Ecommerce / Pharmacy (Regulated) · 2019–2020
Pan-European online pharmacy
This business was a private-equity-backed pan-European online pharmacy with turnover above €200m across seven brands and multiple countries, built through acquisition.
The situation
The business's live operation ran on Magento and generated real revenue across markets, while a separate technology supplier was building a new CMS-plus-headless-commerce platform to replace it. The replatform had reached proof of concept, but nothing had gone live yet, and the business needed its first markets, Germany and Spain, on the new platform without damaging the revenue still flowing through the existing Magento estate.
The challenge
Every decision on the replatform had to weigh speed against three separate constraints.
- A live, revenue-generating Magento estate that could not be disrupted during migration.
- Local pharmacy regulation that varied by market and was non-negotiable in Germany and Spain.
- A proof-of-concept platform that needed to become a launchable MVP, not a fully-featured rebuild, to hit go-live at speed.
What we did
We acted as the link between the technology supplier and the German and Spanish commercial teams, using Lean Kanban and an MVP approach to keep every trade-off visible rather than theoretical.
- Decided what customer functionality could be simplified or deferred to hit a launchable MVP at speed.
- Determined what was non-negotiable for local pharmacy regulatory compliance in each market.
- Protected what the existing Magento platform carried commercially so nothing was lost in migration.
- Translated commercial requirements from the German and Spanish teams into technical priorities for the build supplier, and technical constraints back into commercial trade-offs.
- Opened new revenue lines through own-brand product development sold across shared ecommerce platforms.
- Built customer loyalty programmes to support retention alongside the replatform.
Results
The replatform reached the milestone it was aiming for before the programme was paused.
- An initial, locally compliant product reached go-live readiness for Germany and Spain on the new platform.
- Commercial income continued running through the existing Magento estate throughout, undamaged by the migration work.
- The programme was paused in April 2020 because of COVID-19, with the launchable foundation left in place.
What made the difference
Treating the trade-offs between speed, regulatory compliance and protecting Magento's live revenue as decisions to make explicitly, one at a time through Lean Kanban and MVP iteration, rather than as a single big-bang cutover, is what got Germany and Spain to go-live readiness without putting existing revenue at risk.
Role
Ecommerce Programme Director
Sector
Ecommerce / Pharmacy (Regulated)