Chadwicks Group – InterSystems IRIS provides the building blocks for Chadwicks Group’s digital transformation

CUSTOMER 

Chadwicks Group 

CHALLENGE 

Requirement for high-speed and high-volume processing of data to digitally transform internal and external operations 

OUTCOME 

Moving from legacy IT
to a cloud-first ecosystem that allows data to flow seamlessly to the point
of action, increasing customers’ and partners’ interaction through 

Chadwicks Group + InterSystems 

InterSystems IRIS provides the building blocks for Chadwick Group’s digital transformation 

Chadwicks Group, Ireland’s leading builders’ merchant and home improvement specialist has been in operation for 200 years, selling builders’ and plumbers’ supplies to both trade and DIY customer from over 50 branches nationwide with over 1,300 employees. 

The group’s current growth strategy is built on several strategic pillars, including remaining the first-choice supplier to its customers, refining and developing its range of products and services, developing an innovative and efficient multi-specialist and multi-channel business, and increasing its e-commerce capabilities. 

To support these goals, Chadwicks created a blueprint for a transformative IT project to turn technology into a source of value for the group by enhancing efficiency and increasing customers’ and external partners’ interaction through digital channels. 

Over the last three decades, a wide range of disparate IT systems were adopted in response to evolving business needs, which has contributed to internal data siloes, disjointed processes, and a lack of agility, or single source of truth from data. 

Previously, Chadwicks built its own enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, known as Accustar, on InterSystems technology which has accumulated significant intelligence since its inception. The distributed legacy system was outfitted with a number of improvements over the years, and the infrastructure was in need of modernisation to enable the ERP to become a core system of record which could be surrounded by an array of new and legacy best-of-breed applications. 

Due to the complex, mission-critical integration requirements, Chadwicks undertook rigorous market research and evaluation to find an intelligent platform to identify, collect, transform, and normalise data across the disparate systems. As it turns out, they didn’t have to look far. 

During performance testing, InterSystems IRIS became the clear choice to facilitate Chadwicks Group’s requirement for high-speed and high- volume processing of data. 

With this infrastructure, Chadwicks would gain the flexibility to select the best product to meet current business requirements, as well as the agility to rapidly adapt to emerging opportunities. 

Liberating data from silos 

During 2019, four separate merchanting brands were consolidated under the Chadwicks Group brand. The consolidation created a golden opportunity to update the company’s systems and processes, enabling a customer to purchase from any of the brands – or its 50 distributed branches – using a single account. This required integrating several best-of-breed solutions within the central ERP. What’s more, real-time exchanges of complex information between an array of new and legacy systems required a platform which could accommodate all types of standards from web services to JSON and FTP. 

Colm Scannell, Head of IT, Chadwicks Group, said, “Moving from siloed legacy IT systems to a modern cloud-first, best-in-class ecosystem that allows data to flow seamlessly to the point of action is a key strategic initiative for us, so it was important to get the foundations right. Chadwicks has a long history of making it easier for time-strapped customers to do business with us. Having data flowing seamlessly will improve responsiveness and allow customers’ expectations to continue to be exceeded.” 

“Moving from siloed legacy IT systems to
a modern cloud-first, best-in-class ecosystem which that allows data
to flow seamlessly to the point of action is a key strategic initiative for us, so it was important to get the foundations right.” 

Colm Scannell, Head of IT, Chadwicks Group 

Building workforce capabilities with easy to use tools 

As Chadwicks embarked on its digital journey, it recognised developing talent and skills as a critical success factor: “We realised that we would need a modern integration solution that could be readily understood and supported by our own internal IT team.” 

InterSystems IRIS can be used with many popular languages, including Java, .NET, REST, JSON, C++ JavaScript, and XML; the team were able to work in their environments of choice. 

“With IRIS now a fully live and critical part of our infrastructure, we’re able to rapidly build new solutions, which enables us to get new projects up and running quickly and maintenance is very simple,” Scannell continued. 

Graphical tools within InterSystems IRIS allow Chadwicks Group’s internal IT team to visually diagram processes, transformations, rules, and workflows. This allows them to focus on the logical interactions between systems, rather than coding, resulting in faster development of solutions that meet business requirements and easier modification of existing applications. All data is automatically stored in the embedded database and available for real-time reporting and analysis. 

Scannell added, “Moving from siloed legacy IT systems to a modern cloud-first, best-in-class ecosystem which that allows data to flow seamlessly to the point of action is a key strategic initiative for us, so it was important to get the foundations right.”

“To ensure a smooth implementation of InterSystems IRIS technology, we’ve set regular, manageable milestones and have already seen fast results within our broader, long-term strategy.” 

Colm Scannell, Head of IT, Chadwicks Group 

Building workforce capabilities with easy to use tools 

As Chadwicks embarked on its digital journey, it recognised developing talent and skills as a critical success factor: “We realised that we would need a modern integration solution that could be readily understood and supported by our own internal IT team.” 

InterSystems IRIS can be used with many popular languages, including Java, .NET, REST, JSON, C++ JavaScript, and XML; the team were able to work in their environments of choice. 

“With IRIS now a fully live and critical part of our infrastructure, we’re able to rapidly build new solutions, which enables us to get new projects up and running quickly and maintenance is very simple,” Scannell continued. 

Graphical tools within InterSystems IRIS allow Chadwicks Group’s internal IT team to visually diagram processes, transformations, rules, and workflows. This allows them to focus on the logical interactions between systems, rather than coding, resulting in faster development of solutions that meet business requirements and easier modification of existing applications. All data is automatically stored in the embedded database and available for real-time reporting and analysis. 

Scannell added, “Moving from siloed legacy IT systems to a modern cloud-first, best-in-class ecosystem which that allows data to flow seamlessly to the point of action is a key strategic initiative for us, so it was important to get the foundations right.”

The support from InterSystems and Grapevine has ensured that Chadwicks’ internal IT team has been able to focus on the overarching digital strategy and getting the most from its technology, while the experts have taken care of successfully integrating the solutions into the Group’s infrastructure. 

“InterSystems IRIS has allowed us to become more agile and its reliability, scalability, and performance will be key to our ongoing digital journey.” 

Colm Scannell, Head of IT, Chadwicks Group 

Looking ahead 

While the building industry was among those badly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, Chadwicks Group used this time to plan the expansion of its ecommerce capabilities to become the lead in digital engagement within the industry. 

“InterSystems IRIS has allowed us to become more agile and its reliability, scalability, and performance will be key to our ongoing digital journey. The uncertainty of this year reinforced our need for agility, and the InterSystems IRIS platform will continue to play a critical role as
we begin to answer the growing demand for online services among our B2B client-base, including click-and-collect functionalities, and adapt to the changing requirements of our customers and the industry at large. Our end-to-end ecommerce platform will strengthen our operations and is something none of our competitors are currently offering, further cementing our place as Ireland’s leading builders’ merchant,” concluded Scannell. 

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