By early 2019, Anixter (now part of Wesco), a billion-dollar industrial supplies distributor had determined serving global customers with a common Digital commerce platform was a key strategic goal. Although the site was long established as the backbone for their online presence in the United States and Canada, customers in 79 countries were left without a seamless online shopping experience. Needless to say, extending Anixter.com’s success to the global market offered too much potential for the company ignore. Although the site was long established as the backbone for their online presence in the United States and Canada, customers in 79 countries were left without a seamless online shopping experience. Needless to say, extending Anixter.com’s success to the global market offered too much potential for the company ignore.
With the project’s strategy in place, Anixter and Avatria technical teams faced four primary challenges:
- Allow global customers to shop in any of Anixter’s 79 countries using their currency of choice.
- Support country-specific product availability and feature sets in an easy-to-maintain way
- Assure compliance with all relevant consumer data privacy laws
- Develop an SAP Commerce (Hybris) infrastructure able to support Anixter’s needs at scale—including country-specific experiences and a product catalog totaling 1.5 million products and over 40 million combined price rows
Our first step was to synthesize the 99 articles that constitute the regulation into a set of rights that pertain to Anixter with respect to its online business. These rules were as follows:
- Right to be informed – Customers must be informed about how their data is being used
- Right of access – Customers must be able to see what data Anixter has about them, and how it’s being used
- Right of rectification – Customers will be able to request the correction of Anixter’s data
- Right to be forgotten – Customers will be able to remove all “personal information” from Anixter.com
- Right to restrict processing – Customers have the right to block processing of their personal data
- Right to data portability – Customers have the ability to retain and reuse their data
- Right to object – Customers have the ability to object to how their data is being used
With these rights in mind, we cataloged all data saved within SAP Commerce to determine what elements could be classified as “personal information” under GDPR. Once complete, we made a set of recommendations to Anixter’s legal team and IT leadership for how each right should be fulfilled in the platform. Precisely how we achieved full compliance ahead of the global rollout is proprietary to Anixter, however, it was achieved through a combination of customer-facing and backend features.
The impact of Anixter’s global rollout was extensive and wide-ranging. The implementation and support of the global rollout occurred over a period of 10 months. With Anixter.com now available in 79 countries, Anixter has greatly expanded its digital footprint, and the revenue potential in these channels has increased accordingly.
Avatria’s relationship with Anixter dates back to 2016. In that time, we have engaged on numerous high-profile projects and initiatives, but none as impactful as globalization. Anixter’s desire for Avatria to guide this crucial initiative demonstrates the depth of trust we’ve built over the past 5 years.
