Founded in 1995, Shots started out as a family business and has now become one of the world’s largest and leading companies in the design, development, production, and distribution of intimacy products. The company has its headquarters in Beneden-Leeuwen, The Netherlands, and has a branch in Los Angeles, USA. Shots designs and distributes their own trademarked labels worldwide, and have over 40 proprietary labels in the field of intimacy such as sex toys, lingerie, leather goods, gadgets, lifelike dolls and sex machines, as well as cosmetics and furniture. Additionally, Shots also distributes external brands and now supplies over 15,000 different products from numerous suppliers directly from stock all over the globe.
Integration challenge
Shots was looking for a solution to be able to connect all their different applications in a fast and future-proof way. Most of their systems were somewhat loosely connected together, meaning that if there was an update required or a system needed to be replaced, they were facing long and time-consuming development times. As such, while their webshop looked and worked well, the data behind it was not organized, hindering their processes and work.
Additionally, using Microsoft Business Central as their ERP system, they wanted to ensure that they did not have dozens of connections leading to it and instead have one. This is because Business Central does two major updates a year and they wanted to avoid having to update all systems connected to it, and instead only update the one.
As such, Shots wanted a complete overhaul of their IT landscape, renewing all their systems to promote operational efficiency within their organization.
Objectives
- To connect all their applications to ensure an optimal data flow across their entire tech stack
- To facilitate the integration of new systems in the future
- To have a solution in place that allows them to expand their business without limitations
- To digitize their processes and go paperless
Solution
Since Shots did not have the necessary in-house technical support needed to meet their integration requirements, our partner Factor Blue was chosen to manage the entire set up of the Alumio environment, integrate all the necessary endpoints, and perform the subsequent monitoring and maintenance of the platform. As e-commerce development experts, Factor Blue provided Shots with extensive expertise and support to integrate all their different systems via Alumio.
“One of Alumio’s key advantages is its problem-solving capabilities. The platform’s robust monitoring features make it easy to identify any errors and avoid having to investigate or debug much, as it often happens with point-to-point integrations.” - Jesper van den Bogaard, CEO, Factor Blue.
With Alumio, Shots now has a complete overview of their data and connections, with data flows being visible via the data layer, fostering the easy identification of any problems that may arise. With transparent data flows, Shots now has control over where their data goes and where it comes from, making them more agile to add, change, or replace systems and grow without worrying about their tech stack holding them back.
All their endpoints are connected and their IT ecosystem is set for future scalability, as the middleware enables the easy integration of any additional systems. In the future, Shots will continue reducing their manual work and will likely integrate a CRM into their tech stack, an app for credit cards, and a software for their inventory management. Given the success of this project, Shots is confident they will be able to rely on Alumio and Factor Blue to further their integration journey.
