SOA Helps Polk Improve Efficiency, Speed and Quality

Capgemini’s skills and experience helped us ensure we delivered what we promised, on time. Kevin Vasconi, CIO, R.L. Polk & Co.

The Situation

R.L. Polk & Co. has served the automotive industry since 1922. As the premier provider of automotive information and marketing solutions, Polk provides business value by helping companies make better business decisions through the collection, compilation and interpretation of information from over 240 different sources, including state agencies, automotive manufacturers, finance companies and a variety of providers of lifestyle and demographic information.

Polk’s CEO, president and executive committee held a series of strategy meetings to discuss how Polk could first maintain and then improve its competitive advantage amid significant industry, regulatory and technology change. Never wanting to “rest on its laurels,” Polk has continually improved its data management methods over the years.

Given today’s environment, in which privacy compliance is introducing even tighter restrictions on how data can be used, the time was right to move beyond continual improvement to develop an innovative approach that would revolutionize Polk’s core foundational data management activities and data warehouse.

The Solution

The Polk board of directors approved a comprehensive business process reengineering program and the creation of RLPTechnologies, a wholly owned subsidiary of R.L. Polk & Co., to develop a new solution for use by the parent company.

The project team decided on a standards-based Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) as the foundation for the new system. Polk and RLPTechnologies (RLPT) turned to Capgemini to assist in the implementation of an Oracle-based grid and SOA.

The Result

The grid and SOA solution provided Polk with significant benefits relative to protecting legacy investments, reducing costs and providing accelerated time to development. The business vision that was delivered to Polk enabled the company to be 50% more efficient and 50% faster while focusing on delivering 100% quality.