Data Ecosystem to Streamline Product Launches to New Markets

Business challenge

The prospect of revolutionizing user experiences in retail and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) prompts traditional manufacturers to become service providers and draw actionable insights from data to boost engagement and revenue. That’s why our client, a large global manufacturing and retail company, has focused their efforts on software solutions and eCommerce by conceptualizing a data-driven digital ecosystem. With an agnostic business-to-everyone (B2X) approach, the ecosystem will connect business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) streams to enable smooth and rapid product launches to both new and existing markets.

To fulfill their digital strategy and streamline the implementation of their envisioned solution, our client needed an expert engineering partner. With proven experience in platform development, cloud computing, and big data, Intellias made an excellent match to join our client’s cross-functional European teams. We helped them build a robust ecosystem, providing the required infrastructure and tools to swiftly deliver business-focused applications and services in any part of the world. The developed software platform allowed our client to autonomously roll out their innovative products to new markets while optimizing operating costs with reusable self-service components and creating high-end digital experiences.

Solution delivered

Integrated services for local implementation

The main idea behind developing the platform was to deliver a full range of independent components integrated via APIs to facilitate market-specific deployment and configuration. Key platform characteristics:

• Microservices architecture enabling a structure of interoperable but autonomous components
• Modularity to enable high flexibility with decoupled platform elements
• High scalability to smoothly adapt to the pace of business growth
• Easy integration of local services to the global platform via API calls
• Multi-tenancy to configure each implementation based on specific market needs

As part of the entire digital ecosystem, the self-service tools we developed provided the required level of autonomy, enabling the markets as internal consumers of services to reach their business goals by leveraging platform capabilities independently. This was further enhanced with intelligent automation, and the platform was built with scalability and optimized resource use in mind. Our DevOps engineers set up constant monitoring and immutable deployments using CI/CD best practices for always-on service reliability and integrity.

All-encompassing B2X platform offering

Driving a holistic product strategy covering both B2B and B2C use cases, our client’s initiative took the shape of a platform with ready-to-use components targeting sales and consumer engagement. With the tools offered within the global platform, our client’s local representatives could quickly launch and scale in new markets by relying on prepared infrastructure and rich feature sets made available to everyone, whether retailers or end users. Thus, the time to market for the extensive functionality offered by the platform was significantly reduced.

Intellias engineers applied their best efforts to deliver first-grade digital consumer experiences that included web and mobile apps, loyalty- and engagement-focused features, device management, eCommerce, and marketing automation. The comprehensive B2X approach allowed our client to save ample resources by aligning markets in terms of capabilities yet leaving flexibility for customization at the local level. The global platform also provided our client with a better understanding of their retail consumers, opening many opportunities and valuable insights with data from connected devices, platform applications, and other linked sources.

Data analytics and consumer engagement

The key functionality intended for marketers and data scientists was customer profiling, which allowed for targeted marketing communication. We consolidated consumer data from different sources and formed consumer profiles based on socio-demographic factors, location, buying patterns, loyalty, and product preferences. Sources for data collection included device telemetry, websites, native and third-party apps, and customer care records.

Using data technology, we helped our client build an analytical engine coupled with data processing solutions and business intelligence tools. We applied advanced machine learning models trained on customer profiles to bring marketing automation to the next level with targeted promotional campaigns, a high degree of service personalization, and increased brand loyalty. These data insights enabled our client to promptly deliver relevant and engaging communication to customers across the globe at the most optimal cost.

Business outcome

When our client decided to transform their traditional FMCG business using engineering best practices and cutting-edge technology, Intellias came alongside them as an experienced technology partner and helped them fulfill their innovative product strategy. Together, we developed a digital ecosystem with an advanced toolset to fast-forward their connected devices to new markets. This provided a full scope of eCommerce, data analytics, infrastructure, marketing, and app development capabilities readily available across the company for easy local adaptation.

The delivered global platform accelerated growth for our client’s business by offering winning digital experiences:

• Reduced time to market by 65% for new product/service launches to new regions with the help of ready-made solutions
• Flexible localized implementations based on specific market needs using independent modular components
• Operational excellence via repeatable deployments, easy integration, and resource optimization
• Synergized B2B and B2C streams by consolidating internal- and external-facing features
• Rich customer data analytics from devices and other connected sources (websites/WebApp, third-party apps, and customer care, including call centers, online chats, and emails) to better understand preferences and buying behavior
• Targeted marketing email automation based on accurate customer profiling to boost user engagement and brand loyalty