Salesforce announced that icebreaker, an ethical and sustainable natural performance apparel firm, selected MuleSoft to modernise icebreaker’s regional digital integrations and vastly increase the speed it can onboard new retail partners in Australia and New Zealand (ANZ).
Founded in New Zealand in 1995, icebreaker is a movement to natural by taking unnecessary plastic out of performance apparel, and instead focusing on the power and quality of natural fibres, true to its philosophy of ‘do more with less’. icebreaker’s apparel is sold in more than 5,000 stores in 50 countries, as well as Touch Lab retail stores and e-commerce platforms.
How has MuleSoft helped icebreaker simplify processes?
icebreaker realised it needed a technology refresh when it experienced difficulty integrating with the modern marketplaces owned by its retail partners in Australia and New Zealand.
Following in the steps of its parent firm, VF Corporation, icebreaker chose to embark on a digital transformation journey with MuleSoft specific to the region so it could integrate more modern systems into its own as it continues to grow its roster of Aussie and Kiwi partners.
With MuleSoft, icebreaker locally transitioned from its previous point-to-point integration engine to Anypoint Runtime Fabric, a container service solution that simplifies the deployment and management of Mule runtimes. This API-led architecture supports its regional strategy of improving the onboarding process for retail partners and marketplaces with prebuilt APIs.
MuleSoft’s RTF empowered icebreaker in ANZ to upgrade the rest of its processes and deliver seamless functionality. These APIs are reusable and purposeful, giving icebreaker greater flexibility when connecting data to applications. icebreaker’s regional connectivity system consists of three layers – system APIs, process APIs, and experience APIs, which provide a consistent stream of data from systems of record to new experiences, which can be reused.
What are the perks for icebreaker on-boarding MuleSoft?
icebreaker’s digital transformation journey is still in its early stages, but they’re already seeing positive results. For example, icebreaker activated a major rewards store partner in ANZ in three weeks. Prior MuleSoft, this process took about four months. icebreaker expects to accelerate even faster as more APIs are being built and reused, and it integrates partners.
The firm is on track to reach its goal of increasing local integration time by 70%. The next stage of icebreaker’s journey for the region is to enable system-to-system integrations to connect all three core business systems: e-commerce, point of sale, and distribution centre.
“The foundation that we are establishing for ANZ using MuleSoft’s integration capabilities is allowing us to modernise our business. By automating our processes, we are cutting down the time it takes to onboard local partners and marketplaces, and manual business processes, as well as enable greater access to natural solutions as we push deeper into e-commerce,” said Nicola Spurdle, Senior IT Manager, Digital and Technology, icebreaker.
“MuleSoft has been proactive in supporting our goals in encouraging customers to move to natural fibres and preserve the planet for future generations,” Spurdle further commented.
For more information, please visit icebreaker and Mulesoft.
