Marketing in the Madness

Revolutionising Enterprise eCommerce: Are You Ready?

Street Agency, Katie Street, Simon Hamblin, PJ Jassal, Fusefabric Episode 56

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From streamlining digital transformations to enhancing customer engagement, FuseFabric empowers brands to navigate the complexities of eCommerce effectively. By leveraging Shopify's robust platform, they are enabling businesses to innovate, deliver exceptional experiences, and stay competitive in a rapidly evolving market.

In the fast-evolving world of eCommerce, brands face unprecedented challenges and opportunities. As digital platforms advance and consumer expectations shift, the relationship between retailers and technology is undergoing a transformation. Those who embrace these changes will lead innovation, while others risk falling behind.

In this week’s episode of Marketing the Madness, we’re joined by Simon and PJ from FuseFabric, who share insights on how brands can harness the power of Shopify and innovation to thrive in enterprise eCommerce.

With extensive backgrounds as CTOs at major brands like ASOS and Missoma, Simon and PJ discuss the importance of flexibility and speed in digital strategy, especially in a landscape shaped by consumer behaviour changes and emerging technologies.

Here’s what’s in store for you in this episode:

🛒 Why Choose Shopify for Enterprise?
Learn how FuseFabric facilitated a rapid migration for a £40 million brand to Shopify in just eight days. Discover the strategies that made this swift transformation possible and how your brand can achieve similar results and explore the scalability and performance capabilities of Shopify, including its ability to handle up to 40,000 checkouts per minute. Understand why this platform is becoming the go-to solution for enterprise-level eCommerce. 

🔄 Adapting to Ecommerce Trends
Simon and PJ share insights on how Shopify allows brands to connect with customers across various platforms, ensuring a seamless shopping experience. Discover the evolution from omni-channel to unified commerce, where all sales channels are interconnected, offering features like click and collect and endless aisle options.

👥 The Importance of Human Connection
Despite technological advancements, we discuss why maintaining strong relationships and company culture remains essential for fostering creativity and driving success.
⚡ Real-World Success Stories

Hear about FuseFabric's remarkable achievements, including the localisation of 27 languages and currencies for a major retailer in just 24 hours. These examples illustrate the potential for rapid change and innovation within the eCommerce landscape. By challenging traditional tech processes, brands can refocus on their primary objective—delivering exceptional customer experiences.

📢 Don’t forget to LIKE & SUBSCRIBE!
If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review and share it with your network. Your support helps us continue delivering top-tier insights from the marketing world.

Fusefabric
https://www.fusefabric.com/

Simon Hamblin
https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonhamblin/

PJ Jassal
https://www.linkedin.com/in/pjassal/

Connect with Katie Street:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/katiestreet/
https://www.instagram.com/streetmate/

Follow Street Agency:
https://street.agency/
https://www.instagram.com/street.agency/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/streetagency/


Simon:

At fusefabric, we are shopify's largest partner in Europe for enterprise customers. We work with the merchant through their digital transformation journey,

PJ:

we took a 40 million pound brand and cut them over from their existing tech stack to Shopify in eight days, we won out. We're going to keep it as native as possible, and that allowed us to move super fast.

Katie:

For retailers to stay ahead, they've got to be really smart, they've got to be able to move quickly. They've got to have a flexible platform that gives them the security but enables them to feature up at$1.3

Simon:

billion a year on innovation. It'll handle up to 40,000 checkouts a minute. Will the website go down? That's just not the concern anymore. We're

PJ:

able to offer through one platform, B2B experiences, director's consumer and offline retail experiences. Before it was really hard. It was a dark art as a massive

Simon:

Okay, so

Katie:

Shopaholic, the way that we shop is different. There aren't many platforms, I don't think, out there in the world of Ecom that does it like Shopify. Does it. Hey guys, and welcome to another episode of Marketing In The Madness. Now, I do repeat myself here, because every week I say today's gonna be an amazing episode, but it really is. I am speaking to two of actually, my new but amazing clients. We're really going to be diving into the innovations that are happening in E commerce, and we've got a lot to talk about. I mean, actually, this is a great subject for me, because I'm a huge shopaholic. In fact, both of my guests today are probably behind some of my favorite websites, including Missoma and ASOS. So over to you before we get started. So obviously, together, you guys now run fusefabric, but previously have been CTOs. Like I just said at some of my favorite brands, Missoma, ASOS, I was it's ASOS, isn't it? Not Assos. I always say it wrong. ASOS been doing that for way too many years. But of course, you're going to be able to introduce yourselves a lot better than I can. So I'm going to come to you first, Simon, because you're on my left, and I feel like that's a kind of clockwise way to go. Tell us a little bit about I get. I'm actually going to kind of go backwards and then forwards what you guys are doing now and then. I'd love for you to kind of share your journey as you know, as to how you got at Fusefabric, here. we are a Shopify partner. We are Shopify largest partner in Europe for enterprise customers. Enterprises. Class is anybody turning over northwards of 100 million GMV? And we implement Shopify. We design, implement, build test Shopify stores for enterprise merchants, as well as integrate them back into their existing landscapes as well. So we kind of really work with the merchants through their digital transformation journey to implement Shopify. And how did you get there? So I guess what my kind of instant thought on this is people don't always think of Shopify as the solution for enterprise, which you guys are really kind of changing the game in terms of what people are able to do, the innovations that they're able to produce using more flexible, well, innovative platforms like Shopify. So tell me a bit more about your, I guess, career today, and what took you, what took you there, and how you got to this place?

Unknown:

Well, I think both of our backgrounds have always been in E comm. You I started out, well, I started originally John Lewis, as you know, software development background, and then I sort of came away of ASOS. I was employee number two into the technology team back in the early 2000s of ASOS and started to build out their regional platform. That's when we took them on that journey, you know, up to a billion turnover, and took them, you know, international as well. The team, when I left about eight years later, was about 250 people strong. And it's just an incredible journey to go on. It was just one of those hyper growth cycles, you know, that you just, you just held on tight and just, you know, you know, and enjoyed the ride. And you know, ASOS was a magical time. And just being so close to the founder as well, Nick Robertson at the time, and just having that strategy that everyone was aligned to and getting behind was just super exciting. So learn a huge amount there, whether it was from technology based or how businesses work or and also the people, the team and how to work and get the most from a team. Was really important. That cultural side, following on from that, I went into a different field of finance. I wanted a change. I think it was just right for my life, at the time, personal circumstances. And I ended up launching and exiting the largest Bitcoin exchange in the mid 2000 10s in the UK. So that was interesting, completely different, you know, topic and challenges. And then moving on from that, I did some other. Roles, but then ultimately moved into global CTO for Emirates group and looking after their travel division. So we're looking after 30 different travel brands around the world, and looking after, you know, an IT budget of 45 million pounds, which substantial budgets, you know, globally, and, you know, really complicated, you know, working with multiple teams around the world, multiple brands, multiple stakeholders, but still having that kind of E commerce element to it, but with it, with the travel lens. And then after that, I wanted to move away from some of the C suite roles that I'd be having, and I became interim CTO at Missoma. And it was a Missoma that we, I and, and we became aware of Shopify. So I've known PJ from ASOS days. You know the exact date? I believe, September

PJ:

the 24th 2007

Unknown:

Yeah, somehow he knows it. I do, and this is a very hot hand. And we'd always, you know, we always enjoyed working together. We'd always, you know, maintain the friendship. And then post ASOS, we cycled together and, you know, and and just spend time together. We always said we did one day we'll do something, one day we'll work together. But we couldn't work out what it was. And, you know, Peter tell his story in a minute, but he lives in Spain, and I was, you know, doing the interim CTO role, and they needed to read Missoma, and they needed to re platform. And I said, called him up. And I was like, I know you're not doing anything. Come and help me do this. And he was like, Oh, great, yeah, okay, I'll come and help you, you know, replatform and, and that's where we started working together. And then we had the challenge of Missoma and moving them onto Shopify, and that's where we we started to use fabric. But we can get into that in bit more detail in a minute, but that's how we kind of came back together after many years. So love

Katie:

that. And I've also learned that. I'm also saying misoma, wrong, which is misma? I've learned two things, yeah, ASOS and misama, or some of my favorite brands as well. Actually, I actually was wearing missima, yeah, earrings earlier, and I've forgotten for them in that, yeah,

Unknown:

you get a very sharp lesson with founder led businesses when you don't say it right, yeah. And they're like,

Katie:

you don't know, do you until, like, there's so many of us saying it wrong? I think that's a whole other education. So, PJ, I know a little bit of your story already, because we've just been told by Simon. Give us the PJ the PJ back story,

PJ:

yeah. So, yeah, I met Simon ASOS on that special date edged in our minds, yeah. So Simon actually interviewed me. I remember he was quite tough in the interview. But yeah, I started, I think I was at number seven in the team, and again, kind of went on that long journey from a small company to that billion pound beast it was when we left. I personally started in tech. Started off being an engineer. I think it was an end. I realized that actually my strengths lie in managing people, managing teams, architecture transformation. So over the years, I progressed into that, that that role at ASOS, and I finished ASOS after I launched ASOS China, which was a massive transformation, really exciting. We essentially got to launch a brand new business in China with a whole new tech stack, a whole new warehouse, new office, new people, new entity, all from scratch in nine months. So it was a fantastic opportunity to be in charge of and it was great to see how quickly we could deliver for the business, and that was probably having been in a company that's grown large over time and things slow down, it was great to get the shackles off and and deliver value quickly. So that was really kind of exciting way to finish at ASOS. After ASOS, I moved into a CIO role at Encore tickets. Encore tickets has since been bought out by a larger ticketing group, but essentially, was ticketing in the West End and entertainment in in in London based area. Yeah, and I had a great time. There some transformation work there. And and then that's when my family came along, and so Anna's my my behalf, and she's Spanish, and we had our first and that was kind of the point where I decided to move back to Spain. So moved Spain. So we moved over and and so since 2016 I've been living in Spain. And then I got in touch with kept in such a Simon through love of cycling and any opportunities to catch up. And I'd call Simon over every year, and we do a race in Spain. And yeah, it was one of those races when we were recovering afterwards with some beers, we said, let's do this. Let's do something. And then fortunately, Missoma came along, and it was a great opportunity, I think, for both. Us to kind of work together again after a few years. And also, you know, discover Shopify. And, you know, it was a, you know, it took us a while to kind of come on board of it, and but when we saw it in action, we were like, wow, this is a game changer. And we know how we can really make it, you know, valuable to our customers. So love

Katie:

it. I mean, I think that's the thing is Shopify. You don't necessarily think, like I said earlier, is the natural choice for enterprise businesses, because it's so widely available to everyone. You often think, yeah, small to medium sized enterprises. In fact, you know, I know lots of my friends who've got businesses that they run on Shopify. So I know from speaking to you guys previously, obviously, because we work together, that even you a lot that even you were like, Oh yeah, like, you've just said PJ like, Shopify maybe isn't the right solution for for us here, but now it's everything that you guys do, and it really is the platform that you're seeing, you know, drive these innovations. So tell me, explain to me a little bit more why. You know why Shopify should be on people? You know why it's the innovative platform that should be on everyone's kind of front of mind from

Unknown:

an innovation perspective, I think it's just the sheer size and scale of it, right? So four years ago, when we started the business, we we were skeptical about Shopify at an enterprise level, but at a real enterprise level, at that kind of 100 million plus level, you know, you Missoma's them always heart less than just, just less than half of that terms of turnover. But we recognize. We could see the way where Shopify was going from speaking to them. We could see the feature set. We could see sort of the road maps. And we knew that, you know, the direction it was going to go and and if we, you know, in the end of the day, we backed the right horse, because four and a half years later is exactly where we wanted it, where we thought it was going to be, and we want it to be as an enterprise product. Backing that up with certain stats, I think, don't quote me on it. I know I'm on camera and the microphone, but great money. I think it's 1.3$1.3 billion a year on innovation, right across 1000s of developers in Shopify. They're releasing hundreds of features a year. So it's just that rate of innovation that Shopify works to. And they've got over 4 million, don't quote me on this one, over 4 million merchants on Shopify, so they see so much from an econ perspective. So that roadmap is just driven data driven from all the activity of their merchants. And they process$1 trillion as well, I think, in revenues as well, so since their inception. So it's just the sheer size and scale. And then you go, Okay, well, it's great from a feature perspective. But, you know, Can it handle enterprise load, and, you know, performance, and you know, it'll handle up to 40,000 checkouts a minute. So in terms of, you know, oh, will the website go down? You know, that's just not the concern anymore. You know, the concern is about, what are we going to deliver next? How can we enable, you know, the business with a new feature. You know, how can the business move forward on Shopify? Not is the website going to work with the Black Friday coming up? Yeah, and

PJ:

that's where we started with Missoma, where we were looking at it going, well, Can it handle the load? Can it is it secure? Can it handle international Can it handle multi currency? And very quickly realized it can do all of those things, and then it actually offers us a lot more. So typically, as a CTO, you're trying to solve those problems, suddenly those problems were gone, and it was more of a case of right. What right? What can we do now? So what features can we enable? And we didn't have to worry about data centers and CDNs, and, you know, all that stuff is all taken care of, and it made us, gave us the ability to move much faster as a business. So that's probably what opened our eyes. It's like, how quickly we got up and running, and how quickly we were able to give a value to the founders. It was, you know, they loved it, and we loved it. We loved being that those enablers. I mean,

Katie:

think that's what's amazing. Mr. Basically got you to where you are in your business today, and you're now delivering this at scale for lots of you know. I mean, we can't talk about all of them, but some of the biggest retail names that you know, I probably buy most, most of my, most of my wages go on every single month. Um, but there's been a lot of change, and I think that's the key with platform, you know, like Shopify, is what it's enabling, is that innovation and, you know, speed that you just can't get, maybe on those kind of, you know, monolith, old school platforms. And actually, that's exactly what the market needs right now, because, you know, the world of retail is a bit tougher, maybe than it than it was a few years ago. You know, money is tight. We've had a global pandemic, the credit crunch or recession, whatever you want to call it. So actually, for retailers to stay ahead, they've got to be really smart, they've got to be able to move quickly. They've got to have a flexible platform that gives them the security but enables them to feature up. Sorry, banging their mics. I'm getting so excited about this. So. So I guess what I'm super interested in, especially as a massive Shopaholic, is the kind of trends that you guys are seeing in E commerce that I guess Shopify is enabling you to deliver faster. So I mean, you know, I'm, I'm a big shopaholic. I've already talked about this about a million times. So is my daughter. So you know, she'll buy everything through Tiktok. I'll find everything through Instagram. The way that we shop is different. So what does that mean for you guys, when you're looking at these kind of tech strategies for your, you know, for your retail clients? Yeah,

PJ:

I think Shopify is we've been, you know, following how it's moving into social commerce. And, you know, in the old days, we would have had to think about integrations and how we get orders and products flowing between various different platforms. And Shopify now allows you to enable your Tiktok store, your Instagram feed, your Google feeds, your your Facebook feed, essentially allowing you to your transact with your customer where they are not necessarily on your store, without all the tech, you know so they're building those connectors. They're weaving the order flow back into Shopify. So as a retailer, you're able to really get out there to everywhere the customer is without having to spend loads on technology and lots of developers getting involved. So you can see that Shopify is going down that trend of social commerce, and they've done it in a way where it all comes back into the Shopify store, then into your downstream systems. And I think as the social networks change and evolve, you'll see Shopify jumping on the back of it and creating a another tick configuration in the back end to enable a shopping feed.

Simon:

I think another trend is Unified Commerce. So I think the term omni channel has been around for so many years, and lots of people have said, Oh, we need to be omni channel, and we need to be doing it, or, you know, and just struggling to actually put it into action. And when you you know, the Unified Commerce is the sort of the latest term, and the one that Shopify uses to to label that that type of, you know, features and functionality, but that kind of buy online, pick up in store, click and collect ship to store, ship from store, you know, sort of endless aisle options, you know, and then LinkedIn to POS in store as well. And just having one, you know, single view as a customer and actually, but actually having those tools available. So just feel like, over the years, everyone's talked about it so much and spent so much energy trying to just do one element of that, and now Shopify has come along and just gone. Here's it, here's everything, here's every type of model. And I actually think that covid Drew, you know, kind of drove some of that, you know, particularly, you know, curbside pickups, local pickups, things like that, pickups from store. So I think that really kind of drove that, that roadmap piece. But it literally has every option, you know, is which is amazing for us, because we sort of go into these complex environments where, you know, enterprises have spent years thinking about this stuff. You know, really want to do this, yeah. Can you do this here? Yep, yep, yep. We can just do literally every combination there

PJ:

and then in the demos drop, yeah, when we do it, yeah,

Simon:

it's great to have those tools at your fingertips and those situations, yeah.

PJ:

And the behavior of shopping, shopping online is changing as well. Don't think everyone is looking for pure on online. They're looking for physical experiences as well. So for brands trying to offer, you know, pop up stores, or, you know, a full retail experience, being everywhere, online and offline, is really important, so we're able to do that very easily with minimal tech. So you're able to offer those wide experiences without having to invest in a massive new kind of till system and integrate it all back in and, you know, so Shopify offers that. And similarly, with B to B, a lot of brands are selling B to B and drop shipping and so on. And Shopify is spending a lot of R and D budget and development into that area as well. So we're able to offer through one platform, B to P experiences, director's consumer and offline you know, retail experiences and, and we're seeing that all of that's really relevant now, some of our, some of our biggest clients, are looking for B to B and and DTC. They're really large brands. And, you know, before it was really hard, it was a dark art and B to B is kind of the least loved out there from a tech perspective, but they're probably the biggest numbers floating around as well. So,

Katie:

yeah, there's been a lot of change, I think, hasn't there? Like you? Traditionally, you would have had to get a certain platform for your marketplace or for your B to B side of the business, whereas now, well, I mean, Shopify are changing the game, really, we were discussing

Simon:

that. It's funny. You were discussing that yesterday with another CTO, with a large from a large enterprise customer. And I think he, he summed it up really well, which was, you know, years ago we, you know, everyone was building monolith platforms because they weren't off the shelf platforms, you know, you could take and then you moved to this kind of approach to best of breed. But. It was best to breed to an extreme where you know your kind of your architectures had so many different components to it, and your success was really just built on the integration of all those different best of breed systems, which not many people could get right. And so so many people are frustrated because they got sold this platform. They got best of breed this, this and this, but actually none of it works together particularly well, and that just leaves people frustrated in their role, because they spend more time trying to fix this stuff, rather than actually take advantage of it. And now go forward a few more years, and you're coming back to this, you know, these Shopify type platforms, which are monoliths in terms of just large platforms, but actually it's all integrated, and now it works, and it's and it's not always going after the best of breed. You know, you're going best of breed econ platform, and then you'll live without the little five to 10% around the edge, because, you know, you can get more out of, you know that that main platform than if you try and diversify into, you know, more systems around the edge to get that best of breed, you know, functionality. So it's weird how the journey has gone on. It was sort of circling back around, but actually now just doing it properly.

Katie:

Evolution has been huge, I think. Yeah,

PJ:

real example. So with ASOS, we built a monolith to begin with, then we went down to best of breed. So an example, an ESP for emailing customers, which then grew those ESPs now are ESP CRM, CDPs, search platforms, personalization platforms, so that little product has really grown into to be able to offer so much more. So before you would have had a separate platform for CRM, something for CDP, something for search, something for and imagine the integration and trying to get them all to work together. Yeah, is they're all coming back into more offering more kind of more value to the to the people using the platforms. And obviously, the more they can offer, the more they can charge. Yeah,

Katie:

you're both ex CTOs CIOs. CTO CIOs, of course, I think you're one of the for me, obviously, working with you guys, one of the from speaking to lots of other CTOs, you guys have you've been through this. You know, the pain points that they're facing. We've talked about a lot of them today. So when you're implementing Shopify, what are you helping them do? So

PJ:

typically, they'll come to us where, with that, there's a desire to to explore Shopify. They they think it could work. They're not quite sure. Sometimes they think, yes, it is the one, but they just don't know how to do it. So it's probably one of those two kind of entry points. They're not sures. They're similar to us when we first saw Shopify, you know, is it enterprise ready? Can it? Can it handle global e commerce, all of those types of things. So we were able to share experiences, you know, give them data and you know, really can show them what Shopify can and can't do. In our eyes, Shopify can do everything. So it's not never really the issue. The issue is how you bring the rest of the enterprise along. So once you got them into thinking and believing that Shopify can do it and justified and showed it to them, it's how do we get it in, and how quickly can we get it in, and what's going to change? You know, how do I change my business and my processes to get Shopify in? And that's where we have a really special, well, special, I think we have a really good ability to work with them, to take them through a transformation, to really understand what, what they'd have to change to bring Shopify in and behind all of this. I think typically the CTO is has a C suite mandate to bring down the cost of tech and and also, that's one, one objective, but the one is really, tech is too slow. You know, we can't move as a business. We can't innovate. We're falling behind, losing market share. So these are types of challenges. They're coming to us with and and they think Shopify can help, but they just don't know how to bring it all together. I'm

Katie:

going to have to reference the person, Jasmine, who's been on the podcast before it talked about getting stuck in your house, stuck in your stack, like, yeah, you're you're hemmed into a big monolith. It's really hard to move. And I think the modern, innovative platforms like Shopify are helping CTOs and marketing and in the whole business get further, faster. It's, you know, better, faster, cheaper, which is something that we talk about a lot, but that, you know, there aren't many platforms, I don't think, out there in the world of Ecom. Well, in fact, there is none that does it like Shopify. Does it? Yeah,

Simon:

and I think we talked about previously as well. The role of a CTO an organization is a lonely one, right? Because, you know, if you're a CMO, then you know, you've got demands from it. Basically, you've got single stakeholders, CMO, marketing or finance, you know you've got, you're sort of beholden, if you like, to one area or one stakeholder as a CTO you're trying to deliver across the whole business, from, you know, the the consumer, customer services, operations, you know, finance, every you've got everyone bearing down on you with, with just demands. And, you know, you've got a limited you're at the same time you're trying to be doing, you know, on a limited budget, you know. And everything's got. To be Now, now, now. So it's a really lonely place. You know, sometimes when you're a CTO, because you don't know quite kind of where's the term so, and as you say, sometimes you can just be stuck on the platform that you're on, and you sort of try and double down on it. Or you can actually make the business case to move to a more versatile platform, such as Shopify, and try and get yourself out of that, that hole, but you got to bring everybody on that journey. But essentially implementing Shopify will, you know, move the business ahead, you know, substantially in the roadmap. But obviously you've got to go through that, that transformation piece to get onto it.

Katie:

I mean, how do you approach that like as a CTO and you guys, I know you help a lot of other CTOs along this journey. How do you even start to assess, you know, where, but when you've got so much to deliver, you're all these different departments. I mean, it is why you guys chose to be CTOs. How do you even start on that journey when you're looking to drive that transformation. You know that the technology that you've got in place at the moment isn't working for you. You maybe don't know what the solution is yet. What's the kind of process that you go through and or you help other CTOs go through to actually discover, you know, how, how you might come to the solution?

Simon:

Yeah, I think internally, you're doing a lot of discuss, you know, discussing and talking to people and trying to get them on the journey and influencing, you know, whether you're influencing a board member and having a board member help you on that journey, to the senior leadership team, to you know, other people across the business as well. But I think influencing and discussing and help you know, trying to get people on that journey with you is a massive part of it, because once you've opened that door and you've got to, got to do, you know what this this sounds like, this could be something you need to explore. Then you, then you move to that next stage. So you've got to get people on that journey. I don't think it's something that you can go off and do on your own. We often say that, you know, in fact, we don't often. We always say that technology led projects in the field of what we do typically fail. So it needs to be a business led project. So you've got to bring the business with you. Got to bring your stakeholders, with your board, with you. And so I think that's the start of it. And I think that's like a sometimes just not talked about, because you're just like, Oh no, you just create a business case, don't you? Yeah, well, you don't just go off and create a business case on your own, because that's you need to invest in a business case first to get the business case. So you've got to bring people on the journey ultimately, then they once you've got that green light to go and investigate it you you're going to call fusefabric, right? Yeah. And the whole part of the bit that we really then help them with is that discovery piece. It's essentially an exercise where they're asking, you know, what am I going to get? So what's my scope? How long is it going to take? So what's the plan and how much it's going to cost? What's the budget? Because essentially, at this point in time, that's all anybody wants to know. They just want to know, what am I getting, how long is it going to take, and how much are we going to have to invest in it? And then we can have a discussion about it. Some people come to us as PJ's, leading to different parts of the journey. So some people are skeptical, and they're thinking about other platforms, and you have to go through that journey. Some people have said, Do you know what? It's Shopify? Because all my peers in the industry are on Shopify. And these other people within the leadership team the board, are saying, well, actually, all my other businesses are on Shopify. So Shopify, unless we prove it wrong otherwise. And then some people will say, we're thinking about Shopify. We just need something quick. We need something sorry. We need a quick view, you know, with some level of certainty as to cost and budget and timelines, etc. And then some people are further down the journey, which is Shopify. We're going to do it, and we want to go straight. Into a deep discovery. We want to get some certainty on scope, cost and time. And, you know, organize discoveries. You know, to see, to see that sort of approach. But it still boils down to the three things, which, what am I going to get? How long is it going to take? How many is going to cost?

Katie:

And you have managed to deliver some projects pretty quickly. From my understanding, I wonder, PJ, whether you could share, like, some of the things that you've been able to do and how, just how quickly you've been able to do that. Yeah,

PJ:

I think the soma probably one of the use cases that we talk a lot about, where we did a very quick transformation. We took a something. Was it a 40 million pound brand at the time, and cut them over from their existing tech stack to Shopify in eight days end to end. So the whole business that was

Simon:

from idea, from idea or play light. What that means is, idea means, do you think we can go into Shopify? That's the first time the questions asked that that's idea to actually go live. Yeah, it

PJ:

was great, because we we took a look at Shopify seriously at that point. And when I think we probably can actually this, this just has most of what we need, and I think we can transform the business where it doesn't have what they need. So the. Founders were behind it, and the leadership team were behind it. So we had buy in. We had everyone focused. We had all the key people in the business involved in the eight day project, and we ran it like a war room, and where Shopify didn't support their current business process. We changed the business process, as opposed to trying to customize a platform, and that allowed them to get onto the platform as quickly as they did. And so essentially, we challenged everything. Do you need this? Does it really drive GMV? Does it really help? What's so special about what you're doing? Why can't you do what other retailers are doing? And and that was, you know, essentially, good conversations, good robust conversations, typically. But we won out with the, you know, we're going to keep it as native as possible, and that allowed us to move super fast. And that transformation, yeah, I

Simon:

always think it's a tale of two halves as such, because the technology was there, the platform was there in terms of Shopify and enabling us to move super fast. But then the other part of this challenge is the transformation element. Is the people side of it, you know. And that's very much where PJ was involved in the delivery of it, and trying to get 70 people all aligned to the same goal and direction and go and with this, pretty much what we did, you know, we got everybody into the room, we explained what was happening. And, you know, you can read about it in the daily mails. Is not that it's not public knowledge, but there was some issues with security, and we had to move the business quick. And we told everybody what was happening, and why are we doing what we're doing. Everybody was on board with it. And when everyone's focused and pointing the same direction with the same strategic goal, it's amazing what can be achieved is, yes, absolutely underpinned by Shopify as a platform. But it comes back to the people and the belief, again, similar to ASOS, which was the 1 billion, the 155 plan, which is 1,000,000,005 years, five markets, and everybody was just pointing in that direction, you know, and if conversations are happening that didn't align to that, then those conversations were stopped because it was pointless. So everyone's just have a clear strategic goal. And I think it's just amazing what happens when you get everybody on that, you know, we talk about, on the journey, literally on the journey, it's amazing what can be achieved. You know, everybody, because there's no agendas, no one, no one can, you know, go off and build their enterprises. You know, within their enterprise, you know, as they like to do, is everyone's clear about what has to happen. And I think that's genuinely how we made that happen so quickly, through that project,

PJ:

I think we started refining out one of our key principles that we work with CTO on right at the beginning is you are probably not a tech company. You are you are actually a retailer. And what, what you're doing, from a tech perspective, is not special. It's really horrible to hear sometimes. Yeah, we always have to say, look, and it's really kind of sets us up for success or not? I mean, I either we're working with CTO, wants to build everything, wants to do something headless, microservices, and they're caught up in that world, whereas we're thinking about actually, you're selling a product or a service, and how quickly can we get you your products or services to market and empower the people who drive the marketing and drive the experience for the customer. So we've got a very different approach. So we we always start with that going so we are going to tell you, if what you're doing here is not unique, then we should use a product, and if you're doing it in a specific way, but all the other platforms are doing it another way, you should change. And then when that platform evolves, you get to benefit from it. It's so key to set up the transformation. If we go on a journey starting off thinking about precious processes and precious tech, that's, you know, you know you're gonna get caught in, you know, a long project that you know, it's not going to get them what they really wanted, which is getting tech out the way, move quickly, deliver value. And so I think that principle is we really start with that at the beginning as well making sure we're aligned, that you are actually, you know, you are trying to deliver value, as opposed to just deliver tech and more exciting microservices and headless architectures.

Katie:

I mean, I hope most of our lovely listeners today have got their jaws dropping, because the fact that you guys were able to deliver that in eight days is just incredible. And I think that shows the capabilities, the speed, the innovations that Shopify is able to deliver super, super quickly. But of course, yeah to to yeah to get to let tech Get out the way and let the brand be a retailer, that's really what you're enabling here.

PJ:

We also had a challenge from the CIO Flying Tiger. So Flying Tiger, for those you know, you know, European brand with 900 retail stores, and we run their e commerce as well. They were currently selling in English only. They wanted to localize. We were like, well, we can do it, you know, we're ready to go. And he was like, Well, go on in. So essentially, we signed ourselves into a 24 hour turnaround to launch 27 languages and currencies, literally overnight. And the tech was there. It was just that there was a perception that we couldn't. It, and then we've showed you could do it. Platform supports it, you know. So it's only their imagination or their ability to operate in that way that was holding them back. And if that were the old days that would have, you know, many months, if not, you know, years of project that we were able to unleash in 24 hours. That was a great journey as well. It just shows, it's just the platform's there to go with you when you're when you're ready.

Katie:

Yeah, I think those use cases are really important, though, because you don't know, I mean those. I mean I've worked in digital transformation agencies, probably majority of my career, pre running my own business, which is still working with digital transformation businesses. Um, but you know, it was months, yeah, we were going through waterfall processes where it was months, sometimes years, you know, I mean, and supposedly that was fast back then. But yeah, we were going through these waterfall, non agile approaches to delivering these huge digital transformation projects on Sitecore or Adobe, or whatever it might be. So to hear that like, you know, and I remember, like, you know, we'd when we were doing localized I mean, that, of course, technology has moved on a lot, a lot in the last few years. But you know, we were having to get writers in to, like, localize content across, you know, 40 different countries when we were doing things like that. So to hear that you can do that in a day is just it is incredible. It really is.

Simon:

There's also approach, as technology's changed, and I think our approach is changing as well. I think the sort of the modern CTO is also willing to take a few more risks and to drive the business a bit more rather than just being told by the businesses, this is how we want to work. This is what we need. Actually, I think the tables are turning to go, well, actually, the platforms do it this way, and they do it for a reason. Therefore, we will adjust your business processes to the platform unless it absolutely breaks the business for some reason. Or, you know, there's a competitive advantage to do it differently. Then actually, you know, we can get speed by dotting the way the platforms operate. So I think there's, there's that change, and I think there's also, rather than trying to achieve 100% every time, let's go to 85 90% you know, and let's try that, and there's test and learn it. And you know, what do do we really need that last 10 15% because that last 10 15% is always the hardest 10 15% it's going to take the longest. Going to take the longest, going to be more expensive, is going to, you know? So I just think that mentality has changed, and where the modern CTO is like, you know what? Unless you can really justify it, then we're going to go with the platform way. And then Flying Tiger is another example of that, where their whole kind of mandate, if you like, the way they drive requirements is they first start with, how does Shopify do it? That is the first question they ask. Now every new piece of functionality, how does Shopify do that? Okay, why do we need to do it differently? That literally is a genuine question every project they start with, which I think is a really great mentality to have, because, because now they're moving so fast because, you know, they'll only change it if they absolutely have to. As I said, All work provides a competitive advantage.

Katie:

Yeah, well, the technology is truly helping them step aside and deliver, you know, a great digital experience. And that's what it's got to be about, right? We're in a very competitive marketplace right now. So I'm going to finish off by asking, I think you've dialed into something quite interesting. Now, the modern CTO, the world has changed massively. So you know how CTOs operate, how they need to engage with the rest of the business, the kind of you know, the things that they're responsible for, everything's have changed. If you were giving a CTO advice today in terms of how to become that modern CTO, what advice would you be giving them?

Simon:

I think, I think in retail, at least, it has used, it used to be more. I need a big team, right? Because that means something. I have lots of people. I know what it means. We apparently did, and we're going to build everything from scratch because we're unique, and we're a unique retailer, and everything we do is different. And I think my advice would be, actually, your product, your your service, is what's going to differentiate you as a retailer. Your technology is now, is more commodity is not going to differentiate you. So choose the you know, the platforms don't You don't need a best of breed to the nth degree either, because that's going to create more complexity. But choose that, you know, all encompassing platform, choose Shopify. Plug and choose Shopify. But also, you know, work with partners, you know. And again, that's not because we are a partner. And this is genuine. If I look to you know, people I know CTOs, existing customers, you know, and people I know in the industry, they're moving more towards that model of just working with partners that have that expertise in those technology sets. They don't take this the right way. Don't have the overhead of necessarily managing a large. Internal team and instead managing a partner. So manage the technology and manage the partners, rather than trying to build it all from scratch, whether that's technology or building a team, anything to

PJ:

add PJ, fewer partners, fewer platforms, and it's about the skill of managing, choosing the right platform that's got that innovative roadmap and then having good partners to support you. I think that's that's the key. I think so

Katie:

links, Wise Guys, today, I felt that there's going to be a few. So obviously I'm going to put all the links to fusefabric and to both Simon and PJ in the show notes. I know we've got some quite cool content coming up. So depending on release dates, there might be some additional resources that we're able to share or we add back to the show notes later, but yeah, just a huge thank you for both of you joining today for sharing so much honestly over the last few weeks of working with you guys, you've really opened my eyes up to what's possible and how technology is evolving and changing, And yeah, helping me spend more money online. Thanks for that.

PJ:

Thank you for having us on.

Simon:

Yeah, thanks for having us.