Portfolio / Case Study 04

Omnichannel Commerce
Transformation

Four-Channel D365 Commerce Rollout across 36 Locations, eCommerce, Call Centre & Click & Collect · Apex Digital

4
Channels delivered
eComm · POS · CC · C&C
36
UK & Ireland
stores on MPOS
£2.2M
Programme
investment
+22%
eCommerce conversion
post go-live
Background

The Organisation
& The Situation

The Organisation
Apex Digital — a UK-headquartered wholesale and distribution business with a direct-to-customer retail arm, operating 36 locations across the UK and Ireland and approximately 440 staff. A well-established brand with a loyal B2B and B2C customer base, built on personalised service and deep product expertise.
The Situation
By 2024 Apex operated a legacy eCommerce platform, disconnected in-store POS, a call centre running on spreadsheets, and manual Click & Collect. A customer purchasing online could not redeem loyalty points in-location. A sales associate had no visibility of online order history. A call centre agent could not confirm in-location stock. The brand's service promise was being undermined by disconnected systems.
The Mandate
Replace all four channels on a single D365 Commerce platform
  • Consolidate customer identity, inventory, and order management into a unified view
  • Enable sales associates to access full customer history and cross-location stock on MPOS tablets
  • Deliver real-time loyalty earn and redemption across all channels
  • £2.2M investment; projected annual benefit of £4.1M through increased conversion, reduced stock loss, and improved customer lifetime value
My Role — What I Personally Owned
Programme Manager · Joined mid-programme; full delivery accountability
  • Joined Month 3; replaced departing PM; inherited signed contract and existing delivery plan
  • Risk review and complete plan resequencing — phased rollout replacing simultaneous go-live
  • Fortnightly steering committee to CTO, CFO, and Head of Retail Operations
  • Implementation partner relationship — single point of contact from Month 3
  • Go/no-go authority at each phase gate; present in pilot locations on go-live day
  • Customer data migration governance — 92,400 records unified from 3 legacy systems
Section 1

The Inherited Risk —
My First Decision

The programme had a signed contract and defined scope when I joined in Month 3. It also had a delivery plan containing a critical risk that had not been escalated to the CTO or CFO.

The Risk — as written in the inherited plan

A simultaneous go-live across 36 locations, eCommerce, a call centre, and Click & Collect on a single date is not a plan — it is a single point of failure. If payment terminals fail across all 36 locations on the same day, the business cannot trade.

Within four weeks of appointment, I commissioned a risk review. The findings were unambiguous. I presented the risk assessment to the CTO and CFO with a revised phased sequencing plan. The revised plan was approved, a formal change was issued to the implementation partner, and the new schedule was absorbed into the existing contract at no additional cost.

Inherited Plan — Simultaneous Go-Live
All 4 channels go live on a single date — Month 14
36 locations + eCommerce + Call Centre + C&C simultaneously
A CSU defect would affect all four channels at once
Payment terminal failure = entire business cannot trade
No phased fallback position if go-live fails
Revised Plan — Phased Rollout
eCommerce go-live: Month 12 (two months earlier)
3-store POS pilot: Month 13
Full 36-store POS fleet: Month 15
Call Centre + Click & Collect: Month 17
Each channel stabilised before next channel activated
Section 2

Solution Architecture —
Four Channels, One Platform

D365 Commerce HQ served as the master system for product catalogue, pricing, inventory, customers, and orders. Commerce Scale Unit (CSU) provided the real-time API layer consumed by both eCommerce and MPOS.

Channel D365 Component Key Capabilities Delivered Go-Live
eCommerce D365 native storefront + CSU Real-time inventory; product variant filtering; loyalty earn online; cross-location stock visibility Month 12
In-Location POS MPOS on Surface Pro tablets Clienteling; cross-location stock lookup; mobile payment; offline mode; roaming floor transactions Month 13–15
Call Centre D365 Commerce Call Centre module Cross-channel order visibility; loyalty lookup; MOTO payments; unified customer record Month 17
Click & Collect D365 BOPIS + MPOS fulfilment In-location pickup; real-time ATP buffer (1-unit safety stock); customer notifications Month 17

Three key architecture decisions I personally made and documented:

Decision What I Decided Why — The Reasoning
Inventory strategy Real-time ATP with 1-unit safety buffer per location via D365 Commerce inventory reservation Prevents race condition — customer ordering last online unit while it sells in-location simultaneously. Eliminates fulfilment failures that damage customer trust and brand reputation at Apex's price point
POS hardware MPOS on Surface Pro tablets — not fixed CPOS terminals Enables roaming clienteling — associate approaches customer, views full purchase history, checks cross-location stock, and completes transaction on the floor without directing customer to a counter queue
Customer consolidation Full migration of three legacy systems into single D365 Commerce customer record Loyalty balances, purchase history, and preferences visible across all channels from a single source of truth — enabling the personalised service experience that differentiates Apex from commodity competitors
Section 3

Programme
Delivery

Months 1–6
Foundation & Risk
Risk review; plan resequencing; Commerce HQ foundation; product catalogue; product variant matrix design; warehouse configuration
PM action: Escalated and resolved inherited simultaneous go-live risk; formal change issued at no cost
Months 7–12
eCommerce Go-Live
eCommerce build; CSU integration; Adyen payment connector certification; UAT; performance testing; eCommerce live Month 12
PM action: Managed 3-week Adyen delay by compressing UAT prep — go-live held on schedule
Months 13–15
POS Rollout — 36 Locations
3-location MPOS pilot (Month 13); full 36-location fleet rollout; device management; Wi-Fi remediation in 4 locations
PM action: Present in pilot locations on go-live day; managed Wi-Fi gap with offline mode as interim fallback
Months 16–18
Call Centre & C&C
Customer data migration (92,400 records); deduplication across 3 legacy systems; Call Centre go-live; Click & Collect activation; hypercare
PM action: Managed 847 manual deduplication records; co-ordinated parallel run with call centre manager
Section 4

Challenges &
How I Resolved Them

Challenge
Impact
Resolution
Inherited simultaneous go-live plan — all 4 channels on a single date with no fallback
Product variant model not fully supported by legacy data format — complex attribute matrix required
Adyen payment certification delayed by 3 weeks
Critical — single point of failure for all business trading
High — product variant display and fulfilment accuracy at risk
High — at risk of missing eCommerce go-live target
Phased rollout plan approved by CTO/CFO; formal change to implementer at no cost to programme
Designed D365 Commerce variant matrix covering full product range; 6-week effort absorbed into sprint capacity without timeline impact
Compressed UAT preparation to 2 weeks; eCommerce go-live maintained on schedule
Three disconnected legacy customer databases with duplicate records across systems
Wi-Fi coverage gaps in 4 locations during MPOS rollout
Call centre parallel-run extended — team resistant to retiring legacy reporting process
Medium — loyalty balances and purchase history at risk if not resolved before go-live
Medium — MPOS tablets require Wi-Fi; location go-live at risk
Low — adoption timeline at risk; resource consumed beyond planned exit date
6-week data audit; deduplication on email address; 847 records resolved manually; 99.1% loyalty balance preservation across 92,400 unified records
IT and facilities engaged; access points installed; MPOS offline mode enabled as interim fallback; no location go-live delayed
PM held structured sign-off session with call centre manager; agreed 4-week parallel run with defined exit criteria; exited on schedule with full team endorsement
Section 5

Outcomes &
Business Impact

+22%
eCommerce conversion vs legacy platform
92K
Customers unified across 3 legacy systems
31%
Click & Collect as % of online orders (Month 3)
0.3%
C&C fulfilment failure rate vs 1% target
Metric Result Context
eCommerce Conversion Rate +22% Versus legacy platform in first 6 months post-go-live; driven by real-time stock availability and improved checkout flow
Click & Collect as % of online orders 31% Within 3 months of C&C activation; no fulfilment failures due to ATP safety buffer
Cross-location stock lookups (MPOS) 4,200/month Sales associates using cross-location inventory lookup to rescue sales that would previously have been lost
Clienteling transactions 1,100/month MPOS tablet transactions initiated on the floor rather than at counter — a key measure of the personalised service experience
Unified customer records 92,400 Consolidated from 3 legacy systems; loyalty balance preserved for 99.1% of customers
Call Centre Average Handle Time −18% Agents accessing order history and stock without switching systems
C&C Fulfilment Failure Rate 0.3% Below 1% target; ATP safety buffer functioning as designed from Day 1
Programme delivered vs budget £2.26M £60K overrun — attributable to unforeseen Wi-Fi infrastructure in 4 locations
Programme Legacy · Omnichannel Platform as a Business Asset
The phased delivery approach created compounding value beyond go-live
  • The phased go-live decision (Month 3) delivered eCommerce revenue two months earlier than the original plan — generating measurable conversion uplift while the POS rollout was still in progress.
  • The unified customer database of 92,400 records — with verified loyalty history and cross-channel purchase data — created a single, trustworthy customer asset that supports future CRM, personalisation, and retention programmes.
  • The D365 Commerce platform reached hypercare exit with zero outstanding P1 issues — leaving Apex with a stable, extensible commerce foundation and a support-ready internal team for ongoing operations.
Section 6

Lessons
Learned

What Worked
Phased rollout decision — eCommerce stabilisation before POS rollout gave the team confidence and the business a revenue benefit two months earlier than the original plan.
Cross-channel defect triage process — daily stand-ups during UAT kept defect resolution velocity high and prevented accumulation of untested items ahead of go-live.
Fortnightly steering committee cadence — maintained executive visibility and ensured risk decisions were made at the right level without delay.
Single point of contact with the implementation partner from Month 3 reduced ambiguity and accelerated issue resolution throughout the programme.
What I Would Do Differently
Earlier hardware Wi-Fi survey — the 4-store Wi-Fi gap should have been identified in the initial site survey, not discovered during rollout. A £60K overrun that was entirely avoidable.
Customer data audit should have started in Month 4, not Month 12. Running it during eCommerce go-live created unnecessary resource pressure on the delivery team.
More structured benefit tracking from Month 12 — a formal monthly benefit report from eCommerce go-live would have made the post-implementation review far more rigorous and built a stronger case for the next phase of investment.
A documented platform operations pack from Month 14 onwards — covering support runbooks, configuration decisions, and escalation paths — would have made the handover to the internal support team cleaner and faster.
Section 7

Supporting
Artefacts

The following documents were produced during this programme and are available on request.

APEX-OC-RISK-001
Risk Review & Plan Resequencing Document
Month 3 risk assessment identifying the simultaneous go-live risk, the phased rollout proposal, and the formal change control issued to the implementation partner.
Available on request
APEX-OC-ARCH-001
Architecture Decision Record — Three Key Decisions
Covering inventory ATP strategy, POS hardware selection (MPOS vs CPOS), and customer consolidation approach across three legacy systems.
Available on request
APEX-OC-STEER-001
Steering Committee Report Pack
Fortnightly steering committee report template covering RAID status, milestone tracking, budget position, and go/no-go recommendation for each phase gate.
Available on request
APEX-OC-DATA-001
Customer Data Migration Workbook
6-week data audit approach, deduplication methodology, 847-record manual review log, and loyalty balance preservation validation across 92,400 unified customer records.
Available on request
Note on Confidentiality: Client name has been anonymised for portfolio use. The programme structure, delivery approach, architectural decisions, and outcomes described are based on real programme experience. Financial figures are representative of actual programme scale.