An unexpected acquisition of the company behind their new integration platform left De Mandemakers Groep (DMG) facing a serious challenge. Switch to yet another platform, or make the best of what they had. With inQdo's help, DMG managed to go the distance.
"If we hadn't brought inQdo on board, the transition to a new integration platform would have been a failure." Strong words from Michel van Herwijnen, manager of application development and integration at De Keukenman, DMG's internal service organisation. To understand how he reached this conclusion, we need to go back to 2024, when Software AG was acquired by IBM.
The in-house developed ERP system Concent has long formed the backbone of DMG's operations. Van Herwijnen manages the team responsible for developing and maintaining this system. He also oversees a team of developers building applications using the low-/no-code platform OutSystems, as well as the integration team. "Due to our enormous growth over recent years, we've seen a steady increase in the number of systems and platforms that need to connect with our ERP," says Van Herwijnen. "Where we started with an ERP-centric approach, we now follow a best-of-breed strategy in which all systems need to be seamlessly integrated." Regardless of whether those systems run in the cloud or, like the ERP system, on-premises.
Complex planning process
To integrate its various systems, DMG had adopted an integration platform, but after several years it had become outdated and fell short of the required integration functionality. "DMG operates an omnichannel strategy, which means systems of varying ages and architectures need to be able to communicate with each other. That means dealing with a wide range of technologies from different platforms. Integrating all of that into a single end-to-end process is a considerable challenge."
That process begins with promoting the propositions of DMG's three divisions — kitchens, bathrooms and furniture — and the various brands within those divisions. "Customers find inspiration, then visit a showroom where they receive advice and, hopefully, proceed to a quote and an order," Van Herwijnen summarises the customer-facing side of that journey. All orders are then consolidated at DMG's headquarters in Waalwijk, where kitchens are ordered, checked and delivered. "The planning process is enormously complex, because multiple suppliers are involved — think appliances, worktops and cabinets. Everything needs to arrive at the same time so we can deliver the complete kitchen to the customer."
Communication between all the systems involved, both internal and external, is critical to this process. Just how critical becomes clear when Van Herwijnen describes the impact of a platform outage. "An hour of downtime already has a significant impact. But if the system is down for more than half a day, that has direct consequences for our delivery drivers and installation teams. They head out with a tablet that is fed via webMethods from the ERP. If that connection goes down, we have to revert to a paper-based process and are forced to print enormous stacks of documents."
Considerable impact
DMG was looking for a hybrid integration platform capable of connecting both its on-premises systems and those in the cloud. The company landed on Software AG. "They had a proposition that perfectly matched what we needed: Integration Anywhere. It offered a single set of tools regardless of whether you were connecting local or cloud-based systems, and it worked with edge containers. That meant it no longer mattered where integrations were running, because everything was managed from a single control plane." But almost as soon as the ink was dry on the contract, Software AG was acquired by IBM. "That did have quite an impact on us," Van Herwijnen admits. Acquisitions take time to complete. "And throughout that period, the platform we had purchased wasn't being developed any further. That cost us a fair amount of time."
The company was faced with a choice: draw a line under it and look for a new integration platform, or explore what steps could be taken to eventually make use of IBM's new platform. They opted for the latter, and DMG was connected with inQdo, an IBM webMethods partner. "Alongside the cloud platform we had set our sights on, Software AG had an integration platform that had proven its worth in the market for over twenty years. It would ultimately be replaced by the new platform, but that wasn't mature enough yet. So we were looking for a partner who could help us deploy that existing webMethods integration platform, with the explicit intention of being able to make a seamless transition to the new technology once it became available."
Despite the acquisition and the uncertainty surrounding the new integration platform, DMG's business still needed to keep running. "We needed to move quickly to migrate the integrations running on our legacy platform across to webMethods," Van Herwijnen explains. "inQdo helped us enormously in that initial phase." The knowledge and experience inQdo brought in the area of integrations, and specifically the webMethods platform, proved highly valuable to DMG. "We had no knowledge of that platform ourselves, so it made a big difference not having to reinvent the wheel." inQdo also contributed to the development of the architecture, ensuring that as much groundwork as possible was laid for the anticipated cloud integration platform. "They gave us the opportunity to set up a container environment in our own AWS cloud. That meant we didn't have to build out a full infrastructure for what would only be a relatively short period, or invest in hardware that would eventually move to IBM's platform anyway."
'If our integration platform is down for more than half a day, that has direct consequences for our delivery drivers and installation teams.'
Intensive collaboration
Developing a future-proof solution proved challenging at first, Van Herwijnen recalls. "We had an outdated platform, a new integration platform that wasn't yet available, and a platform we were being forced to set up in the interim without having any knowledge of it. inQdo brought that knowledge, but initially they had little experience of the kitchen market, which is quite complex and specialised." To get both sides up to speed as quickly as possible, the collaboration was intensive. "They literally came and sat in our office, which meant they quickly built up knowledge of the kitchen domain while we learned a great deal about the webMethods platform. That's a genuine synergy we found together," Van Herwijnen notes with satisfaction.
IBM's intended platform is not yet fully available, though Van Herwijnen hopes it will be rolled out this year. The vendor has, however, indicated that the way DMG intends to use the webMethods platform aligns with their own vision for how it should be deployed. "That gives us confidence that our solution is future-proof." The company has now embarked on a Proof of Value in close collaboration with IBM's product development team and inQdo, to consider the architecture under which the intended platform can be used and how the integrations currently running in inQdo's AWS container environment can eventually be moved to their own platform. "I hope it won't turn into a migration, but that we can transition fairly seamlessly to the new architecture." Towards that end, inQdo and IBM are working together to make the 'integration anywhere' concept a success. The integrations are being transferred in phases, with the first phase — a single container — already running at inQdo. "The next step is to run dedicated containers for order services, customer services and planning services," Van Herwijnen explains. "The key is that those containers can see each other and exchange information, so that everything can be — and remains — aligned."
The results are already tangible. DMG processes hundreds of thousands of transactions every day, each one a piece of information that another application needs in order to function. Where that information was previously sent in large batches overnight, the company is increasingly shifting towards real-time exchange. "That is the biggest change compared to how things used to work," says Van Herwijnen. "Having information available in near real time is essential, especially in this market." Containers make that speed and scalability possible.
'Thanks to inQdo, we didn't have to build infrastructure that was only ever going to be temporary.'
Straight to business
Van Herwijnen is highly positive about working with inQdo. "They are enormously accessible and pragmatic," he says. "We've worked with large organisations that come in with contracts and want everything signed off legally before they'll even sit down with you. But the inQdo people got straight down to business, so we could get into the substance immediately. The administrative side was sorted in parallel." He also praises inQdo's knowledge and experience with the webMethods platform. "We didn't have that knowledge ourselves, so we could lean on them for it." Additional expertise was also quickly available when needed, and easy access and swift decision-making are another plus, according to Van Herwijnen. "They work a bit by the principle of 'solve first, settle later' — I really appreciate that."
The two parties expect to continue working together for the foreseeable future. Partly because inQdo values long-term, meaningful relationships with its clients. And partly because there is a considerable amount of work still to be done within DMG in the coming months. "There are currently many integration projects that need to be built on the new platform. Whenever we run short on capacity or knowledge, inQdo is just a phone call away."
The intended platform was not ready at the time of purchase and suffered further delays as a result of the acquisition. That led DMG to choose, together with inQdo, to make use of the proven webMethods technology instead. "If we had done that from the start, we would already be much further along," Van Herwijnen acknowledges. He nevertheless considers himself fortunate to have made the decision to wait and work with what was available — including the partnership with inQdo. The conclusion he opened with, he now repeats without hesitation: "Without them, this would have been a failure. Together, we've brought it to where it is today."