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PAN-EU B2B commerce, pitched, scoped, shipped.

An IBMiX (ecx.io) engagement to consolidate Heineken's fragmented per-country B2B ordering into a single SAP Hybris core platform with country-specific layers. The PAN-EU shop template, pitched, scoped and carried through to a UK launch on time under a hard, license-driven deadline, with the French, UK and Dutch operating companies aligned to one shared core. The team was awarded the IBM Benelux Excellence Award.

Role
Lead Visual Designer
Company
IBM iX, ecx.io, with Heineken
Scope
B2B commerce, design, stakeholders

Scope

Heineken's B2B ordering was fragmented per operating company. One country still received orders by fax. Others ran homegrown systems. France required competitor products to be presented alongside Heineken's own brands, a regulatory constraint that shaped the whole architecture. The UK carried its own VAT and legal frame.

The mandate: a single SAP Hybris core platform with country-specific layers absorbing local rules. PAN-EU in scope, sequenced UK first, then France.

Before, fragmented per operating company
Country A
Storefront, fax, manual entry
Country B
Homegrown system
Country C
Homegrown system
Country D
Homegrown system
After, one core with country layers
UK
Launched first
FR
Planned next
SAP Hybris core
Catalog, cart, checkout, account
One shared functional spine, country-specific layers on top
Before: each operating company on its own ordering channel. After: a single SAP Hybris core with country-specific layers, sequenced for phased rollout.

How it ran

It started at the pitch: a working prototype, pitched, and won for IBMiX. From there the PAN-EU shop template ran through fortnightly three-day workshops rotating Amsterdam, Paris and London, aligning the French, UK and Dutch operating companies to one shared core, before settling permanently in London.

IBMiX delivery side
  • Programme leadership
  • Product managers
  • DevelopersIBM, ecx.io
  • SAP Hybris implementation engineers
  • Lead Visual DesignerClient workshops
Three-way alignment
fortnightly cadence
Heineken client side
  • Heineken business leadership
  • Operating company APlus vendors
  • Operating company BPlus vendors
  • Operating company CPlus vendors
Workshop room composition. Three-way alignment between IBMiX delivery, Heineken business and per-market vendors, in fortnightly cadence.

Between workshops the design was solo work: aligning each operating company's preferences against the shared template, translating outcomes into the next round of artifacts, holding conceptual integrity under continuous market-specific pressure. I also set up the design stream within the programme, interviewing and onboarding the designers who staffed it.

In numbers
3 markets UK, France and the Netherlands, aligned to one core
1 core system shared by every market, country rules layered on top
1 release window set by a licence, held

The hardest call

A hard release window was set by an unrelated license expiring on Heineken's side. Some of the more elegant approaches we'd developed weren't feasible inside that window. The decision was to ship the smaller, cleaner version that met the constraint and defer the rest to phase two.

Judgement call, taken under pressure: "shipped on time" beats "shipped a better idea late" when the deadline carries hard commercial cost. The cost of running over wasn't a slipped milestone, it was an expiring license. We held the scope, deferred ambition, and UK launched on schedule.

The hard constraint
License window
Non-negotiable deadline
Wouldn't fit the window
Full ambition
Elegant approaches, deferred
What landed cleanly
Shipped V1, UK
Smaller, cleaner, on time
Phase 2, deferred
Parked for next round
Held the scope, deferred ambition, launched on schedule
The scope decision under license pressure. Full ambition didn't fit. The team cut to what would land cleanly inside the window and deferred the rest to phase two.

Alignment

Three operating companies, continuous per-market pressure against the shared template, one round of escalation through programme leadership when a market's preferences ran counter to validated shared patterns. The agreed scope held. The template stayed shared. The market launched on the platform we'd defined.

Impact

Reflection

UK first, the rest sequenced behind. A PAN-EU platform could not ship to every market at once, and the phasing is what let it launch at all.

The license expiry forced calls the programme had deferred for months. Not all of them were what we would have chosen with time. They were the ones that put the UK live on the date.

The operating cadence, click to advance the cycle

A fortnightly user-story cycle, run across three cities.

In this cadence, each market’s needs turned into the shared template.

Amsterdam Dutch opco
Paris French opco
London UK opco
  1. Week 1, on site Workshop Three-day session, rotating Amsterdam, Paris, London.
  2. Agreed in the room User stories Each market's needs turned into stories everyone signs off.
  3. One source of truth Shared backlog Stories land on the single backlog for the Hybris core.
  4. Built against the core Next sprint Design and build pick up the agreed stories.

Two weeks later, back to the workshop. Repeat.

A fortnightly loop that turned three markets' local needs into one agreed backlog, so the French, UK and Dutch operating companies kept building against a single shared core.

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