Beauty company Coty has integrated the IT infrastructure of a firm acquired from Unilever using software based on a service-oriented architecture (SOA).

Coty, which has brands including Davidoff and Jennifer Lopez, is using Information Builder’s iWay software, which has a point-and-click interface to create services from any application without additional coding.

The system has speeded up integration and Coty is expecting a 415 per cent return on investment (ROI) as a result.

Coty acquired Unilever Cosmetic International two years ago. ‘We would not have been able to integrate Unilever’s infrastructure so quickly without iWay software,’ said Dave Berry, senior vice president and Global chief information officer at Coty,

‘Having to code manually would have taken at least a year. Missing our target date would have cost us several million dollars and possibly affected sales.

‘iWay has lived up to its reputation for handling large, complex integration projects, and has already given Coty great ROI, including project payback within two months,’ he said.

The integration project had to take into account an SAP installation and an outsourcing contract with IBM for procurement services, which meant integrating Coty’s IT with IBM via XML.

Tim Jennings, research director at analyst Butler Group, says Coty now has the groundwork for SOA and the ability to use web services to connect it to suppliers, business partners and customers.