French specialty retailer moves at the speed of fashion

French specialty apparel retailer Kiabi has to keep up with the constantly changing world of fashion.



Kiabi, which operates more than 500 stores in 32 countries and also has an online presence, is using the SoftwareAG webMethids API (application programming interface) management platform to enable maximum operational flexibility. Kiabi is building cloud-based systems on the API to eliminate internal silos and open core business functions, both inside the enterprise and with external business partners.



As a result, Kiabi can quickly scale omnichannel retail efforts to meet fluctuations in customer demand. The retailer also has faster time-to-market with fashion items and can deliver more rich and engaging digital customer experiences.



Kiabi also uses other components of Software AG’s Digital Business Platform, including Terracotta In-Memory Data Fabric to improve website performance, webMethods integration to provide seamless system connectivity, and ARIS collaborative process modelling to map systems to omnichannel processes.



“Our API management program has been a core enabler of our cross-channel strategy,” said Jean-Francois Rompais, IT & architecture leader at Kiabi, “As we have added sales channels, each of which has required access to similar data and processes, our library of APIs has enabled us to do this faster and with greater consistency – thus improving speed to market and quality of service.”