basecom accelerates project delivery and improves customer satisfaction with Celigo

“The Celigo partnership is one of the best partnerships we have. Before Celigo, we had many integration projects that were in escalation mode because of the high effort and long implementation runtime. We would quote integration estimates of 10 to 20 days, but with so many customizations, it would explode to 200 days. We had many difficult discussions with our clients about their projects risking failure. With Celigo, this has all gone away. It’s a really low effort for us, and we know it just works.”

Manuel Wortman

Founder and CEO at basecom

Partner

basecom

Industry

Services

Products used

Celigo integrator.io for applications such as Magento, Shopware, Spryker, Commercetools, Pimcore, and ecommerce Integration Apps

About

basecom is a leading ecommerce agency in Germany with around 200 employees that specializes in digital transformation for B2B and B2C ecommerce. The company provides end-to-end ecommerce solutions and applications, such as Magento, Shopware, Spryker, Commercetools, Pimcore, and Celigo, and has completed nearly 2,000 projects for customers like ALDI SÜD, LOBO HOME, Bohnenkamp, Big Dutchman, WM SE, Rolls Royce and Schüco International. In 2022, basecom won the Best Agency category at the Ecommerce Germany Awards.

The Challenge

As an ecommerce agency, integration was a key component of many of basecom’s projects from the start. In 2016, basecom built its own internal middleware solution, Octopus, to try to accelerate and streamline the process of building integrations for its clients.

But with more and more client projects coming in, the company struggled to keep up with the increased integration needs of its clients, as well as maintain its own internal product. In addition, Octopus also had limited customizability, which caused delays during implementation.

“We had many integration projects that were in escalation mode because of the high effort and long implementation runtime. We would quote integration estimates of 10 to 20 days, but with so many customizations, it would explode to 200 days,” said Manuel Wortman, Founder and CEO of basecom. “We had many difficult discussions with our clients about their projects risking failure.”

The team began procuring a modern integration solution (iPaaS) in the market.

“

We chose Celigo because of its feature set and future-proof architecture. Celigo also fit our existing product landscape and worked with our existing pricing structure. So now we just use Celigo. Our estimates are much more predictable. It lets us keep our implementation costs low and develop long-term relationships with our customers In terms of customer satisfaction and the ease of how we can do these projects, it has been much easier than before. It’s a good deal for us.

Manuel Wortman, Founder and CEO at basecom

”

The Solution

In order to find a solution to these issues, basecom began looking for a modern integration platform as a service (iPaaS) that met certain criteria, including a cloud-based infrastructure, a robust feature set, ease of use, support for the company’s existing application landscape, and a matching pricing structure. The company also wanted to find a true partner, rather than just a product vendor.

After conducting a two-tier research project, basecom selected three finalists, including Celigo, and conducted a proof-of-concept and implementation with a real customer to test the platforms in practice.

“We were able to establish a connection really fast with Celigo,” said Wortman. “It was really good.”

Based on the positive experience, basecom chose Celigo as its official iPaaS and began to build a full implementation practice. Soon thereafter, basecom began the process to upgrade its old Octopus customers with the new Celigo technology.

Bottom Line

Today, basecom has a Celigo practice with six developers that uses Celigo for all of basecom’s custom integration needs, including connecting storefronts, ERPs, PIMs, and Shopware for customers like Lobo Home.

“Before Celigo, we had many integration projects that were in escalation mode because of the high effort and long implementation runtime,” said Wortman. ”With Celigo, this has all gone away. It’s a really low effort for us, and we know it just works.”

“Now we just use Celigo. Our estimates are much more predictable. In terms of customer satisfaction and the ease of how we can do these projects, it has been much easier than before. It lets us keep our implementation costs low and develop long-term relationships with our customers. It’s a good deal for us.”

The success of basecom’s use with its customers also inspired them to use the platform internally for themselves.

“We’re building a project to combine all our client-leading data systems from our 15 holding agencies. We have Salesforce data such as quotes and bills, BI for analytics, and JIRA for project data, project plans, and booked hours.

We are doing the data interchange between these two systems through Celigo,” said Wortman.

Most importantly for basecom, the relationship with Celigo has been the true, two-way strategic partnership they were looking for.

“Our strategy is to have a tight connection with all the 10 to 15 software vendors we work most closely with. The Celigo partnership is one of the best partnerships we have.”