International brand brings joy with application modernisation

Established in 1996, this iconic global brand has captured the hearts of generations throughout millions of households around the world.  

The company is dedicated to bringing joy to worldwide fans of all ages by connecting them through their love of the brand and providing high-quality entertainment, gaming experiences, products and services.

In 2019, through a strategic partnership with Fluent Commerce, HorizonX engaged with the organisation’s international subsidiary, which was founded in 2009 to oversee brand management, licensing, and marketing outside of Asia.

‍

Modernising the eCommerce stack

The first project in 2019 was to modernise the organisation’s e-commerce stack away from its monolithic legacy IBM stack to a modern eCommerce platform including Fluent Commerce OMS. The company’s commitment to leveraging modern technology to enhance user experiences meant that they needed a new technology environment that would provide:

• Scalability and performance

• Flexibility & agility to innovate and expand

• Cost-effectiveness through Cloud technology

• Low-latency and seamless user experience

• The ability to integrate with other modern platforms for additional services

• A robust security and compliance framework

• Modern methods that support data driven decision making

‍

‍Powering success through strategic collaboration

As the major international arm, the company naturally had numerous stakeholders involved in the modernisation project. This included the project leadership team, their well-established internal tech team, HorizonX, Fluent Commerce, and a local US-based technology partner.  

HorizonX’s collaborative approach was fundamental to the project strategy, with each stakeholder bringing their unique strengths to the table to ensure a successful project outcome and real business value was delivered.

‍

Partners on the Digital Transformation Roadmap

Since 2019, HorizonX has been a pivotal technology partner in the company’s digital transformation journey, driving innovation and efficiency across multiple domains. Our collaboration can be categorised into four key areas:

Omnichannel Transformation

HorizonX played a critical role in enabling an omnichannel strategy by migrating the e-commerce infrastructure from the legacy WebSphere system to the Fluent Commerce modern platform.

Multisite Expansion

To cater to the diverse needs of the international market, HorizonX supported the expansion into by launch of eCommerce sites across Canada, UK, Australia & NZ

This support included the development of solutions for multiple warehouses, the implementation of features like pre-orders, inventory reservations, gift cards, and coupons, and the continuous scalability of our platform to meet diverse customer needs.

Ongoing Managed Services  

HorizonX’s expertise in site reliability engineering has been crucial in maintaining the performance and reliability of the eCommerce stack. Managed services include:

• AWS Managed Services

• Elastic Path Maintenance

• Fluent Commerce OMS Support

‍

Launch of Australian and New Zealand ecommerce store

As part of the digital roadmap, the company launched its eCommerce store into Australia and New Zealand. Previously only available in the U.S, Canada and U.K, the ANZ localised store provides local fans easy and fast access to its official and latest merchandise.  It enables the team to localise content, promotions and marketing campaigns to the A/NZ region.  

‍

Setting up for success. Empowering teams

By 2024, through its partnership with HorizonX, had thoroughly modernised its eCommerce environment and integrated a culture of continuous improvement and innovation. Through its close partnership with HorizonX, the internal tech team had gained new skills and best-practice knowledge, growing in confidence to manage and scale their environment effectively.

HorizonX prides itself on empowering and enabling customers throughout their digital growth journey. Continuing to work with the company on complex projects, HorizonX maintains a core team contract to provide architectural and technical leadership across multiple initiatives.