MU - Information Technology Student Organization

Kohl's: News from Heather Bobek

Information Technology in retail is an exciting field. At Kohl's, we build systems and solve problems that matter to our customers. Nowhere is this more evident than on www.kohls.com, one of the largest domestic retail websites.

E-Commerce systems are unique-often acting as a small company within a larger company. The ECommerce platform is based on a well orchestrated tapestry of technology enabling traditional brick and mortar retailers to transact directly with online customers. E-Commerce brings the customer closer to the retailer by reaching across sale channels from the web, to store, to call centers and directly to the customer through cell phones and social networking forums like Facebook and MySpace. Core e-commerce capabilities include managing product catalogs and content, customer data and orders, including shipping charges and taxes; search and browse capabilities; payment settlement; and reporting. The platform is an eco-system of package applications and custom development based on Linux, J2EE and integration technologies that offer Service Oriented Architectures. Loosely assembling the system using standard based web integration techniques offer new features and exciting shopping forums to the customer experience including personalization, search engine optimization, targeted marketing, and improved customer service capabilities.

Simple can be complex; the key to ECommerce success is offering real customer value while simplifying business processes within a well defined technology fabric. The recent relaunch of Kohls.com was awarded the 2008 Interactive Media Award for having the highest standards of excellence in website design and development.

Discover Growth at Kohl's
It's not just a job, it's a career. There are many opportunities to grow with our company and to play an important role in our expansion. At Kohl's we offer the tools to build your own career path.

From the Classroom to Kohl's
As an intern at Kohl's, I really didn't know what to expect. I went through one phone interview and 3 on campus interviews that were pretty intense, but very comfortable at the same time. Kohl's really cares about you as a person, and that was displayed by each interviewerall being IT managers by the way!

The internship program itself was a lot of fun. You got your feet wet on solving problems for the company, while still having fun and enjoying your summer. As a way to ease interns into the program and get them used to the area (if you weren't a native to Milwaukee), HR put on a couple great team building activities that took us to destinations outside of the building. Highlights: An Edelweiss tour of the city and every Milwaukeean's favorite, a Brewers Game!

My intern project was unique, letting me run and manage my project under the mentoring guidance of my manager. I got to explore many different roles within the project, dabbling in a BA role, technical analyst role, and a software test role. The project itself was a new install of an application that worked with our company specific install of Business Objects. The new application would grab reports from Business Objects and then run them while applying a number of user chosen parameters. This way, we could choose the slice of data we wanted to see and where we wanted it to be sent. This project had a huge ROI for the Data Warehouse area and the company, allowing us to create more elaborate reports for important business decisions while saving employees time on set-up.

At the end of the internship, we were rewarded for our hard work by giving presentations to the IS VPs and CIO of the company! We were a name and face, and an important contributor to the company. In fact, the project I worked on has now been fully implemented in production and runs crucial, high visibility reports for the business! I am considered a SME for the application, and continue to help with creating better processes and practices for it. Not bad for my first "real world" project!

I accepted the offer extended to me during my first semester of senior year. To know that I had a job lined up out of college felt great! I started on the Data Warehouse team doing support work so I could get to know their critical processes and support the business's needs.

Recently, I moved to a new team that reflects the dramatic changes Kohl's has been undergoing to keep up with the competition and continue to be a leader in retail. I am currently running parallel with development and delivery, helping to create a better product by reviewing and testing its pieces during all stages of the software development life cycle. I do this for all Data Warehouse, Marketing, Finance, Purchasing, Store Planning, and Corporate Services projects. I love it, because I get to have a wide range of applications to work with which expands my knowledge base and challenges me to step outside my comfort zone. This new team positions me to be a more diverse resource for the company- which isn't bad considering I've only worked here for 7 months!

As an employee, I get to enjoy great benefits and working with an amazing group of 700+ IS employees. There are many opportunities for personal and professional growth, and the people that make this company a great place to work try to be as accommodating as possible to help you meet your career expectations. Don't get me wrong- you do work hard here! But Kohl's has a very comfortable work environment, so you get the best of everything! Your first career is a lot to consider, so stop in to any of Kohl's information sessions and get the facts. You might just like what you see. Good luck!

~ Heather Bobek

Read more articles in ITSO..GOOD Vol. 2 No. 6

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