B2B - DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
USI Laminate
How a streamlined headless architecture and an integrated operational system increased UX experience, conversion rates, and average order value.
Project highlights
Digital solutions that drive revenue growth and company evolution are the way forward for B2B organizations.
The modern B2B buyer is young, digitally savvy and demands commerce solutions that don't require real human interaction. By digitizing and integrating operational systems, B2B companies can:
- Embrace the customers' need for digital-first buying with intuitive design & rich content journeys.
- Integrate their commerce platform with internal data sources to drive product and content personalization.
- Grow your company through technology and automation solutions that connect systems to allow for real-time customer creation and account access.
- Sell products across the globe into new channels and markets without needing a physical presence.
- Streamline manual sales processes and tasks and give time back to your sales team to focus on more profitable activities.
- Empower sales teams to digitize the buyer’s journey.
Our work with USI Laminate highlights how finding the right digital solution can integrate systems, allow for amazing growth opportunities and provide an exceptional customer experience.
Background
A market leader in need of a redesign of their commerce architecture.
Picture this: You have to maintain your legacy ERP, but you want to increase sales by creating a better online customer experience. It would also be best to eliminate manual data entry errors in inventory, fulfillment, accounting, and sales.
What do you do?
This is how the project started for USI Laminate, a customer-focused market leader in roll and pouch laminating machines and film binding equipment and supplies. USI Laminate was living in a few technical worlds—all disconnected, all antiquated.
Integrating an open source architecture to connect data and create an accessible, scalable and easy-to-navigate UX was the solution to all of their concerns. The open source solution Acro Commerce helped build:
- Supported and integrated with their legacy ERP.
- Allowed them more automation and control over data management.
- Provided a responsive, real-time catalogue experience for their customers.
Objective
Automation of operation systems, elimination of manual data entry and providing best-in-class customer experiences.
USI Laminate knew what their customers wanted from their online shopping and account management experience:
- A seamless and intuitive connection between new products, promotions, billing and account management.
- Responsive and customer-centric UX design.
- Targeted product placement on site.
- Easy access to all of the customer’s favourite products.
USI Laminate also understood its business objectives and operational requirements:
- Eliminate the ‘swivel chair’ syndrome of entering the same data into multiple programs.
- Eliminate manual data entry, thereby reducing the possibility of human error.
- Automate stock and inventory management to avoid penalization on their Amazon store.
- Connect their product, online store, fulfillment, logistics, sales, and ordering together in a seamless system.
- Maintain and automatically sync with their existing ERP (enterprise resource planning) system.
- Increase revenue.
Solution
Integrating existing operation systems into a new open source architecture for maximum data connectivity, automation and best-in-class CMS capabilities.
The challenge was designing a solution that met all internal stakeholders’ (accounting, marketing, logistics, IT, C-suite) needs and enhanced their customers' experience.
USI Laminate wanted:
- A commerce platform architect partner who was experienced and knowledgeable, able to shepherd their multi-generational, family-run business through the landscape of new technology.
- A secure and flexible platform that eliminated manual data entry.
- A user-friendly, seamless customer ordering and shopping experience.
- Integration with their legacy ERP system.
- A detailed, cohesive plan to migrate the new platform into space without downtime or service disruption to their customers.
The key to developing a great customer ecommerce experience and efficient operational back-end using open architecture and working through a strategic development methodology built on Agile principles:
Discovery
- Uncover and accommodate the needs of all stakeholders in the organization.
- Understanding the USI’s commerce ecosystems and their underlying elements of it.
Strategy
- Uncover the target customer’s UX experience and develop their stories.
- Visually diagram the new digital workflow and server architecture.
- Map data from existing systems to the new architecture.
- Mapping a phased approach for existing and future development.
Design
- Identify which modules would be used, and which needed to be custom-built.
- Detailed UX and technical blueprint.
Development
- Target software components to be rebuilt, replaced, or maintained and connected.
Outcome
A dynamic and integrated system that delivers a better customer experience, reduces operational commitments and increases sales.
USI Laminate’s new open architecture commerce platform allowed for:
- Integration of Amazon as a new revenue stream.
- Streamlined and completely automated stock, fulfillment, logistics and sales management between all revenue streams.
- Flexibility in the build to accommodate USI’s unique customer needs and product display capabilities.
- Unlimited marketing opportunities for existing and new customers.
- Customized user experiences.
Project statistics
*At the request of our client, these results will not be released. (But they’re really happy with the numbers!)