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ESB or iPaaS: Which is Better for a Retail IT Integration?

Posted on April 13, 2023 by - Enterprise Integration Solutions, IT, Retail

Are you a retailer struggling to find the best solution for your IT integration? You need something that is agile enough to scale during peak periods and retract during slower cycles–a workable system that will integrate legacy on-premises architecture with cloud-based applications. 

Most importantly, you need IT infrastructure that delivers the best omni-channel customer experience (CX) while managing massive levels of big data across multiple locations. That’s a tall order. No wonder it’s keeping you up at night. Your decision will have lasting effects on your company. The wrong move could hit the bottom line hard.

It’s time to ease the pressure. These days, IT integration solutions are flexible enough to make it easy on you and your entire IT team. Enterprise integration platform-as-a-service (iPaaS) solutions allow retailers to integrate all types of IT infrastructure, whether on-premises solutions, cloud-based applications, or hybrid systems.

The past shortcomings of legacy point-to-point (P2P) solutions and on-premises enterprise service bus (ESB) integration models don’t have to limit your IT architecture anymore.

>> Book a personalized demo with our team of experts and see how Digibee’s iPaaS will bring efficiency to your business. 

IT Integration Shortcomings of the Past

You may be working with legacy P2P solutions that only connect two applications directly, so you’re dealing with so-called ‘spaghetti code’ with complex intertwined systems that don’t have a central way to communicate with each other.  
 
Maybe you have a more recent system, if by recent you mean the 1990s, when ESBs came onto the scene as the newest integration tool. Sure, ESBs offer more functionality than P2P models, because the bus-like hub structure of an ESB enables connections with multiple applications. However, technology has come a long way since the ‘90s. ESBs were originally developed before cloud-based applications existed and are usually limited to on-premises architecture since they don’t work well with cloud-centric or hybrid systems.
 
ESBs are also expensive and take a lot of time to establish because IT experts often need specialized training or certification to develop and maintain ESB integration systems.
 
Lastly, the limited capabilities of P2P and ESB methods reduce a retailer’s access to and use of big data, or ad-hoc queries based on that data, which are critical to retailers who want to provide a high-level omni-channel customer experience (CX).

Propel Your Retail or Ecommerce Business into the Future with Enterprise iPaaS

An enterprise integration platform-as-a-service (iPaaS) is more agile than traditional P2P or ESB integration models. An iPaaS solution has the capability to connect on-premises, cloud-based, and hybrid application systems, providing much more flexibility, functionality, and scalability than a P2P or ESB model.
 
An iPaaS solution is also intuitive, so rather than needing high-level IT experts writing professional code (pro-code) for P2P or ESB models; all levels of IT staff can manage a low-code iPaaS platform with very little training required. You can make a direct comparison of pro-code versus low-code models to discover the best solution for your integration strategy.
 
A subscription-based iPaaS model is less expensive, more flexible, and much more scalable than legacy P2P or ESB methods. Plus, implementation is significantly faster with a cloud-centric iPaaS versus other integration methods, helping retailers gain faster time to value with IT integrations.

Discover Digibee’s Enterprise iPaaS in Action

Digibee provides a fast and streamlined IT integration experience. Digibee’s easy-to-use enterprise iPaaS is a cloud-native, enterprise-ready integration platform that accelerates time-to-value, mitigates risks, and helps reduce IT costs. Discover how the efficiency and agility of Digibee’s iPaaS delivered immediate results for international retailers.

Digibee effectively integrated more than 14 legacy systems for the largest manufacturer of baked goods in Brazil. Bauducco Foods has five manufacturing units, 12 branches, and seven distribution centers. Its retail division, Casa Bauducco, has more than 80 stores, with more than 180,000 points of sale in Brazil.

Digibee’s iPaaS integration implementation instantly connected and streamlined Bauducco’s existing cloud-based and legacy systems, eliminated manual inputs and data errors, managed and reduced risks, and provided greater stability throughout the IT environment. Digibee did all of this with zero downtime and a 30% reduction in project time and cost.

Digibee also integrated a secure iPaaS e-commerce platform for global shoe retailer Payless Shoes across more than 200 stores in 15 countries. The implementation took less than 30 days, despite each country having different fiscal and legal requirements. The iPaaS system easily handles seasonal spikes for the busy retailer, and provides better efficiency, transparency and security across the retail enterprise.

What Digibee Can Do For Your Enterprise Retail or Ecommerce Business

Digibee’s subscription-based iPaaS will connect all of your legacy P2P and ESB systems as well as any cloud-based applications. It also streamlines your operation, supporting an omni-channel CX, unlocking big data capabilities, easing pressure on your IT team, reducing integration costs, and improving your return on investment (ROI). What are you waiting for?

Discover the Digibee difference. Learn how to integrate and modernize your enterprise with Digibee’s integration platform-as-a-service (iPaaS). Book your choice of a discovery call (15 minutes), custom demo (30 minutes), or a deep dive (60 minutes) to learn more.

Composable Commerce: Is Ecommerce Integration Really a “Must”?

Posted on April 11, 2023 by - Enterprise Integration Solutions, IT, Retail

Composable commerce is a concept that has gained substantial popularity in the last several years, and is poised to be one of the critical business differentiators in the year ahead for retailers. While the concept of composability fundamentally resonates with IT professionals, the devil is in the details (as it always is).

How do you define composability when specifically applied to ecommerce and retail tech? How do you define the benefits of composable commerce – and the risks of not moving towards composability?

And most importantly, what can you actually do today that will start the transformation from monolithic to composable?

>> Book a personalized demo with our team of experts and see how Digibee’s iPaaS will bring efficiency to your business. 

What is Composable Commerce?

In contrast to the more traditional monolithic commerce platforms that package every part of a digital commerce solution into one large computing network, composable commerce runs on many microservices, each handling a distinct system function.

It usually incorporates headless commerce, which separates the front-end presentation layer from the back-end ecommerce functionality, and then further subdivides the back-end into separate microservices that each perform a discrete task such as inventory management or a payment gateway. 

That’s the what, here’s the why: breaking a system down into these separate microservices gives businesses freedom to select the best individual components for their specific business needs, and the flexibility to easily modify or swap them out in the future without serious rework needed to the rest of the system. 

This has never been more critical than it is today. No industry has withstood the challenges of change more than retail has over the past few years. And we all know that rapid change is now a constant. The retail organizations that are “winning” are the ones who can adapt quickly, as are the ones that are farther along the path to Digital Transformation.

Let’s dig into the role composability can play in 2023.

Why is Integration Critical to Composable Commerce?

To be successful, not only must each individual microservice be well-thought-out, but also how it communicates with every other microservice within the system.

Without intelligent ecommerce integration, this communication between components has to be managed at an incredibly granular level, exposing a business to several serious complications in the following ways:

1. Not-so-seamless Customer Experience

In composable commerce, a typical customer journey will touch upon many different microservices, often even crossing different online channels. Without integration, your customer’s journey can become disjointed and lead to frustration and disappointment for them, and missed opportunities for you. 

For example, if your CRM and email marketing components aren’t aligned, prospects may receive an email that alerts them of a sale that their region is ineligible for. If inventory management isn’t updating your ecommerce platform in real time they could purchase an item that is out of stock and the order then has to be canceled. 

2. Low Visibility

A composable system has a lot of little things going on at once, and without strong integration a company can quickly find themselves in a data situation where they “can’t see the forest for the trees”. This leaves them at a severe disadvantage when trying to make business decisions that provide true customer value.

Essentially this is the business-facing version of the “Not-so-seamless customer experience,” where the business has limited insight into their customer’s overall journey, and can only see these interactions at a component level. 

3. Reduced Adaptability & Increased Cost

The ability to quickly assemble (and reassemble) the best components for your business needs is one of the primary reasons to choose a composable commerce architecture. As you add or remove technologies to compete where your customers are, speed and flexibility are key. This is also true of partners. As you integrate with suppliers, marketplaces and other platforms and software to advance your digital strategy, your integration ducks need to be in a row. 

This required adaptability is easily eroded without ecommerce data integration. Managing a network of custom built integrations built on legacy technologies is time consuming, complicated, and prone to unforeseen errors. 

What to Look for When Integrating Composable Commerce

The platform you choose for integration needs to prevent the above scenarios through simultaneously addressing the volume of discrete microservices to manage, and maintaining the flexibility and adaptability so integral to the composable commerce approach. 

Look for an integration platform that is:

  • Data-Agnostic – A good ecommerce integration platform is data-agnostic and brings disparate data sources together into one cohesive and accessible space. This maintains your freedom to use whichever services you need now. 
  • Reusable & Customizable – To truly be composable, the system has to be modular and easy to reconfigure. Having reusable components as part of your ecommerce integration means developers don’t have to start from scratch with each new microservice you add, keeping speed high and costs low.
  • Reliable – In composable commerce there’s a long list of different components to monitor to ensure their reliability to meet business needs, but that doesn’t happen if your ecommerce integration tool isn’t up for the job! Choose an ecommerce integration platform that is capable of flagging issues with pipelines in real-time to minimize risk and disruption to your customers. 
  • Secure – More connections can mean more security vulnerabilities, so ensure that your ecommerce integration tool has strong security protocols that prevent unauthorized access to your platform. 

Get the Most from your Composable System with Digibee 

The core philosophy of composable architecture is one that Digibee has truly taken to heart. Our modular iPaaS is purpose-built to increase freedom and adaptability to support a composable commerce system, or even to support your transition to one. 

If you’re interested in how Digibee can help your organization evolve to a modular IT environment, we’d be happy to show you how. Book your choice of a 15-minute discovery call, 30-minute custom demo, or a 60-minute deep dive to learn more.

ESB vs iPaaS: How to Choose the Best Solution For Your IT Integrations

Posted on April 6, 2023 by - Enterprise Integration Solutions, IT, Retail

Business and IT leaders struggle with complex – and often pricey – IT decisions that have significant and lasting effects on their companies. The IT landscape is constantly changing, so it can be difficult to know what’s best for right now and for the future. The wrong decision could hit a company’s bottom line hard and cause ongoing headaches that are entirely avoidable.

This article compares Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) models with integration-as-a-service (iPaaS) solutions for today’s integration needs. For a fair comparison, first, you should understand the difference between ESB and iPaaS.

>> Book a personalized demo with our team of experts and see how Digibee’s iPaaS will bring efficiency to your business. 

Monolithic? Headless? Composable? A Quick Primer for Digital Commerce

Posted on April 4, 2023 by - Enterprise Integration Solutions, IT

A lot of buzz words get bandied about in business meetings, and especially around tech topics it can be hard to a) keep up and b) keep it straight. So if you are feeling a little self-conscious about having to google what these terms really mean, just know that the problem isn’t you. 

Any technology term is relatively young and the meaning will naturally shift or be refined over time. Both the practices of researching terms and independently asking the person you are working with to define how they use terms are integral for meaningful communication between the business and technology sides of any company.

In this blog post we will explore several common terms relating to digital commerce infrastructure:

  • Monolithic Commerce
  • Headless Commerce
  • Composable Commerce

>> Book a personalized demo with our team of experts and see how Digibee’s iPaaS will bring efficiency to your business. 

What is Monolithic Architecture?

A traditional monolithic architecture essentially packages every part of an application into one large computing network. In today’s cloud-centric and platform as a service world, this notion sounds a bit archaic. In its defense, monolithic architecture is not an entirely ancient relic; it still provides an easy solution that continues to work for many companies, and there are many “out of the box” options available.

“Monolithic” derives from the Ancient Greek word μονόλιθος (monólithos), from μόνος (mónos) meaning “one” or “single” and λίθος (líthos) meaning “stone”. While we’re confident that even the most change-resistant IT person isn’t running your website on anything made of stone, it is a great visual for the concepts that underpin monolithic architecture in technology. 

The main difficulty that arises for those with a monolithic system is adaptability. Making a change to a monolithic system is about as impossible as trying to dig something out of the bottom of a large suitcase while keeping your clothes folded. Updating or even just maintaining a monolithic system can put pressure on your personnel, who have to constantly dig through legacy code to keep the system running.

What is Headless Commerce?

Headless commerce architecture is built in a way where the back-end or server-side logic has been decoupled from the front end user interface. In this architecture type, the back-end system connects to your user interface through APIs that are typically RESTful APIs that expose data in a standardized way, allowing them to be consumed by a variety of different clients and used for a variety of business use cases. Monolithic architecture also uses APIs, but by contrast they are built to be tightly coupled with that system’s back-end, and are designed to execute very specific business use cases. 

What are the advantages of headless architectures? When building a front end interface with headless, developers are able to maintain a higher level of freedom to create customized user experiences without having to be concerned about the intricacies of the back-end. Headless back-end systems can also be used simultaneously by multiple client applications, so a website, a mobile app, a kiosk and a chatbot can all share the same underlying system without causing issues between them. Ultimately, this promises more flexibility as the retail technology landscape continues to evolve, and ensures better visibility and connectedness of data sources as retailers attempt to execute on the omnichannel experience for customers and prospective customers alike. 

What is Composable Commerce?

Composable commerce architecture emphasizes the use of interchangeable and independent components – or microservices. These services can include everything from inventory management and product searches, to shopping carts and payment vendors. By breaking down a solution into these discrete and independent services, a business can easily swap out or re-work a service without major risk to the system as a whole. 

This modularity lends an enormous amount of flexibility to a business, and allows it to adapt quicker than their monolithic competitors to new technologies as they become available. Like headless commerce, these modules are typically linked through RESTful APIs that expose data from one microservice to another.

“In turbulent times, composable business principles help organizations master the accelerated change that is essential for business resilience and growth. Without it, modern organizations risk losing their market momentum and customer loyalty.”

David Groombridge, Research Vice President, Gartner

This high level of flexibility does come with some additional considerations for the team. Unlike monolithic “out of the box” solution options, a composable commerce site is bespoke, and requires developers to build. Managing numerous microservices and APIs can also be challenging, and a comprehensive approach for how to connect and monitor them needs to not only be implemented, but kept up to date with each change to the system. 

Composable Commerce vs Headless

There really is no “vs” when it comes to composable commerce and headless commerce, they have a substantial amount of overlap as they both rely on RESTful APIs to link different parts of their respective systems together. 

Is headless commerce always composable?

Whether headless commerce is composable is essentially reliant on whether its APIs and services are designed in a way that is truly modular and reusable. If a website has been built with the back and front end decoupled but the APIs are built to specifically work only for that system’s back-end then it can be considered headless, but not composable.

Is composable commerce always headless?

The short answer is no, because technically there is no requirement for a composable architecture to even have a front-end interface, but the longer answer is that they often are as a headless front-end can provide the modularity needed to support composable commerce.

Why is an Integration company like Digibee writing about this anyways?

The conversations about innovation for most digital commerce companies today need to encompass their approach to technology architecture as a whole, but also be able to zoom in and understand how each piece of that system would fit together to meet the business needs. 

With so much important data being generated, whatever approach to your system architecture you adopt needs to be able to capture that data in a way that adds value to your business. This is where e-commerce integration comes in.

Digibee has been built to fully support many approaches to technical architecture. Whether you are working with a fully composable commerce system, or just starting the journey of migrating away from your monolithic e-commerce, we can help. Our low-code eiPaaS scales quickly and easily to integrate all your independent services thanks to our reusable Digibee capsules, giving you full flexibility to make the most of your system data. 

If you’re interested in how Digibee can help your organization evolve to a modular IT environment, we’d be happy to show you how. Book your choice of a 15-minute discovery call, 30-minute custom demo, or a 60-minute deep dive to learn more.

What is ESB and is it already obsolete?

Posted on March 30, 2023 by - Enterprise Integration Solutions, IT, Retail

An Enterprise Service Bus, otherwise known as an ESB, is a type of IT architecture that allows multiple applications to communicate through a hub or bus-like infrastructure. What is Enterprise Service Bus and what does ESB mean for your IT integration?

An ESB integration basically establishes principles and rules that guide the communication capabilities of different applications.

>> Book a personalized demo with our team of experts and see how Digibee’s iPaaS will bring efficiency to your business. 

Customer Experiences: Putting Your Technology Where Your Mouth Is

Posted on March 28, 2023 by - Enterprise Integration Solutions, IT, Retail

Delivering an exceptional, personalized customer experience (CX) requires more than a whizz-bang website and an intelligent chatbot (as engaging as these may be). The reality is that the customer experience is ongoing and forever.

Yes, the biggest hurdle is converting an initial website or store visit into a sale, but the CX doesn’t end there. It’s really just beginning.

Cloud Migration: Why It’s More Important Than Ever and How to Get it Right

Posted on March 23, 2023 by - Cloud Migration, Enterprise Integration Solutions, IT

Cloud migration isn’t a new concept by any stretch of the imagination. Cloud-based services have become so ubiquitous that we use them multiple times a day without a second thought. But despite the universal nature of cloud computing, what is changing is its importance in the business world.

No longer a “nice to have,” embracing cloud has become vital to enterprises’ growth, success, and ability to compete, as digital natives – companies that have never existed anywhere but the cloud – emerge and leverage new technologies and business models to disrupt the status quo.

Even though most organizations already use cloud technologies in some form, it’s still crucial to weigh the benefits of cloud migration against the risks and challenges it poses to your operations.

>> Book a personalized demo with our team of experts and see how Digibee’s iPaaS will bring efficiency to your business. 

What is Cloud Migration?

Cloud migration is the process of moving digital assets – data, applications, resources, and systems – to a cloud computing environment. 

While we typically think of cloud migration as shifting assets from a legacy, on-premises system to the cloud, cloud-to-cloud migration is becoming increasingly common as enterprises work to reduce complexity, reduce costs, and increase the security of their systems.

Why Move to the Cloud Now?

Your company needs every weapon in its arsenal to continue growing, innovating, and thriving, and the cloud can help you scale, increase agility, grow revenue, and achieve business goals in today’s changing world.

If you’re among the rare handful of businesses that have resisted a large-scale cloud transition up to this point, you might be wondering how much it matters now. Do you really need to make a change?

Maybe your existing infrastructure is good enough – it’s kept your operations on track and your business growing. But the development of new technologies is accelerating, and the pressures organizations must be prepared to face in a post-pandemic world are increasing. 

The cloud may not be a suitable environment for every single component of your technology. But your company needs every weapon in its arsenal to continue growing, innovating, and thriving, and the cloud can help you scale, increase agility, grow revenue, and achieve business goals in today’s changing world.

The Benefits of Cloud Migration

“Everyone is doing it” isn’t reason enough to tackle enterprise cloud migration. But your organization stands to gain a wide range of cloud migration benefits if you make the leap.

1. Resource Scalability

Cloud gives your organization the ability to grow as workloads evolve and demands increase. In comparison, scaling up conventional on-prem solutions means purchasing and installing new hardware, software, storage, and networking equipment.

2. Reduced IT Load

Many cloud providers take on the burden of regular maintenance and updates, meaning your (possibly overstretched) IT department can spend less time on mundane, repetitive tasks and focus on innovation.

3. Cost Savings

Cloud migration can also help enterprises reduce IT infrastructure costs. The scalable nature of a cloud environment makes it easy to right-size resources and adjust as needs change, rather than over-purchasing to ensure capacity for peak demand periods.

4. Greater Flexibility

One key lesson business leaders took from the pandemic was the importance of flexibility in surviving the unexpected. Migrating key data and processes to the cloud means your organization isn’t tied to a specific business location and can pivot quickly when conditions prevent staff from working on-site.

5. Elimination of End-of-Life Hardware Concerns

The pace of technological evolution continues to accelerate, making the life expectancy of investments in IT infrastructure shorter and shorter. Cloud migration puts the onus of updates on your service provider, freeing you from the hassle and costs of dealing with sunsetting solutions.

6. Ability to Leverage New Technologies

This cloud migration benefit goes hand-in-hand with the previous one – the rapid development of new technologies and tools means organizations with the ability to embrace new tech like artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and the Metaverse will have an edge over those who can’t.

Cloud Migration Risk and Challenges

The number one driver of failed or disruptive cloud migration experiences is a lack of planning. An end-to-end strategy is crucial to help mitigate cloud migration security risks, minimize disruption, and keep costs down. 

Before embarking on a cloud migration journey, your organization must consider the specific requirements of any data or workloads you are moving to the cloud, identify any dependencies related to the transition and define your goals for the move. Companies that make the move without a comprehensive strategy face any number of challenges.

High Cloud Migration Costs

Cost savings is a commonly cited driver of cloud migration, but a lack of planning can leave organizations facing higher-than-expected cloud migration costs. Managing spend remains a top challenge for organizations using the cloud, and data suggests approximately 32% of cloud spend is wasted.

Vendor Lock-In

Not all cloud solutions are created equal. Cloud service providers often boast an array of services, but organizations with specific requirements must ensure their needs will be met before cloud migration begins. Signing a contract only to discover the provider can’t deliver what you need is a recipe for disappointment at best – and disaster at worst.

Security Issues

Despite the universality of cloud use, security remains a common roadblock to cloud migration. The process of transitioning digital assets to the cloud can put applications, data, and systems at risk if security threats and vulnerabilities are not carefully considered – and addressed – before migration begins.

Lack of Expertise

The development and execution of a cloud migration strategy are directly related to the complexity of your existing infrastructure. Legacy systems with multiple dependencies can be challenging to migrate, and problems can arise if your migration team doesn’t have adequate expertise in both the system you’re migrating from and the target cloud environment.

Operational Disruptions

Few, if any, businesses can afford to put day-to-day operations on hold while they undertake a cloud migration, but the downtime and delays caused by moving data and systems from existing infrastructure to the cloud can have a significant impact on the bottom line.

Digibee helps you do cloud migration right

The case for cloud migration has never been more compelling: the benefits of cloud migration continue to increase, and the downsides of resisting the transition are becoming more apparent. Let the experts at Digibee help reduce cloud migration risks and optimize your strategy.

Download your complimentary copy of The Future of Cloud Migration for a deep dive into changing migration goals and challenges, tips on measuring success, emerging use cases for cloud computing, and detailed guidance on making the move successful and pain-free.

How a Unified Retail Commerce Model is Reshaping the Industry, According to Gartner®

Posted on March 21, 2023 by - Enterprise Integration Solutions, Retail

Successful retailers are resilient, able to respond to changes in the market with agility and poise. In recent years, the role of technology has proven to be the biggest differentiator, enabling retailers to easily accommodate the unexpected, while less prepared entities simply fade away.

But with new technology and business models comes new methods in how we measure business and performance outcomes. 

In a recent Gartner report, analysts examine this shift. The research emphasizes the role of strategic CIOs and other leaders in creating new, digital KPIs that measure and quantify progress, informing important decisions, and ensuring the success of the business. 

>> Book a personalized demo with our team of experts and see how Digibee’s iPaaS will bring efficiency to your business. 

Integrate faster with Digibee’s Supportive 3-Step Customer Onboarding

Posted on March 16, 2023 by - Enterprise Integration Solutions, IT

Getting started with your enterprise integration is a daunting task; even the process of planning your enterprise integration is a daunting task. You know it’s a big job, you know there are complex use cases to map out and consider, and you know that whatever solution you choose must be able to expand and adapt as your company grows (even if you don’t know how your company will grow!).

If your company already relies on software from companies that also offer integration tools, at first glance it may seem that staying within that software ecosystem is the simplest way to ensure a smooth customer onboarding plan, and–ultimately–a successful integration. 

On the surface that may seem to be true, and we recognize that most of these large software companies offer integration platforms with very robust functionality capable of meeting the most complex user needs, but there are several challenges that need to be considered at all areas of the integration lifecycle, from building, running, monitoring (…and billing!)

>> Book a personalized demo with our team of experts and see how Digibee’s iPaaS will bring efficiency to your business. 

developer-working-and-seeing-good-results

iPaaS XL Doesn’t Fit All

Have you heard the expression “Too much of a good thing”? While at first glance the size and complexity of the big integration platforms seems like a benefit to any user, it can cause many unintended and adverse situations to arise. With a great big very complex enterprise integration partner comes a great big monthly bill AND a very complex certification process.

Barrier to Entry

Just like a buffet where you have to make sure you have a big enough appetite to get your money’s worth, when choosing your integration partner you must be sure that the usage will be high enough to offset the high price tag with sufficient integration value. Even some large corporations run the risk of spending more to integrate than they gained through integration, and this becomes more of a peril for small to medium-sized companies, that is if they can even afford the price tag to begin with!

Complex Systems Require Complex Certifications

Taking full advantage of a complex system often requires hiring developers who have specialization, or even gone through a formal certification process, to build and run it. To achieve this, a company either has to spend the time and money associated with hiring these specialized developers, or in training up their own internal developers to pass the three levels of certification before they can even tackle enterprise customer onboarding.

It is important to remember that this training will be an incurred cost going forward regardless of which route you choose. It will also make the process of replacing or augmenting your team members as you grow both slower and more expensive. 

Make a Powerful First Impact with Digibee

We think it is important for companies of all sizes to begin integration, so to support this goal Digibee takes a very flexible approach to pricing with no prohibitively large cost barrier-to-entry. Instead we employ a subscription model that allows you to pay only for the integrations you use. The overall cost of Digibee is on average nearly 50% lower than the other guys, and it includes five times the number of production pipelines – easily replicated integrations made between systems – from the start, so you can realize your integration goals sooner. 

At Digibee we also know that your time to value is key. We ensure your team gains mastery of the Digibee platform without sacrificing fast results through our 3-step onboarding plan: 

  1. We Got You (we build for you)
  2. Together (you build with our help)
  3. You Got This (you build on your own) 

We got you

The Digibee team delivers first integrations

Digibee Subscription
Digibee Integration Platform

Together

Digibee / Customer work together to deliver

Digibee Subscription
Digibee Integration Platform, Integration Delivery, & Empowerment

You got this

Customer is ready to create and deliver integrations

Digibee Subscription
Digibee Integration Platform & Empowerment Team

Step 1: We Got You

In our first step of client onboarding, Digibee will build up to the first set of Pipelines for our customers. By having the Digibee team hit the ground running with your first integrations you will get to see real world examples of the Digibee integration capsules in action with your own unique suite of internal tools and business needs, and give you the fastest time to market possible.

Trying us out is a low-risk decision

To ensure that Digibee really is the best integration partner for you, we complete Step 1 on any of your staging platforms even before you commit to a subscription. Your role is as simple as sharing the data flow and aiding us in the connection to your data sources.

Step 2: Together

In the “Together” phase you begin to build your own integrations with our support. We will be there to guide and educate your team both on an individual level and through the Digibee Foundations Academy portal and Workshop(s). 

Not just “technically” together

At Digibee, we understand it’s important that “together” should include both technical and non-technical stakeholders. This way everyone can have an appropriate understanding of the capabilities of our integration platform to be able to best understand how to implement it in a way that meets your business needs.

Step 3: You Got This

Once your team is comfortable, you are ready to proceed with new integrations on your own. Thanks to our drag-and-drop low-code solutions, even your more junior developers will be able to learn to build, update, and run complex integrations quickly.

Digibee’s Inclusive Pricing Difference

Our subscription pricing includes several valuable bonuses that support you on your customer onboarding journey. Our support services are included in our pricing, so there aren’t any hidden costs.

Comprehensive Support

Even after your integration up and running with your own developers, we are always there for you if you need us! Digibee provides a dedicated customer success team that will help you troubleshoot and enable your team to keep getting the best results and outcomes from our integration platform-as-a-service.

Worried about monitoring for all your integrated pipelines?

Using integrated monitoring metrics and logs, our system actively supports your integration maintenance by flagging potential issues for you in real time. This helps you avoid interruptions for your customers.

Begin your Integration Journey with Digibee

With our subscription model and 3-step onboarding process, Digibee strives to make your enterprise integration as simple and cost-effective as possible.

Do you have more questions for us? Check out this resource: 5 (+1) Reasons to Choose Digibee Over a Traditional iPaaS or feel free to start the conversation and book a demo now. 

The Information Age of Retail: Data, Data Everywhere

Posted on March 14, 2023 by - Enterprise Integration Solutions, Retail

Retailers are firmly on board the digital transformation train, reinventing how they do business to delight consumers with omnichannel and personalized experiences. Gone are monolithic technology stacks, replaced with agile and composable architecture models that support the success of the business today and into the future.

However, in the rush to digitize, many retailers overlook the unprecedented volumes of data these new (and existing) technologies generate. While plenty of thought is invested in optimizing the customer experience (CX), establishing how to manage the storage and analysis of so much data is often an afterthought.

In this blog post, we examine the different types of data generated within retail, the new technologies that increase the load, and the strategic importance of managing data for a healthy and profitable business. 

>> Book a personalized demo with our team of experts and see how Digibee’s iPaaS will bring efficiency to your business. 

Retail Data and Why It Matters

Retailers generate data across the entire operation, front and back. Every pick, click, and customer interaction; every SKU, sale, and shift in inventory generates more data that must be managed.

There are three categories for retail data, depending on the source:

  • Structured data is organized and usually stored in a database, file, or spreadsheet. Examples include point-of-sale, inventory, product hierarchies, etc.
  • Unstructured data is not organized and is saved in its native format. Examples include customer reviews, location data, tweets, pictures, hashtags, etc. 
  • Semi-structured data straddles both categories. It is not captured or formatted using conventional methods. However, there may be information associated with the data, such as metadata tagging. Examples include emails, XML, zipped files, etc.

Once combined, the collective is referred to as Big Data, with emphasis on the “big”. 

Consider the world’s largest retailer: Walmart. The company collects 2.5 petabytes of unstructured data from one million customers every hour. Add to this the data generated by 245 million customers visiting 10,900 brick and mortar stores, supplemented with 10 active websites, and the scope of the company’s Big Data is astounding.

The collected information serves Walmart well. For example, in-house analytics systems analyze close to 100 million keywords each day to optimize bidding, factoring in millions of products and hundreds of millions of customers from a range of sources. On this single data initiative alone, Walmart has produced a 10-15% increase in online sales for $1 billion in incremental revenue.

Getting Your Data House in Order

Although few companies compete at the level of a Walmart, the need to collect and integrate data from a range of data-generating components is an absolute requirement for digital transformation, regardless of retailer size.  

Enterprise integration is a critical enabler in achieving these outcomes, streamlining the collection of structured, unstructured, and semi-structured data across the operation to contribute to a Big Data collective.

A good example is Payless, an international, self-serve footwear retail chain, with almost 4,500 stores in 30 countries. The retailer implemented enterprise integration platform as a service (eiPaaS) technology to connect a new e-commerce platform within its existing retail infrastructure. 

The result is a seamless flow of data to and from the system, supporting a consolidated database for better analytics and insights. With a contemporary e-commerce platform firing on all cylinders, Payless is able to provide an improved customer experience, even during surges in sales on Black Friday and other high-volume days. 

With enterprise integration, retailers benefit from a rich store of ever-green data they can continually analyze to uncover meaningful insights. These include:

  • Personalized customer experiences
  • Trend and spend predictions
  • Forecasting demand
  • Pricing optimization
  • Customer journey insights

New Retail Tech = More Data

Even after your data house is in order, the work doesn’t stop. More customers mean more digital interactions, spawning even more data. Most impactful is the adoption of nascent technologies, a key enabler for digital transformation initiatives. 

Today, ecommerce websites and remote interactions generate the biggest share of retail data. However, brick and mortar stores have become data generators in their own right. Here are just a few examples of innovative instore technologies entering the retail domain that contribute to Big Data:

Digital & curated shopping

The Nike NYC House of Innovation store provides shoppers with an immersive, digitally powered experience including interactive geozones that are navigated by scanning QR codes via mobile phones. 

(Photo credit: Nike)

The space includes a Nike Speed Shop, where customers reserve items online, then try them on and buy them in-store. Pre-selected merchandise is placed in lockers that the customers open with their smartphone.

The store also has a customization space where shoppers personalize products with the colors and features they want.

Automated checkout

Everyone’s familiar (though maybe not enthralled) with self-checkout kiosks. Automated checkout is upping the game, with computer vision, deep learning, and sensor fusion technology to automate payment and checkout. 

(Photo credit: Amazon)

Amazon is an established early adopter, where customers enter a store, select items, and leave without queuing or checking out. Payment is automated via the Amazon Go app.

Inventory Analytics Robots

The adoption of new technology isn’t limited to customer interactions. Sam’s Club relies on automated powered robotics with artificial intelligence operating systems to analyze shelving units across its stores. 

(Photo credit: Sam’s Club)

Retail-Sams-Club-powered-robotics

Data collected is used to verify pricing accuracy, confirm product locations versus the floor plan, and monitor stock levels. 

Though radically different in terms of tech and use cases, all of these innovative retail technology models have one thing in common: data. And plenty of it. 

Managing so many diverse data sources has become a business imperative, providing retail organizations with insights that help inform important decisions, today and in the future.

Digibee eiPaaS technology enables a resilient and agile data strategy that easily grows with your organization, regardless of size or scale. We help our customers evolve their business, leveraging Digibee’s low-code eiPaaS to integrate modern systems with existing technologies, streamlining the flow of data across the operation for a singular view of the business.

If you’re interested in how Digibee can help your retail organization, we are happy to show you how. Book your choice of a discovery call (15 minutes), custom demo (30 minutes) or a deep dive (60 minutes) to learn more.

Why Digital Transformation is Important and How to Make it Happen

Posted on March 9, 2023 by - Cloud Migration, Enterprise Integration Solutions, IT

Once dismissed as a meaningless buzzword among tech circles, digital transformation has become a high priority for organizations of all sizes, across all verticals. 

The importance of adapting often-siloed legacy systems to communicate with new technologies and tools became painfully clear amid pandemic shutdowns, and the new reality of hybrid work models and digital-first business has forced even those most resistant to change to acknowledge its value.

But what is digital transformation, really?

>> Book a personalized demo with our team of experts and see how Digibee’s iPaaS will bring efficiency to your business. 

Digibee Employee Highlight Series: Tia Phillips, Chief People Officer

Posted on March 3, 2023 by - Culture, Employee Spotlight

As we conclude Black History Month and step into Women’s History Month, we are fortunate to share the story of a remarkable Black woman and leader on our team, our Chief People Officer, Tia Phillips. Read about why she chose Digibee and the exciting work ahead for our People Team.

From my home in Massachusetts, to her home on the other side of the US in California, I got to have a truly enjoyable conversation with this perpetual optimist, Star Trek enthusiast, nature-lover, inspiring leader, diversity champion, and dedicated lacrosse mom. (And, those are just some of the ways to describe our infinitely cool CPO!)