How a new web platform brought stability and growth to Halfords’ website

The client

About Halfords

If your car or bike needs fixing, Halfords is there for you. There’s a Halfords shop or Autocentre within 20 minutes for 90% of the UK. The company sells more than 1 million bicycles each year and offers services including car repairs, routine maintenance, and MOT testing. With more than 750 locations, Halfords says it is the UK’s leading retailer of automotive and cycling products and services

The ask

Migrating legacy web architecture

Consolidating the separate websites for retail and automotive services into a single platform.

When business spiked, such as around Black Friday, the Halfords website tended to slow down. The company risked frustrating customers and missing out on sales at crucial moments.

That’s why Halfords chose to replace its highly customised, legacy IBM WebSphere architecture with Salesforce Commerce Cloud. The vision was to consolidate the separate websites for retail and automotive services into a single platform.

Solution

A hugely complex technological transformation

Halfords chose AND Digital to provide first-class programme leadership and senior stakeholder management to help lock in project success.

Most importantly, they wanted our help in leading their people through a hugely complex technological transformation.

Requirements and analysis

Three months of cross-functional workshops to draw up 675 requirements with 482 individual components.

Applied best practice

New proposition informed by the out-of-the-box functionality of Salesforce and our deep knowledge of industry best practices.

Integration build

Coordination of the integration build platform based on Microsoft Azure technology.

A new operating model

Collaboration on the creation of a new operating model, equipping internal digital capability with job descriptions and KPIs for each role.

Product and Technical Councils

Working toward go-live, we formed part of the Product and Technical Councils prioritising tasks, testing, improving focus and communicating progress.

SEO optimisation

Applied more than 180,000 redirects through a dedicated search engine optimisation workstream.

Testing

Planned scripted and executed functional, regression, security, and performance tests, working with the testing team from TATA in India.

Key Outcomes

Our contacts at Salesforce said it was the most complicated integration they’d ever seen, but we helped ensure the new platform was delivered on time and on budget.

Increased Revenue 25% in online sales achieved
Cross Sales Uplift 5% additional services purchased
Projected Growth 67% increased revenue over 2 years

Case studies

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How a new web platform brought stability and growth to Halfords’ website

About Halfords

Migrating legacy web architecture