LOBO HOME achieves data flexibility and strategic growth with Celigo

About

LOBO HOME is a family-run wholesale company based in the Ammerland region of Germany that sells interior doors and floor coverings to companies in the trade and craft sectors. The product range includes a wide variety of solutions for all industries and requirements – from floor layers to door fitters, from hotels to single-family homes. The company, which was founded in 1987 and has 105 employees, scores with a mixture of tradition and innovation and relies on a personal relationship with customers and employees at eye level. Today, the Lothringer family is the third generation to run the company.

Background

In 2021, the medium-sized company united the two business divisions LOBO DOORS and LOBO FLOORS under the new umbrella brand LOBO HOME. In line with the new brand core, LOBO HOME also expanded its range of services – the product range and web presence were redesigned. The goal: more transparency, a large information area and better availability for customers.

The challenge

In the course of modernization and digitalization, LOBO HOME, as a medium-sized company, was faced with a major challenge. Due to the redesign of the brand identity and the expansion of the core business to online business, a large amount of data had to be processed: The product information of more than 50,000 door elements, 200,000 square meters of flooring and 500,000 accessory items had to be transferred and translated.

In addition, the company had different requirements for the new website and the B2B online store — and thus different systems and system languages that had to be combined and translated: The website relaunch was to be based on Shopware 6, the online store was to be created using Shopware 6 Enterprise, and in addition, the product information management system Pimcore PIM was to be implemented as the central product management system and a 3D configurator was to be integrated. The existing ERP system was also to be integrated.

For the implementation of this complex requirement profile, LOBO HOME brought its partner Basecom on board. Basecom specializes in ecommerce and software projects and works with various web solutions and software providers for this purpose. Relatively quickly it became clear that due to its complexity and the communication problems between the different systems, the project could not be realized without a suitable middleware that would enable a smooth data transfer. The choice for the middleman between Pimcore and Shopware 6 fell on the iPaaS solution integrator.io from Celigo.

“The decision for Celigo was a strategic one. It was very important for us that the system is easy to implement. It also had to be flexible and sustainably scalable,” explains Lars Lampe, commercial manager at LOBO HOME. The system should still work even if one of the providers changes — a requirement that integrator.io fulfills.

The solution

The integrator.io data integration platform enables easy connection to various systems and sources and guarantees secure and automated data exchange. It can be flexibly connected to complex business processes and serves as a multilingual communication tool between software systems. The iPaaS solution eliminates manual data entry, data exports, delays and cumbersome processes.

At LOBO HOME, Shopware was initially integrated using the API-first approach. A variety of individual customizations were created around this solution — for example, an extensive customer account area that provides current and archived information on orders, the 3D configurator and the in-house ERP system.

Initially, LOBO used integrator.io as an interface between Pimcore and the Shopware 6 Enterprise store system to transfer product data and categories. In total, the company manages about 210,000 data objects and about 13,000 assets. Subsequently, the ERP provider implemented some adjustments before the employees started scripting in-house — because Celigo offers not only an intuitive handling but also the possibility to design complex processes themselves. Afterwards, the task was to harmonize the peculiarities of the systems and to script individual requirements for their own programs and processes. No problem thanks to Celigo’s flexible application.

“Our own programming ran according to the trial-and-error principle. For large, overarching issues, we had support from Basecom. In the end, we got everything right and now we no longer have isolated applications in the company,” emphasizes Lars Lampe. “We owe that to a great team and good cooperation at eye level.” But Celigo’s potential is far from exhausted with this.

The iPaaS solution still has some potential for optimization. “We have a hundred thousand ideas about what we can tackle next. But all of that still requires some strategic planning,” the commercial manager hints.

Bottom line

With the implementation of the new website including B2B online store, LOBO HOME wanted to deliver added value for customers. The integration of Celigo as middleware was inevitable and leads to considerable advantages. “We now have a single point of truth — and this data status can no longer be changed manually,” says Lars Lampe.

Inga Brünig, Marketing Manager at LOBO HOME, adds: “We are super satisfied with Celigo. I can only advise any company looking for data integration to look into the future, as we did. Where will I be in five or ten years? Where is my journey going? If I develop a concept up front, I know exactly what level of flexibility I need.”