Leading online tri-sports retailer, WiggleCRC has appointed global business transformation agency, Valtech to radically transform its eCommerce system and prepare the brand for rapid, future growth.
As a digital-first brand, WiggleCRC had a complex eCommerce stack, which had evolved and grown over the last 25 years. This unwieldy solution made it hard to adapt to opportunities in the market, without significant time and effort on the part of WiggleCRC’s IT team, as well as proving to be costly to maintain. At the same time, marketing and CX were also beginning to suffer, with the website struggling to offer a seamless experience and adapt to the latest trends.
To combat this, WiggleCRC has appointed Valtech as a partner to radically transform its entire eCommerce system. This was achieved by implementing a microservices-enabled, API-first, cloud-native, headless (“MACH”) solution combining commercetools, Amplience, and Fluent. This enables WiggleCRC to focus on the delivery of a seamless customer experience.
The MACH infrastructure will autonomously work with the business, instead of forcing it to pivot around the needs of the system. As a result, WiggleCRC will be free to concentrate on innovations to help accelerate the time it takes to bring new initiatives to market. By speeding up the process, WiggleCRC will be better able to meet the changing needs of customers and continue to scale its business.
Due to the complex nature of WiggleCRC’s existing eCommerce platform, the restructure involves many moving parts and dependencies, requiring in-depth knowledge of the process to guide the business through its MACH integration. To ensure strong governance throughout, guaranteeing successful delivery in a timely manner, WiggleCRC selected Valtech as its partner in this project.
In just 3 weeks, Valtech created a proof of concept that helped to secure board approval and reassure WiggleCRC that their MACH infrastructure would function smoothly. While still in the initial stages of the project, Valtech has worked closely with WiggleCRC to provide a clear roll-out plan and to design programs that will ensure the whole business understands the potential of the technology and its capabilities.
Graham Joslin, director of IT, WiggleCRC, commented: “Great people, exciting products, and loyal customers are the foundations of our business at WiggleCRC. This key project is about further supporting those foundations, and creating the right technical platform to champion a richer digital experience and create simpler and effective business tools and processes for our staff. As a pure etail business, technology is at our core and we understand its importance in our ambitions as a business. We are not just replacing small parts of our technology landscape with elements of MACH architecture, we are redesigning the entire eCommerce solution from the ground up.
As a business we have found a partner in Valtech that matches our values, understands and believes in our vision and isn’t overwhelmed by the scale of it.”
Chris Daplyn, UK MD, Valtech, commented: “When WiggleCRC first approached us, they were apprehensive about whether their MACH infrastructure would work across the organisation. Working closely with the team, we’ve been able to quickly create a proof of concept.
He added: “Many businesses still have restrictive technologies that are creating issues for customers and IT teams, taking their time away from rolling out new initiatives and improving the customer experience. A MACH solution will mould to suit the individual business, scaling in line with their growth to avoid any friction across the online customer journey.
“Although the thought of replacing an entire legacy system may seem daunting, finding a partner that understands the challenges and needs of the organisation on this journey will help businesses to find the confidence needed to make the change.”
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