In our previous article we discussed how to identify the need for replatforming.
After identifying why replatforming is necessary, it’s important to focus on the operational improvements it can deliver. Replatforming offers more than technical upgrades — it positions your business for growth, improves customer satisfaction, and boosts efficiency across your operations. These operational advantages are key to building a persuasive business case that stakeholders can rally behind.
1. Unlocking Growth Potential
A modern platform is designed to support your business as it scales, offering the flexibility to expand seamlessly and take advantage of new opportunities. Growth shouldn’t be hampered by technology.
Scalability and Flexibility:
Example: As a company expands into new markets, their current platform struggles to support additional languages, currencies, and product lines. Replatforming provides the scalability needed to manage these additions smoothly and without delays.
Why It Matters: The ability to grow without encountering system limitations is critical. Replatforming gives your business the agility to enter new markets and introduce new services or products without having to overhaul systems each time.
Speed to Market:
Example: A fashion retailer aims to launch a seasonal collection in time for a key sales period but is held back by the time it takes to manually set up product pages and integrate inventory. With replatforming, they can bring new products to market faster, improving their responsiveness to customer demand.
Why It Matters: Moving quickly is a competitive advantage. Replatforming enables you to shorten the time between product development and launch, giving you the flexibility to respond to trends and customer needs more efficiently.
2. Enhancing Customer Experience
Customer experience is the core of any e-commerce business. A modern platform helps you deliver the speed, personalization, and consistency that today’s customers expect across all touchpoints.
Personalization and Targeting:
Example: Your marketing team is eager to implement personalised recommendations for returning customers but is limited by a platform that lacks flexibility. With a replatformed system, they can leverage AI-powered tools to deliver highly relevant product suggestions based on browsing and purchase history.
Why It Matters: Personalization boosts engagement and drives conversion. A replatformed system lets you deliver dynamic, tailored experiences that make customers feel valued and understood.
Mobile Optimization:
Example: An online retailer sees mobile traffic rising but conversion rates on mobile lagging. Their platform isn’t fully optimised for mobile experiences, leading to slow load times and cumbersome navigation. By replatforming, they ensure the site is mobile-friendly, speeding up the checkout process and reducing cart abandonment.
Why It Matters: A seamless mobile experience is essential for capturing today’s mobile-first shoppers. Replatforming improves the user experience on all devices, which translates to higher conversion rates and more satisfied customers.
Omnichannel Consistency:
Example: A retail brand wants to create a unified shopping experience across online and offline channels but finds it difficult to synchronise inventory and customer data. A modern platform integrates these channels, providing customers with a seamless experience whether they shop online, via mobile, or in-store.
Why It Matters: Customers increasingly expect a consistent experience, regardless of where they interact with your brand. Replatforming allows you to synchronise data across all channels, creating a cohesive experience that builds loyalty and improves sales.
3. Boosting Operational Efficiency
Operational efficiency can be a game-changer for your team. Streamlined processes, automated workflows, and better data management allow your business to operate more smoothly and at a lower cost.
Automation of Routine Tasks:
Example: A retail business spends too much time manually updating inventory, processing orders, and managing customer service requests. By replatforming, they can automate these tasks, freeing up time and reducing human error.
Why It Matters: Automation allows your team to focus on strategic work rather than repetitive tasks. Replatforming introduces tools that handle routine operations automatically, making your business more efficient and reducing operational costs.
Better Data Management and Insights:
Example: A retailer struggles to gain actionable insights from customer data, preventing effective decision-making. After replatforming, they have real-time access to customer behaviour, enabling better segmentation and more effective marketing campaigns.
Why It Matters: Access to accurate, real-time data is critical for making informed business decisions. Replatforming gives your team the insights needed to optimise marketing, inventory, and pricing strategies.
Seamless Integrations:
Example: A company wants to integrate its e-commerce platform with a new CRM and ERP, but their current system requires custom development for each new integration. A replatformed system allows seamless integration with third-party applications, reducing delays and complexity.
Why It Matters: Integrating with key business tools should be frictionless. Replatforming enables smoother, faster integrations with the tools you rely on, improving cross-departmental workflows and reducing costs.
Shaping the Business Case:
Operational improvements should play a key role in your business case for replatforming. Highlighting how replatforming enhances customer experience, speeds up time-to-market, and streamlines internal processes strengthens the case for investment. By demonstrating how replatforming drives growth and operational efficiency, you highlight its role in unlocking your business’s full potential, far beyond simply upgrading technology.