Sports brand uses BPA Platform to integrate Microsoft Dynamics AX with eCommerce, courier services and B2B portal
Codeless Platforms today revealed that inov-8, a footwear, clothing and equipment brand for committed trail and off-road runners, fitness athletes and adventure-seeking hikers, has improved its sales order processing having deployed BPA Platform for order fulfilment automation and synchronising data between its eCommerce channels, courier services and Microsoft Dynamics AX. This has resulted in operational efficiency, as well as laying the foundations for future developments. inov-8 was so comfortable using BPA Platform that everything was managed in house.
“We were looking at integration options between our core ERP system Dynamics AX and direct-to-consumer sales channels and courier systems to enable us to streamline the entire order to fulfilment process. When we export goods outside of the UK there is often a lot of paperwork to manage, so having the ability to extract the relevant data from Dynamics AX and use BPA Platform to upload the shipment data to the different courier systems allows us to be very efficient at fulfilling orders. We use BPA Platform to transfer sales orders, sync inventory and manage shipments across the different sales channels,” said Jonathan Emerson, Head of IT, inov-8.
“Within the BPA Platform middleware, the Web Service Connector Tool is a great mapping tool for easily being able to transform data between two different sources. We also find the Scheduler Tool and the Call Task function quite useful for converting data sets to XML or XML to data sets. We’ve found it to be quite a powerful tool. We originally used it to connect our eCommerce and courier systems, but we have used it for other sales channels since then, including our B2B portal.”
One of the fundamental benefits of BPA Platform is its ease of use, requiring little, to no coding, thanks to its graphical user interface. In fact, inov-8 was so comfortable using the product that, after a small amount of training, everything was later managed in house.
“We needed a solution to deliver an end-to-end solution for our eCommerce service and BPA Platform has allowed us to achieve that. You don’t really need a coding or developer skill set in order to utilise BPA Platform. I think once you’ve been trained on it to understand the different components and how it works, which we did initially, it’s relatively easy for a non-developer to pick it up and use it, which is quite valuable because it doesn’t really restrict who can use it,” said Emerson.
“I think BPA Platform is a great solution. It’s sitting there ready and waiting. If we have any future business requirements to integrate other third-party applications or external systems that have an API, we feel confident that we can easily connect those to our ERP system, Dynamics AX. We have recently used it for Brexit preparations with our courier integration systems. As I said, we are very self-sufficient with some of these tasks, but, as you can understand, some of the APIs that we deal with are all very different and can be quite complicated. Codeless Platforms provides a comprehensive Knowledge Base for the tasks, which is also useful and very good.”
About inov-8
Forged in the fells and mountains of the British Lake District, inov-8 is a footwear, clothing and equipment brand for committed trail and off-road runners, fitness athletes and adventure-seeking hikers who push boundaries and stretch limits. Since it was founded in 2003 by Wayne Edy, inov-8 has been renowned as a world leader in grip. Since then inov-8 has continued to grow globally, with the business now trading in more than 60 countries worldwide and the shoes topping hundreds of podiums each year.
About Codeless Platforms
Founded in 1999, Codeless Platforms is at the forefront of business process automation and rapid application development. We have a proven track record of developing and delivering agile, flexible and robust next generation software solutions, empowering businesses to get the most from their data as well as the ability to respond to the rapidly changing business demands of today. Our knowledge of the marketplace and channel has grown in line with this development and established us as a highly experienced and reputable software company, working closely with partners and software vendors, such as Access, Epicor, Infor, Microsoft, Sage, SAP and SYSPRO. With over 450 global partners, more than 8500 customers use Codeless Platforms’ software solutions, ranging from diverse global organisations to the small local enterprise. The company is headquartered in Poole, UK, with representative offices throughout the world.
