Progressive replatforming: the solution Missguided was searching for

If you have a high-growth business, you may be faced with a common problem that goes hand-in-hand with success: your IT capabilities are struggling to keep pace. Regardless of your industry, this is an ongoing battle that’s not always easy to win due to the significant investment in time, people and money required. But there’s one sector in particular that needs to stay agile and up to speed with technological advancements – online retailers and their ecommerce platforms. 

As an essential component of your retail business, choosing the right ecommerce platform is integral, but it’s just the first step. You also need to consider how that platform will evolve, scale and develop depending on your requirements, predicted growth and (critically for these high-cost platforms) budget available. 

When investing in technology, businesses also need to make intelligent choices, balancing today’s demand with future changes. Trends are often unpredictable and can force you to make unforeseen developments that could hinder growth – which is exactly what happened with Missguided. 

Making the transition from old to new

Their platform was reaching end-of-life, unable to support the needs of their rapidly growing, fast-paced business. Not only that, as leaders in the fashion industry, having complete efficiency, speed and control of their tech stack was vital. But with their setup, this was simply not possible.  

The challenge for Missguided, as with any high-profile business, was successfully transitioning from old to new without impacting the customer experience (CX). Making a significant change to their tech was not a decision Missguided took lightly, but was necessary for them to achieve their growth goals. 

On March 22nd, we’ll be joined by Missguided’s IT Director, John Rignall, who’ll discuss their transformation journey with AND Digital, and the different steps they took to transition from a monolithic to a composable solution. The session, How Missguided unlocked growth through modernising their digital strategy, will shine a light on the role of tech during the development of their brand-new, market-leading app, and how they’ve taken control of their tech stack. 

So the big question is: How do you find a sustainable replacement to your tech infrastructure – and how will you move from one to the other? 

Enter progressive replatforming. 

The majority of successful businesses will need to scale their capabilities at some point to increase growth and profitability. One option is to undertake progressive replatforming – updating infrastructure incrementally. To do this, you need to understand and align your tech infrastructure and ecosystem, so you can make strategic changes and roll back if necessary. Progressive replatforming is an attractive option for many organisations as it gives them the control, flexibility and efficiency they need, while carrying a significantly smaller price tag than a monolithic replacement. 

Picking a progressive replatforming partner

Progressive replatforming takes time, is an investment, and isn’t the right solution for everyone. It’s therefore important to do what Missguided did: partner with a digital consultant with experience delivering systematic changes, such as AND Digital. 

Through progressive replatforming, Misguided were able to align their technical direction with the vision and goals set by the business. It was the ideal approach for them. 

Our replatforming journey

To get started, we completed a discovery process to understand which core features Missguided’s new platform needed to support, as well as identify any gaps. We then determined which infrastructural components would be built, bought or carried over from the existing set up. When we had a solid understanding of the lay of the land, we created a staged plan to migrate data to the new platform – including all products, content and respective routes within the stack. This was done incrementally using agile ways of working, which allowed us to roll back where necessary, adjust timelines and take complete control of the process. 

Once we were confident we’d migrated the data and it was behaving as intended, we could then direct traffic to the new platform and switch off the old one. 

This makes the process sound simple – which it isn’t. But with the right team in place, progressive replatforming doesn’t have to be difficult. If you’re hesitant about updating your systems, progressive replatforming could be the solution you’re looking for. 

If you’d like to find out more, join us on March 22nd for our webinar, How Missguided unlocked growth through modernising their digital strategy. We’ll be discussing the progressive replatforming journey we’ve been on with Missguided and sharing honest insights and reflections. Sign up for your free place today!