Fairphone is a Dutch electronics manufacturer and social enterprise based in Amsterdam that designs and produces smartphones to have a lower environmental footprint and better social impact. What began as an awareness campaign sharing the use of conflict minerals and mining practices in the electronics industry became a business in 2013. Fast-forward to 2024, Fairphone continues to disrupt the electronics industry by changing how its devices are built and produced. By making long-lasting devices with recycled, responsibly sourced, and conflict-free materials, Fairphone is committed to driving electronic innovation and sustainability across the globe.
Fairphone, already a BlueZebra customer, was referred to Alumio as a potential solution to remedy its integration problems and lack of control over its connections.
Fairphone used Magento OMS (Order Management System) and Odoo ERP to manage all its orders and UPS to send them. These different systems were connected by a relatively cost-effective integration app from the Odoo App Store built by Webkul, but it faced several problems.
Their main challenge was third-party dependency. When changes had to be made in the integration app, Fairphone relied heavily on the app builder and had to wait several months at a time before they saw these changes implemented and could benefit from them. Due to this, Fairphone tried to ensure the optimal functioning of their orders differently and built their own in-house check app to ensure all the orders were in and properly synced. Although this was an acceptable temporary solution, it was impractical and time-consuming, which meant it needed to be more sustainable in the long run.
Eager to enjoy integration speed and autonomy, Fairphone’s main objective was to gain control over their integrations and eradicate third-party dependency on the integration app.
Initially, Fairphone was somewhat resistant to adopting an integration solution like Alumio because they had no prior experience with it. However, after a short time of using Alumio, they quickly embraced the solution to a great extent and now manage many integrations and connect several systems through it, from Bloomreach (an e-commerce personalization platform) to a variety of Odoo apps, including Odoo ERP, Zendesk (CRM), Trustpilot (a review platform), Yotpo (a content marketing platform), and Gravity Forms (a premium WordPress plugin), Fairphone has a robust IT infrastructure largely integrated via Alumio.
Besides the systems above, Fairphone also enjoys the flexibility of connecting other endpoints independently. As such, they connect their UPS system via Odoo directly since it was bespoke work done before Alumio came into the picture and continues to run smoothly. Additionally, Fairphone maximizes its tech stack capabilities by integrating a variety of microservices, connecting to specific vendors directly with the help of their own in-house programmers. As such, their IT infrastructure is a prime example of a tech stack organized on different layers and connected by different methods that maximize its integration capabilities in different ways. The bottom line is that flexibility wins the race!
Thanks to Alumio, Fairphone now has full visibility and control of its integrations. The platform’s automated logging and monitoring capabilities help keep track of every process, data transfer, request, and change across all integrations and provide real-time alerts in case of errors.
Additionally, Alumio made it easy for Fairphone to integrate any new systems, cloud apps, and data sources they wish quickly, significantly reducing their time to market without disrupting data integrity or existing integrations.
From the start, Fairphone had access to strong technical support from both Alumio’s Customer Support team and BlueZebra’s, as we guided them every step of the way and were available to solve any potential roadblocks. Over time, Fairphone decided to have their Alumio technical knowledge in-house, and they now have taken complete control over all integrations and manage them via Alumio with minimal support, detecting and solving issues quickly and independently.
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