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Marketplace Project Update

By   ·  3 minute read

The Marketplace Project continues to make strong progress as we work toward creating a simpler, more connected experience for customers across our businesses. Several major milestones have now been completed, and the program remains on track for planned completion in Q4.

What We've Achieved

Teams across the business have delivered several important improvements that lay the foundation for the new marketplace platform:

  • Key systems that help customers check product availability, reserve items, and place orders are now live.
  • Product information from multiple sources has been successfully brought together into one central system(PIMberly).
  • New tools supporting goods receiving and inventory processes are now in use.
  • Important document management capabilities have been tested and moved into production.
  • More than 7,400 products have been prepared and mapped into the new platform, representing over 86% of the overall project goal.

Progress Across the Business

Silmid

The Spec Sub System, which helps manage product specifications and related information, is now in the final stage of testing with Silmid. To support the new Marketplace platform, product specifications have been aligned across business units. This has required changes to how Silmid manages specifications in Winman, including purchasing and goods-in processes. Users are now testing these changes before they go live.

Several key marketplace features, including product specifications, supporting documents, and add-on information, are being tested. Feedback is being reviewed and any necessary improvements are being made ahead of launch.

GracoRoberts

The GracoRoberts team has completed a major clean-up of product specification data. This is an important step that will support system integration and future testing activities, helping to ensure information is accurate and consistent across the platform.

RED Technology to GracoRoberts Transition

RED Technology (Red) is our external development partner and the team behind the Silmid.com and GracoRoberts.com websites. They have built much of the customer facing storefront functionality for the Marketplace Project, working alongside our internal development and business analysis teams.

RED has now begun transferring its completed work to the GracoRoberts team. Once the handover is finalized, GracoRoberts will conduct a thorough review of the website functionality and perform additional testing to ensure everything is operating smoothly and as expected before moving forward with the next phase of the project.

What's Next?

Over the coming months, teams will focus on:

  • Completing testing and validation activities.

  • Finalizing system integrations between platforms.

  • Continuin.g improvements within the Enterprise Portal (the centralized internal platform employees use to access key business systems, resources, tools, and company information.)

  • Delivering additional functionality for order processing, reservations, and storefront operations.

  • Enhancing product search, product pages, shopping cart, and checkout experiences.

What This Means for You

Most people across the business will not see changes to their day-to-day work until their own business unit reaches launch. Each business unit will go live in turn (GracoRoberts first, followed by Silmid, then SkyGeek), so support and attention can be focused on one group at a time.

Ahead of each launch, the following change management activities are underway:

  • Colleagues from Operations, Customer Service, Purchasing, and Product will begin testing new features during UAT, ensuring that the people who use these systems every day help shape them before launch.

  • Teams will be informed well in advance of their UAT and launch dates, allowing testing and training to be planned around normal workloads.

  • Hands-on training sessions and reference materials will be provided for anyone whose daily tools or processes change, followed by a practice run before go-live.

  • The project team, Business Analysts, and developers will be available throughout each launch period to provide support, answer questions, and resolve issues quickly.

If you're unsure how this project will affect your role, we'll make sure you have the information and support you need. Before each phase begins, we'll explain what is changing, what teams may be impacted, and how colleagues can prepare. While changes will happen at different times across the business, the goal is the same: to create simpler processes, improve data quality, and support a better experience for employees and customers across all our brands.

Looking Ahead

The Marketplace Project is entering an exciting phase as development work transitions into testing, refinement, and launch preparation. With key foundations now in place and strong collaboration across teams, the project remains on track for its planned completion in Q4.

A huge thank you to everyone involved for their hard work, dedication, and support in delivering this important transformation for our business and our customers