Simba Sleep achieves zero downtime after switching integrations to Celigo

About

Founded in 2015, Simba Sleep is a pioneering British brand specializing in high-quality mattresses and luxury sleep accessories. With innovation at its core, Simba combines cutting-edge materials like Simbatex® foam and patented Aerocoil® springs to deliver award-winning comfort, support, and breathability.

Operating across the UK and North America, Simba’s products are available through direct-to-consumer channels and partnerships with major retailers like John Lewis and Argos. With annual revenues exceeding £100M, Simba is on a mission to bring better sleep to customers worldwide.

The challenge

As a rapidly growing direct-to-consumer (D2C) brand, Simba Sleep processes over 430 orders per hour during peak periods. Each order involves over 40 custom checkout modifications dictated by product features and customer preferences.

Faced with increasing complexity in managing data flows across its systems—from a heavily customized Shopify storefront to a cloud-based ERP, marketplaces like Amazon and eBay, and global logistics partners. Simba Sleep’s intricate data workflows required reliable, seamless integrations.

Simba found itself stuck between two inadequate integration solutions:

• Entry-level tools that couldn’t scale or adapt to their needs.
• Enterprise platforms that were prohibitively expensive and overly complex.

Simba Sleep’s existing integration solution was designed for smaller businesses with black box integrations and limited customization options. For example:

• Lack of flexibility: Simple field mapping changes required costly vendor involvement.
• System instability: Four critical outages occurred in just five weeks.
• Lengthy onboarding: Setting up new trading partners took months to work effectively.
• Unreliable support: Reactive helpdesk with inconsistent ability to deliver solutions promptly.
• Ineffective monitoring: Key issues went undetected until customer experience already suffered.

“During peak trading periods like Black Friday, handling up to 430 orders per hour, our team was constantly on edge about potential system failures,” says Julian Heritage, Head of IT at Simba Sleep. “We needed an enterprise-grade solution that didn’t demand an enterprise-sized team.”

The solution

After evaluating several options, Simba Sleep chose Celigo for its robust enterprise capabilities, ease of use, and exceptional support.

An ERP administrator on Simba’s team was already familiar with Celigo, and Julian was reassured by the platform’s extensive implementation partner network. This allowed for a seamless migration with no downtime.

Implementation, led by GoLive Experts, a Celigo Platinum Partner in the UK, followed a systematic approach:

• Migrating integration flows in a phased manner.
• Two-week hypercare periods for each flow.
• Providing comprehensive handover documentation for self-service management.
• Training the ERP administrator to manage integrations independently.

“The platform’s flexibility and intuitive interface meant our ERP admin could take ownership after the initial setup,” says Heritage. “Since going live, we’ve implemented three new trading partner integrations, doing it completely in-house.”

Key benefits Simba has realized include:

• Reliable integrations across Shopify, marketplaces, ERP, and 3PL partners.
• Self-service capabilities for creating and modifying integrations.
• Real-time error handling and AI-driven monitoring.
• Pricing flexibility, including low-flow endpoints for smaller partners.
• Support for critical checkout customisations made by Simba.

The bottom line

With Celigo, Simba Sleep now has the tools to grow efficiently without escalating IT costs:

• Faster response to change: Integration with new tools and partners takes days vs. months.
• Improved stability: 100% uptime since implementation. Smooth operations during peak periods.
• Error management: Integration errors are proactively flagged, with many automatically handled without requiring human intervention. Handling over 430 orders/hour in peaks without issues.
• Self-reliance: Simba Sleep’s team is empowered to manage and roll out integrations independently.

“It’s rare in IT for a project to deliver exactly what you expect,” Heritage notes. “With Celigo, we’ve solved every integration challenge we’ve encountered. The platform’s flexibility is unmatched.”

Looking ahead, in 2025, Simba plans to leverage Celigo for even more trading partner integrations. Confident in its IT infrastructure, the company is ready to tackle future growth with no fear of IT-related operational roadblocks.