MyOriginal App

Objectives

Original Marines creates and produces clothing and accessories for children in a casual, sporty and refined style.
Present in Italy with more than 600 retail outlets and 30 years of experience in the clothing sector, Original Marines has always been close to its customers and their needs, even in the age of digital and mobile.

The Original Marines app came about because of the desire to give customers a new means of contact and communication with the aim of bringing to life all the Original Marines experience on your smartphone.
The aim of the project carried out with Original Marines is to create a new touchpoint for the users, where they can partake in all the Loyalty experience of the brand, from registration through to the redemption of the points earned for coupons to be spent in stores, directly on their smartphone.

In the second phase of the project, the aims has been the growth of digital services for users and merchants, the creation of new features and the extension of the brand touchpoints in order to increase the interactions between brand and customers in a multichannel prospective.

The multichannel project is not meant only to add more channels, but to integrate them into a wider interaction experience, and has been a major challenge both in technological as planning and coordination terms.

Execution

The project was managed with an agile approach, with progressive and very brief interactions with the client team, so as to evolve the platform constantly according to needs, data, and the feedback received.

The first phase of the project saw us involved in the study, functional planning, and processes together with the client team. We then entered into the merits of the architecture planning and of the integration points with the internal company systems. The next step was to develop and integrate modules that would allow the interoperability of the systems involved.

The development of mobile applications was performed in native mode: two iOS and Android applications were created. A Middleware software in Angular and NodeJS able to communicate with applications through APIs was developed. We also developed a backend for CMS management and administrative / analytics management able to provide all application information, user data profiles and push notifications and customer usage data.

With total system integration in mind, the Middleware we created has made possible the integration of eCommerce, CRM and legacy systems, optimizing the flow of information and providing a single point of access to the application and any other eventual interface types. This has allowed us to expand the range of features offered by the mobile application, improve the management of information between company systems without impacting the consolidated work method and, at the same time, optimize the processes, to ensure a single system, in line with the route taken by the company aimed at perfecting omnichannels and efficiency.

In phase two of the project, the Middleware has been the main actor of the whole integration strategy. After an accurate comparison with the client and with the different stakeholders to define the new integrations, the functional evolutionary of the app and the new services, we have implemented a two-step strategy:

• Analysis and design of the new architecture;
• Development of an Integration Layer.

The phase of analysis and design has enabled us to redesign the architecture in order to further improve the services scalability and to optimize processes. We redesigned the Customer Relationship Management system based on the latest technologies (such as the use of a non-relational database) in order to allow more efficient extraction of value from existing data.

We have also integrated a custom solution for the Loyalty Program management, providing new opportunities of integration and continuity of service on existing data. With an agile approach, we were able to realize an engine capable of handling all import and export flows, management and aggregation of data, and then exposing them to various frontend applications as App, corporate website and new myOriginal portal.

The components that we have developed as part of the architecture extension were:

• new CRM with a Loyalty program manager;
• engine for data import and processing;
• New myOriginal portal;
• new store application.

In the second phase we have also developed all the services required to allow the dialogue between the new systems developed both among themselves and with some external entities such as:

• eCommerce;
• Campaign management and delivery provider;
• internal customer systems.

In the second phase of the project, another key touchpoint we have worked on was the implementation of the new mCommerce integrated in the MyOriginal app. For the mCommerce development we started from the analysis of the app usage metrics developed in the first phase. These indicators were essential for a optimal design of the products consultation and purchase experience.

Then we planned and managed all activities related to:

• The design of User Experience and Wireframe;
• The definition and implementation of UI Design;
• The development of new features.

Among the components developed for the architecture extension, we have also worked on the creation of an additional touchpoint, important in the multi-channel experience: the Store application, for which we did a study in terms of UX, functionality and system integration. The new features have the aim of offering new services such as: B2B purchases (the Store Managers on behalf of the Original Marines customers) and B2C purchases (the customer orders in the app and retreats in store) and to expand the possibilities related to Loyalty services as card activation and coupon redeem.