D2C Middleware Expansion
Helping a mid-market team plan, implement, and unlock integration capabilities to enable D2C (direct to consumer) sales channels
Industry
Manufacturing
Company Size
Mid-market
Products
Hunting and shooting sport accessories
Key Factors of Success
- Longstanding relationship with the customer team paired with a familiarity of their internal processes, core business applications, and IT architecture
- A comprehensive mix of eCommerce, ERP, and integration professionals quickly able to scale team size based on customer business requirements
- Strong background in API development, middleware integrations, and supporting infrastructure
Outcomes
- Implementation of a robust and scalable middleware enabling the customer team to successfully open their D2C eCommerce sales channels within their comfortable range of resources
- End customer was provided comprehensive training on the newly implemented middleware platform, allowing their team to takeover future operations and maintenance
- Customer team is fully equipped with the skills and confidence to maintain, grow, and scale integration operations as the business and demand grows
The Customer
A manufacturer and distributor headquartered in the United States with subsidiary manufacturing locations across the globe. The brand’s primary sales channels consisted of dealer networks, trading partners, and e-commerce platforms such as Amazon. To increase brand growth, the customer team was seeking to improve the backend IT operations related to their B2B practice while additionally implementing direct to consumer (D2C) channels.
The Challenge
To support the existing backend ERP (inventory management) and e-commerce storefront operations, the customer relied heavily on a small in-house team paired with custom developed integrations that could not easily be scaled or modified. With the launch of the D2C initiative, internal customer IT found themselves in a scenario where there was not enough capacity to maintain the existing systems in parallel with supporting new developments. In addition, the successful launch of the D2C channel would ultimately require a new type of solution that would enable customer IT to modify, scale, and create integrations as new partners, shipping vendors, and/or in-house applications were onboarded.
The Solution
Perform an integration overhaul and implement an easily scalable and reusable enterprise grade platform to easily connect the customers e-commerce storefront and backend ERP data. As customer IT strongly favored open-source e-commerce and infrastructure stacks that their internal IT and business teams could operate and evolve on their own, Infoview proposed the implementation of a leading open-source integration platform that could be hosted on-prem within a range of resource utilization the customer team was comfortable with.
As the customer had limited knowledge of middleware and integrations, Infoview’s integration architecture team took the lead on the engagement working closely with customer IT and business stakeholders throughout the architectural advisory, design, implementation, testing, and post-implementation phases. This enabled the customer team to continue with day-to-day operations of existing systems as the foundation for the D2C channel initiative through a low code (IDE) middleware system was established.
Results
Due to Infoview’s deep knowledge of the customers in-house systems, enterprise integration, and related architecture, the customers ERP and e-commerce storefronts were successfully connected through 13 different integrations, empowering the successful launch of the direct to consumer sales channel initiative.
This ultimately reduced integration complexity and requirement for ERP knowledge when integrating with external systems, while also ensuring resulting integrations are reusable even outside of the existing e-commerce storefront project. This means if in the future a new PIM or CRM service is implemented and must be integrated with their ERP system, the same integrations already created can be reused by the client’s in-house team.
As Infoview’s team took lead on the engagement, customer IT was provided knowledge transfer and comprehensive training to ensure operations, expansions, and troubleshooting could be handled completely in-house within a short period of time.
