Munro Footwear Group, Australia’s largest footwear company, deploys Boomi to hasten e-commerce and its transformation roadmap. Keng Ng, Chief Technology Officer at Munro Footwear Group, tells us more.
Munro Footwear Group (MFG) has created an integrated data foundation platform using the Boomi AtomSphere Platform to support its e-commerce transformation agenda.
Munro Footwear Group (MFG), Australia’s largest privately-owned footwear company, offers an extensive portfolio of trusted brands such as Midas, Django and Juliette, Colorado and Diana Ferrari.
The company is ready for its next stage of growth – with an impressive retail and e-commerce network firmly established, MFG has identified the strategies and technologies required to deliver what will be a market-leading experience in footwear.
When COVID-19 hit and MFG was forced to temporarily close its stores, the company identified an urgent need to strengthen its existing online offering.
To accelerate the company’s digital roadmap, Keng Ng, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at MFG, prioritized building an intelligent digital back-end that would connect every facet of the business required to deliver a positive customer experience, and solve the historical disconnect between the footwear industry and e-commerce.
“While a slightly too small or large top may not result in a return, the same cannot be said about footwear. For this reason, footwear remains one of the last retail categories to fully embrace online sales,” said Ng.
“This, along with the internal complexities faced after conducting eight acquisitions over the last decade, prompted us to engage a specialist to help connect our data requirements, integrate multiple systems, and provide us the flexibility to unplug and connect new ‘things’ so that changes to the business aren’t open-heart surgery each time.”
MFG selected Boomi’s low-code, cloud-native Integration Platform-as-a-Service (iPaaS) to integrate the systems that make up its brick-and-mortar and e-commerce operations. This enabled MFG to bridge its in-house retail application with its Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and ordering systems, in less than a month.
As a result, MFG enabled ‘ship-from-store’ capabilities across 26 pilot stores in a space of four weeks, facilitating Business Continuity during the pandemic. Based on the company’s online revenue generated from these pilot stores, MFG plans to roll out this service across its remaining retail network by the end of 2022.
“The Boomi AtomSphere Platform enables us to connect operations so we have visibility and control over our data, allowing us to make real-time decisions and furthering our expansion online,” said Ng. “These connections also helped us mitigate supply chain issues by enacting quick, tactile changes while some of our containers were held up in Asia for several months.”
MFG selected the Boomi platform for its versatility, development speed and ease of use. With more than 200 integrations live, MFG now launches services faster, has resilient operations and offers flexibility for new systems and applications in the business.
As MFG continues to accelerate its digital roadmap, the company will prioritize building intelligence into the business and across all banners to ensure customer personalization.
“There’s a lot of data that just lives in people’s minds. Our goal was to capture that information in a consistent way that drives real-time intelligence, whether it’s in the office, in the warehouse or on the shop floor,” said Ng.
Nathan Gower, Head of Business Development, Australia and New Zealand (A/NZ) at Boomi, said: “Traditional retailers experienced a battering during COVID-19, with in and out lockdowns across the country testing the business viability of those heavily relying on brick-and-mortar.
“By using Boomi to create a central nervous system for its systems and data, Munro Footwear Group overcame these hurdles and kept pace with the digital economy. From here it’s onward and upward for the company, with the integrated data foundation primed to drive intelligence and embed personalization across the business.”
We asked Keng Ng, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Munro Footwear Group (MFG), further questions to find out more.
Which strategies and technologies did MFG identify to take its growth to the next stage?
The key technological strategy MFG adopted is to go best-of-breed for key customer-facing and fulfilment systems to ensure we are set up to provide a best-of-class personalized shopping experience to our customers. To effectively adopt a best-of-breed approach, we need strong integration and data capabilities that can work across multiple systems.
Why has there historically been a disconnect between the footwear industry and e-commerce?
Having the right fitting shoe is very unforgiving. Unlike garments, a badly fitting pair of shoes doesn’t just look bad, it can be very uncomfortable and unsafe. As a result, consumers prefer to try shoes out in stores before buying them and are less willing to take the risk of buying online.
Can you provide more details about the circumstances surrounding the company’s requirement to strengthen its existing online offering?
COVID has accelerated the uptake of selling shoes online because it was the only way to purchase during the lockdown periods. Recognizing this potential, MFG plans to invest significantly into improving our online experience; from having richer product information and helping customers find the right style, to implementing better technologies that ensure customers get the fit right without actually having to try it on. This is expected to significantly reduce returns.
What challenges did you face when setting about creating an intelligent digital back-end that would deliver a positive customer experience?
Outdated, legacy systems represent the biggest barrier to delivering a seamless omnichannel experience to our customers. They work in an overnight batch mode, do not integrate well with online systems and are difficult to share data. Our first priority is to put forward a roadmap to modernize the foundation rapidly.
Can you explain the importance of bridging your in-house retail application with your Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and ordering systems?
Having a real-time integration between our customer systems (store POS and eCommerce sites) to fulfilment systems (ERP, WMS, Carrier) is critical to delivering on our promise every time.
How does the Boomi AtomSphere Platform enable you to connect operations so you have visibility and control over your data? Can you provide further details about the advantages this brings you?
Having Boomi as our enterprise integration layer, which is the central connection point between all our systems means we know where each piece of data comes from, which systems received it and whether it was consumed successfully.
This means we have better confidence that everything is working as it should. In addition, having data flowing through Boomi means we can react to unplanned situations rapidly. For example, we can hold and modify delivery data before it gets to our warehouse system when our containers are redirected to a different port.
What was the most important factor in MFG’s decision to select the Boomi platform?
It is designed from the ground up to be an integration platform.
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