities. In
addition, Tommy Hilfiger will be able to integrate new applications and functionality at a
rapid pace thanks to a highly robust yet
flexible IT infrastructure.
“Running the entire business on Windows will
help us better employ our most valuable
asset: the great people who work here,” says
Tommy Hilfiger, the company’s Principal
Designer and Honorary Chairman of the
Board. “We believe that resourcefulness is
the key to value and excellence. Our partnership with Microsoft will help employees reach
their full potential, thus helping our business
as a whole to do the same.”
Rapid Time-to-Market
With Microsoft software, Tommy Hilfiger met
its six-month deadline for launching a comprehensive e-commerce site—a far more
rapid solution development than Singleton
says the company could have achieved with
Linux. “After a year of trying to develop a
solution on Linux, we had nothing salvageable,” says Singleton. “With Windows, we
were able to put in place both a full-featured
e-commerce site and the back-end functions
necessary to support online sales in only six
months—in time to ramp up our online presence for the 2005 holiday shopping season.”
With the e-commerce site now running,
Tommy Hilfiger is continuing to integrate its
core business systems and the applications
that plug into that infrastructure at a rapid
pace. “I’ve never seen an entire corporation
come together so quickly under a single information architecture,” says Singleton. “To see
what we’re achieving, and the pace at which
we’re achieving it, is tremendously exciting.”
Reduced Business Risk
Singleton feels that standardizing on
Microsoft software will minimize Tommy
Hilfiger’s business risk. “The decision to use
Windows wasn’t made based solely on bits
and bytes,” says Singleton. “From where I sit,
having a healthy vendor like Microsoft—one
with a mature structure and governance
model—is worth its weight in gold. We get
predictability and continuity across the
breadth of Microsoft products, which are
made to work together, along with the great
financial stability of Microsoft and an extensive support organization. All of these are
reasons why no consideration was given to
Linux as an enterprise environment. Linux
just doesn’t offer the reliability and maturity
we need.”
The company’s investment in Microsoft
software also is helping reduce business risk
through the solution’s strong reliability and
security. For example, features built into
Windows help system administrators easily
identify and apply software updates, which
help safeguard the company’s systems from
new security threats. Since Tommy.com
went live, the Web site has experienced
no unplanned downtime.
Lower IT Costs and Strong Return on
Investment
Through a homogeneous solution infrastructure, Tommy Hilfiger believes it will
significantly reduce IT operating costs,
yielding a rapid return on the company’s
investment. However, Singleton expects a far
more significant return through the new
capabilities that a unified information
infrastructure will facilitate.
For More Information
For more information about Microsoft
products and services, call the Microsoft
Sales Information Center at (800) 4269400. In Canada, call the Microsoft
Canada Information Centre at (877) 5682495. Customers who are deaf or hard-ofhearing can reach Microsoft text telephone
(TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in
the United States or (905) 568-9641 in
Canada. Outside the 50 United States and
Canada, please contact your local
Microsoft subsidiary. To access information
using the World Wide Web, go to:
www.microsoft.com
Microsoft Windows Server System
“We expect that consolidation on Microsoft
software across the enterprise will deliver an
estimated 25 to 30 percent reduction in IT
operating costs,” says Singleton. “However,
lower IT costs are only the start. The driving
force behind all our efforts is an improved
competitive advantage. We believe that the
new capabilities we’ll realize will result in an
additional return on investment, such as
compressed product design times and
optimization of our supply chain.”
Microsoft Windows Server System is a line of
integrated and manageable server software
designed to reduce the complexity and cost
of IT. Windows Server System enables you to
spend less time and budget on managing
your systems so that you can focus your
resources on other priorities for you and
your business.
For more information about Windows Server
System, go to:
www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem
For more information about Cactus
Commerce, visit the Web site at:
www.cactuscommerce.com
For more information about Columbus IT
Partner, visit the Web site at:
www.columbusit.com
For more information about Tommy
Hilfiger, visit the Web site at:
www.tommy.com
Software and Services
Hardware
Microsoft Windows Server System
− Microsoft Windows Server 2003
Enterprise Edition
− Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004
Enterprise Edition
− Microsoft Commerce Server 2002
Enterprise Edition
− Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Enterprise
Edition
 Microsoft Dynamics
− Microsoft Business Solutions–Axapta
 Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003


© 2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT
MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS
SUMMARY.
Microsoft, Axapta, BizTalk, Microsoft Dynamics, Visual Studio,
Windows, the Windows logo, Windows Server, and Windows
Server System are either registered trademarks or trademarks
of Microsoft Corporation or Microsoft Business Solutions ApS in
the United States and/or other countries. Microsoft Business
Solutions ApS is a subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation. All other
trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Document published November 2005
HP ProLiant DL380 G3, DL380 G4, DL580
G3, and BL20p G3 server computers
Partners


Cactus Commerce
Columbus IT Partner