MARUZEN-YUSHODO
MARUZEN-YUSHODO uses AppDynamics to extend direct-to-student book sales
Key benefits
Improved the time required for issue resolution from 30 hours to within two hours
Supported the surging demand from the pandemic and cashless e-commerce transactions
Increased business resiliency and reliability to expand digital services to colleges and universities as well as students
MARUZEN-YUSHODO, a Tokyo-based company that sells books to academic/research institutions including universities, has been changing their textbook selling process from direct sales to students at a bookstore venue established on campus to online. AppDynamics makes it possible to visualize the signs of application performance issues that we cannot identify by monitoring the number of accesses or hardware resources alone.
“AppDynamics helps resolve issues incredibly quickly because it alerts us specifically to where to look for problems or potential problems and how they may affect other components of our environment.”
Jun Tanaka
Project Leader, Information Systems Department, MARUZEN-YUSHODO
Challenge
Supported the surging e-commerce demand from the pandemic with a limited number of staff. As the e-commerce sites were receiving more focus, they knew it would need better insights, control, and flexibility to help ensure the best user experience possible.
Solution
AppDynamics enabled their operators in the IT team to have real-time visibility into and granular alert reporting across its entire environment.
Results
Improved the time required for issue resolution from 30 hours to within two hours. Being able to accumulate the knowledge on potential issues makes it possible to operate the system with a limited number of people.
“Being able to explain the system's conditions objectively was especially important. If different problems occur simultaneously, AppDynamics shows the extent of the effect in numerical values. The data on AppDynamics is also helpful when we need to justify the necessity for enhancing the system resources.”
Jun Tanaka
Project Leader, Information Systems Department, MARUZEN-YUSHODO
Challenge
Delivering 24/7 services directly to students
MARUZEN-YUSHODO, a Tokyo-based company that sells books to academic/research institutions including universities, has built the infrastructure for selling textbooks online, and the company launched the operation in 2018. Yet, the online sales remained sluggish, and their sales method did not change much from before. However, in 2020, the company faced a strong demand for selling books online because the pandemic created an environment where colleges and universities had to shift to remote teaching.
The company mainly sold textbooks to students directly at a bookstore venue established on campus. The beginning of a new semester is usually a busy time for textbooks sales — college students standing in long lines to purchase textbooks is the seasonal tradition in Japan. However, the company started experiencing some challenges in this person-to-person book sales. Jun Tanaka, a project leader in the Information Systems Department in MARUZEN-YUSHODO, says, "We rent a space like conference rooms on campus to sell textbooks, but reserving the place was becoming difficult. Plus, not many people like the fact that students were standing in long lines, and we also had a security-related concern as we primarily accepted cash for textbook sales.”
The company started the construction of the online sales system as part of its digital transformation (DX) project in 2016 and launched the service in 2018. The company now has the infrastructure to sell textbooks to students anytime.
Solution
Detecting rapid change earlier with full-stack visibility into the user experience
Only three members are working at the Information Systems Department of MARUZEN-YUSHODO. This small team manages the system 24/7 all year round. When major trouble occurred soon after they launched the online store in 2018, it took more than 24 hours to identify the cause of the problem and nearly 40 hours altogether to resolve the issue. But as the e-commerce sites are receiving more focus, the team knew it would need better insights, control, and flexibility to help ensure the best user experience possible.
MARUZEN-YUSHODO started using AppDynamics in 2019. AppDynamics enabled their operators in the IT team to have real-time visibility into and granular alert reporting across its entire environment.
"Selling in person and e-commerce are completely different businesses because the user experience is disconnected and harder to manage for e-commerce. Even with a limited number of people on our team, we have to be able to monitor around the clock and keep things up and running to make sure customers can get what they want when they need it,” says Tanaka.
"AppDynamics makes it possible to visualize the signs of application performance issues that we cannot identify by monitoring the number of accesses or hardware resources alone, and it enables us to be aware of the actual user experience on the e-commerce site at a comprehensive level yet in real-time. Being able to accumulate the knowledge on potential issues would be critical for operating the system with a limited number of people.”
Even when the load on the digital payment systems increased sharply, the online customer experience remained seamless and frictionless. Since the team led by Tanaka was aware of the signs of performance deterioration such as slow payment transaction processing or server slowdowns through AppDynamics, they identified the root cause of the problem quickly and resolved the issues by sharing information generated from AppDynamics with other departments. The company slashed Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR) by nearly 95%, reducing from 30 hours to two hours.
“AppDynamics makes it possible to visualize the signs of application performance issues that we cannot identify by monitoring the number of accesses or hardware resources alone, and it enables us to be aware of the actual user experience on the e-commerce site at a comprehensive level yet in real-time. Being able to accumulate the knowledge on potential issues would be critical for operating the system with a limited number of people.”
Jun Tanaka
Project Leader, Information Systems Department, MARUZEN-YUSHODO
Capable of handling hard-to-predict transactions — building a new business model equipped with agility and reliability
Tanaka explains, "AppDynamics helps resolve issues incredibly quickly because it alerts us specifically to where to look for problems or potential problems and how they may affect other components of our environment. It's much easier to visualize dependencies and weak points when everything is connected via a single solution.”
According to Tanaka, using AppDynamics has transformed the company's ability to fulfill the evolving needs and demands of both universities and students. The company quickly responded to the demand for online sales and rapid increase in transactions. In addition, AppDynamics is extremely helpful in predicting the system overload since the peak of online ordering is different depending on the colleges and universities.
Tanaka explains the benefits of using AppDynamics by saying, "Being able to explain the system's conditions objectively was especially important. If different problems occur simultaneously, AppDynamics shows the extent of the effect in numerical values. The data on AppDynamics is also helpful when we need to justify the necessity for enhancing the system resources.”
About MARUZEN-YUSHODO
Headquartered in Tokyo, MARUZEN-YUSHODO Co., Ltd. offers outsourced operation services for libraries and academic institutions and provides academic materials to academic/research institutions, including universities and colleges throughout Japan.
