Event Driven Integration in Action:  How 4 Companies Accelerated their iPaaS 

In today’s fast-paced digital world where tech advances rapidly and tools change quickly (looking at you, AI), you might be wondering: “What’s the best way to integrate all of my applications?” For several years, the standard answer has been integration platform as a service (iPaaS) offerings from companies like Boomi and Mulesoft, but increasing demand for real-time information has put an approach called event-driven integration in the limelight.

What is Event-Driven Integration?

Event-driven integration is the application of event-driven architecture to integration, allowing businesses to leverage the best capabilities of event brokers and integration platforms. Connectivity, transformation and mapping are broken into smaller components and loosely coupled via the publish/subscribe exchange pattern, similar to microservices. Event-driven integration complements API-led integration, meeting integration needs not well suited to synchronous or point-to-point integrations.

While an iPaaS is excellent for connecting various applications and automating workflows, it often falls short when it comes to real-time data processing, responsiveness, scalability and flexibility. Event-driven integration, on the other hand, enables your systems to react to events instantly, providing unparalleled agility and efficiency. If used together, event-driven integration can accelerate and strengthen your existing iPaaS, providing the digital backbone to gain better performance and make your system more adaptable and resilient.

By combining the data transformation and connectivity of an iPaaS with the real-time dynamic choreography of an event broker and event mesh, enterprises can ensure their integrations are reliable and secure, and offer the flexibility to stay agile.

I’d like to share some examples of how industry leaders like JDE Peets, Heineken, Les Mousquetaires, and others are transforming not just their IT infrastructure but their operations and customer experiences with event-driven integration.

JDE Peets: Brews Supply Chain Magic

The Challenge

JDE Peets, the world’s leading pure-play coffee and tea company, faced a complex set of supply chain challenges including duplicate and lost orders, overstocking and understocking, and delivery delays. Their systems were struggling to keep up with real-time demands, especially at times of peak activity. They also were dealing with interruptions in service due to disruptive maintenance schedules.

The Fix

JDE Peets knew they needed to make their system more real and more scalable, simplify their architecture by consolidating multiple platforms, and eliminate the risk of message loss.

JDE Peets used Solace’s event management product, PubSub+ Event Portal, to analyze their environment so they can see how internal and external systems and stakeholders share information. They then used PubSub+ Event Broker to replace request/reply polling with the real-time event-driven distribution of information.

They now use Solace to manage data flows running through the Boomi iPaaS that links systems across their enterprise, and to collaborate on the creation, management and reuse of events, event streams and event-driven APIs across their business.

In addition, they were able to implement an effective preventative maintenance plan using sensors that alert and send notifications on events – or a change in state, for machines to be serviced in advance before machines break down and create an issue.

By adopting Solace’s event-driven integration platform, JDE Peets gained visibility across their entire supply chain. Here’s how they did it:

• Event Mesh Implementation: JDE Peets used Solace PubSub+ Event Broker to create an event mesh that connects all their supply chain components, from suppliers to distributors.
• Real-Time Data Flow: By publishing events such as inventory updates, order status changes, and shipment tracking to that event mesh, JDE Peets ensures that every part of the supply chain receives updates instantly.
• Scalability and Reliability: The event mesh they’ve built is designed to handle high volumes of messages with low latency, ensuring that the system remains responsive even during peak times.

The Benefits

This real-time responsiveness has slashed lead times and enhanced customer satisfaction, ensuring that the coffee flows smoothly from bean to cup.

• Get the full story here.

Heineken: Cheers to a Better Customer Experience

The Challenge

Heineken, one of the world’s leading brewing companies, struggled with siloed customer data and slow response times, leading to inconsistent customer experiences and lost orders. To address these challenges, they developed a customer-centric digital transformation strategy to increase the company’s resilience and adaptability in order to grow and meet changing business and market demands.

The Fix

Heineken decided to augment their iPaaS with an event-driven approach to integration in order to connect thousands of business-critical applications across payments, logistics, inventory management, and more. The effort spanned dozens of operating companies (OpCos), many of which maintain their local (sometimes original) business systems, and business units in more than 190 countries where Heineken® beer and cider are sold, with many that continue to manufacture local beverage brands (~350 global and local brands in total). Solace’s event-driven integration and streaming platform provided the most robust and reliable messaging solution for their iPaaS which allowed Heineken to capture and process customer interactions in real-time across multiple channels.

Here’s a closer look:

• Event-Driven Integration: Solace PubSub+ Platform powers integration across the entire Heineken technology stack. With order flows being processed around the clock, central processing must be reliable and efficient, and Solace makes sure that the iPaaS is powerful and dependable under heavy loads.
• Data Streaming: Using Solace’s PubSub+ platform, Heineken streams events such as customer orders, feedback, and promotions across their digital ecosystem.
• Easy integration with iPaaS: Solace offers simple and easy connectivity with iPaaS vendors via micro-integrations. Micro-integrations are small, lightweight event-driven integration modules that connect applications, SaaS services, messaging services, databases, files, AI agents and more to an event-driven distribution layer so they can exchange information in real-time. Micro-integrations make it easy to change the way applications and services interact with one another, and by reusing them and the events they produce in new ways. Micro-integrations also offer higher performance than traditional integration solutions, while simplifying networking configuration, because they are deployed close to source and target applications.

The Benefits

This event-driven architecture enables the entire system to operate more efficiently, resulting in a smooth and satisfying customer experience.

• Learn more here.

Les Mousquetaires: Retail Revolution

The Challenge

Les Mousquetaires, a major retail group in Europe that manages over 4,000 stores including Intermarche, faced challenges with outdated systems, delayed inventory updates, and an inability to swiftly respond to market trends and customer demands.

In order to address these challenges, they launched a comprehensive digital transformation plan with a hybrid integration platform designed to enable real-time events, better security and event-driven integration with ERP systems and other software.

The Fix

Implementing Solace’s PubSub+ platform has enhanced operational efficiency, and Les Mousquetaires has since deployed over 450 new flows into production in just two years, successfully implementing event-driven integration- using API Management, an iPaaS, and Solace to connect it all – for all of the use cases they envisioned with very fast time-to-market. For example, they have implemented new systems that use AI/ML to improve order accuracy, automatically disseminate real-time pricing updates to digital price tags, and change the prices of fruits and vegetables daily.

The Benefits

• Real-Time Inventory Management: With the help of Solace’s technology, Les Mousquetaires can publish and subscribe to inventory events in real-time.
• Market Trend Analysis: Events related to sales data and market trends are processed in real time, allowing the retail group to adjust their inventory and marketing strategies on the fly.
• Store Coordination: Stores within the Les Mousquetaires network can receive real-time updates about stock levels, ensuring that popular items are always available.Watch them in their own words here.

The Benefits

This real-time data flow ensures that Les Mousquetaires can continue innovating so customers get what they want, when they want it, making shopping a better experience.

Australian Retail Chain: Ditching BizTalk for Real-time Data Access

The Challenge

A retail giant with over 400 stores and $18B a year in revenue found themselves at a critical juncture: they needed to modernize their systems and elevate customer experiences. It’s been announced that the BizTalk middleware they rely on is being phased out, presenting them with an opportunity to improve how they serviced their stores, particularly in terms of accurately routing key events such as product updates and loyalty programs.

The challenges they faced were significant. First, they needed to replace BizTalk due to its end-of-life status. The current version of BizTalk was also incompatible with the latest software versions, further complicating their operations. High ongoing costs for licensing and infrastructure were a financial strain, and the existing infrastructure struggled with performance issues.

Scalability was another concern, as the large infrastructure required for scaling was becoming untenable. Additionally, the niche skill set needed for BizTalk created limitations, and troubleshooting was complex due to a lack of message flow visibility. Operational issues abounded, including web server overloads, data validation problems, and the absence of efficient batching processes.

To address these challenges, the company set several key objectives:

• Migrate to a modern platform with long-term support to avoid future end-of-life crises.
• Reduce operational costs.
• Improve performance and scalability was essential, as was ensuring seamless integration with modern systems.
• Simplify management through better visibility and troubleshooting capabilities was another goal.
• Avoid software version lock-in to maintain flexibility.
• Access a broader market of skilled resources was crucial, given the limitations of BizTalk’s niche expertise.
• Implement robust data validation and efficient batching to bolster operational resilience.

In short, they recognized that they needed to put in place a modern, efficient, and scalable system to meet their current needs and support future growth. They aimed to transform their IT infrastructure, reduce costs, and enhance overall performance, ensuring they remained competitive and customer-focused in a rapidly evolving retail landscape.

The Fix

The retailer chose Solace PubSub+ Platform to accelerate innovation and agility, allowing the retailer to adapt quickly to market demands and launch new products faster. They implemented Solace’s event-driven architecture to replace the aging BizTalk middleware, providing a scalable and flexible solution.

The Benefits

The platform enabled real-time data access, enhancing user experience and decision-making. Through a single pane of glass, they were able to simplify their administration and take advantage of end-to-end monitoring and management, which ultimately improved overall system performance and reduced scaling complexities. By migrating to Solace, the retailer reduced operational and upgrade costs and ensured seamless integration with modern software and systems.

A Real Solution for Real-World Integration Challenges

The real-world applications of event-driven integration highlighted here underscore the transformative potential of event-driven integration across diverse industries. Companies like JDE Peets, Heineken, and Les Mousquetaires are leveraging real-time data exchange to address critical pain points and drive efficiency, enhance customer experiences, and stay ahead of the competition. While iPaaS solutions are valuable and necessary for many integration needs, event-driven integration complements iPaaS to offer the real-time responsiveness and agility today’s fast-paced business environment demands. As more organizations embrace this technology, the possibilities for innovation and growth are limitless. Whether you’re a developer looking to enhance system responsiveness or a business leader aiming for operational excellence, event-driven integration is paving the way for a more connected future.