1. Challenge
There is a huge digital shift taking place in the retail scene and an increasing need for online (order) systems. These trends also occurred at Kruitbosch. Kruitbosch is the owner of the strong growing bicycle brands Cortina and Aplina and supplies a complete range of bicycle parts and accessories. The costumers of Kruitbosch are bicycle specialists in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.
Until recently the dealers were able to order products and view their stock in an offline ordering program. This system was quite outdated and did not have the ability to provide real-time information and accurate order processing. Kruitbosch found it important to go along in the digital transformation and was looking for a new dealer application that supports their customers better. De Nieuwe Zaak helped Kruitbosch transition the focus on customer needs into an online strategy.
2. The solution
Kruitbosch and de Nieuwe Zaak created a customer journey and mapped out the digital roadmap of the customer. Close cooperation with the dealers was very important during this process.
The first step was to replace the current (offline) order system. They chose the Intershop platform (Intershop is the e-commerce partner of de nieuwe zaak). To realize a complete digital transformation, it was necessary to host the new e-commerce platform on a cloud infrastructure. Kruitbosch came to the conclusion that this had to be Microsoft Azure because of the advantages (e.g. scalability, reliability, compliance and flexibility). Kruitbosch looked for an Azure specialist to help them with this process. They came in contact with Intercept because Intercept has the right knowledge and expertise to support Kruitbosch with this project.
The process
De Nieuwe Zaak set up the basis of the Intershop platform for the development of the Kruitbosch portal and customer sites for the bicycle brands Cortina and Alpina, by working intensely with Kruitbosch. Intercept takes care of the hosting and Amis managed the database.
The cooperation between the various parties came nicely together during the performance challenges that emerged during the deployment of the dealer portal.
In order to solve these challenges, optimization was necessary at all levels. Intercept proactively offered solutions in the field of hosting, which were implemented in close consultations with the other partners. Amis set up the data base monitoring and takes care of the backup and restoring processes in case of calamities. De Nieuwe Zaak and Kruitbosch were able to focus on optimizing and developing the platform.
3. The result
The result is a future proof e-commerce platform, hosted on the Microsoft Azure platform. The Kruitbosch platform contains a dealer portal (B2B), which is optimized for the target group, and a Cortina website (B2C). The online dealer portal allows the customers of Kruitbosch to order products and check the stock anywhere, anytime.
For Kruitbosch this means that they can implement and update easily, without downtime. Everything is real-time and scalable from now on.