Gigaset Technologies

Brief and requirements

The incumbent agency, a large firm in Wiesbaden, had been unable to achieve a satisfactory result for Gigaset AG in 2015, either for the client or for their end customers. An initial analysis made it clear that the brief had not been understood as a whole. Loose technologies (TYPO3, Magento) sat in the platform, oblivious to the wider context, without offering any real added value.

A bespoke search solution set out to crawl the site's own pages continuously and delivered anything but a satisfying "searchperience". That idiosyncratic approach to search could not keep pace with the site's own updates in the slightest. Anyone searching was therefore permanently days behind.

A Magento Enterprise licence had been sold, yet only the feature set of the Community Edition was in use. A partner arrangement that benefited everyone except the client.

The plan to connect SAP R/3 had not been realised satisfactorily by the predecessor.

The goal of "One Gigaset" was simply missed. These points were to become the primary requirements placed on our team. Our approach of joining CMS and e-commerce for B2C customers through a TYPO3 CMS and a Magento Community Edition connected by API convinced the client to work with our company.

Solution and outcome

As part of the core "One Gigaset" brief, a single point of contact was created for products, manuals, service requests and repairs, in 10 different languages and in an international context.

Core features and functionality

As part of the core "One Gigaset" brief, a single point of contact was created for products, manuals, service requests and repairs in ten different languages and in an international context.
Content-driven e-commerce through a bidirectional TYPO3 / Magento 1 Cartware Content Bridge, with Magento acting as the leading system and TYPO3 content blocks integrated into the Magento layout.
Transfer of the existing Magento e-commerce platform to the open-source Magento Community Edition to reduce costs.
Integration of Freshdesk and Salesforce via API.
Replacement of the Searchperience search solution with a customer-specific ElasticSearch integration.
Single sign-on for customers through the Gigaset Cloud.
B2E e-commerce was introduced to strengthen employee retention.
Alongside hardware products, Gigaset offers its customers a broad spectrum of additional services and service products. This allows features such as service subscriptions and the individualisation of products to be implemented cleanly through content and shop processes. The shop frontend and the customer account backend were extended functionally and integrated into the system.
Since Magento's standard checkout did not meet the client's requirements for high usability and conversion optimisation, we replaced it with a tailor-made checkout solution from Cartware. That solution includes address validation, auto-completion and auto-correction.

Challenges

The primary challenge of the project was bringing the existing content and product information assets into a suitable presentation format and making them weavable with the Magento content.
File-based exchange with SAP R/3, and later REST exchange with SAP S/4, could be implemented thanks to our existing SAP integrator certification.
Because of the high request volume, as the platform serves as the point of contact for support and information for millions of Gigaset customers, an autoscaling infrastructure had to be provisioned in the AWS Cloud.
Close cooperation with Gigaset's IT was required under the "One Gigaset" paradigm, and short, fast exchanges were essential.

A long-standing partnership

We are proud that, in loyal partnership since 2015, we have been able to support Gigaset GmbH successfully in the digital expansion of their online presence and of their e-commerce platform, with knowledge, expertise and innovative ideas.