How an iPaaS Like Patchworks Can De-Risk & Accelerate Enterprise Commerce Replatforming Projects

As upper mid-market and enterprise retailers seek greater agility, cost efficiency and speed of innovation, many are making the strategic decision to replatform their commerce tech stack.

For some, this involves upgrading their ecommerce platform – migrating from complex and restrictive platforms like Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento Enterprise) and Salesforce Commerce Cloud to a much more flexible and empowering solution like Shopify Plus.

For others, it means modernising legacy business systems (like ERPs or CRMs), or consolidating tech across regions and brands.

More than simply switching out solutions, a replatforming project is an opportunity to reimagine your entire tech stack around performance, scalability and customer experience. It’s a strategic business transformation; a chance to rearchitect how your business operates.

Commerce replatforming is not without its challenges though. Legacy systems, custom integrations and high data volumes can create a web of complexity and risk for retailers to navigate. The threat of downtime, data loss and spiralling costs can also make enterprise ecommerce leaders hesitant to press go on a replatforming project.

This is where an iPaaS (Integration Platform as a Service) comes into its own – helping brands manage replatforming with agility and drive value rather than disruption.

We will explore this in more detail in this article, with references to how leading iPaaS Patchworks supports replatforming projects. Patchworks is a cloud-based solution, built on a modern, API-first architecture that aligns with MACH principles. It is a popular integration platform for fast-scaling retailers building composable commerce ecosystems. As an official Patchworks Delivery Partner, we have a wealth of experience using the platform to support complex replatforming and integration projects.

Benefits of Patchworks for replatforming

1. Centralises integrations to reduce complexity

Enterprise commerce infrastructure is typically complex, often becoming a tangled network of custom-built, point-to-point integrations and dependencies over time. These integrations are typically fragile and hard to scale – presenting a significant barrier to replatforming.

Patchworks helps to simplify this, providing a single integration layer that connects ecommerce platforms, ERPs, CRMs, finance systems and more. It centralises logic, standardises data flows and removes fragile dependencies.

This centralisation makes the replatforming process more manageable and reduces the risk of breaking critical workflows when systems are changed – ultimately allowing brands to transition between tools with minimal disruption, whilst ensuring data integrity.

2. Removes black box engineering

Traditional point-to-point integrations in enterprise commerce architectures often hide business logic inside custom code, or so-called ‘black boxes’. This means you can’t easily see how data is mapped or transformed, and errors are hard to diagnose. Black boxes can therefore be difficult to audit, troubleshoot and update – adding risk and complexity to replatforming projects.

Black box engineering also typically makes replatforming projects longer, as integrations must often be created from scratch when moving to, or introducing, new systems.

Leveraging an iPaaS can help to reduce or eliminate black box engineering. Patchworks offers complete visibility and control within its self-serve dashboard, along with integration logs and alert functionality. This helps remove guesswork for ecommerce teams, provides more understanding of how different systems work together, and empowers users to identify and troubleshoot issues efficiently.

Having this clarity around how data flows between systems, and removing the problems associated with hidden and brittle custom code, helps to minimise risk and accelerate development during replatforming projects.

3. Allows an incremental approach to replatforming

Using an iPaaS like Patchworks allows brands to replatform one commerce component at a time, incrementally upgrading their tech stack rather than executing a high-risk, ‘all in’ project.

Taking a composable approach to your tech stack means you can switch out systems with a relatively light lift – and without disrupting the entire ecosystem.

This makes replatforming projects much more accessible. It also means brands can scale and innovate without hitting integration bottlenecks. Flexibility like this in your commerce infrastructure is a critical asset for enterprise retailers seeking digital maturity.

4. Accelerates time to value with faster integrations

For fast-scaling retailers, time to market – and time to value – is crucial. Whilst enterprise replatforming projects are not typically associated with short timelines and a quick ‘payback period’, leveraging an iPaaS like Patchworks can accelerate project outcomes.

It can eliminate weeks (or months) of custom development work on integrations thanks to more than 100 pre-built native connectors for Shopify Plus and common systems like ERPs, WMSs, subscription platforms, ESPs, CRMs and finance tools. These are all ready to immediately install and configure for use in process flows.

Patchworks also boasts a powerful Connector Builder, allowing teams to take full developmental control and construct their own integrations with any API simply and easily, without the lengthy project launch times. This is particularly useful for brands with unique requirements.

Users also have access to preconfigured flows, such as “Shopify to Netsuite Orders”, which can dramatically reduce the knowledge and time required to build integrations. Plus, the process flow canvas enables teams to quickly create, test and deploy integrations.

This intuitive, no-code/low-code environment makes integrations more accessible to non-technical users, while offering the flexibility development teams need to build advanced custom logic. Ultimately, this unlocks integration freedom, helping you go live sooner and begin unlocking business value faster.

5. Improves data integrity during replatforming

Accurate, timely and reliable data is crucial for smooth ecommerce operations, smart decision-making, precise personalisation, and much more.

During replatforming, data can sometimes become fragmented or inconsistent as systems change. Patchworks helps avoid this by providing standardised data mappings across systems, full audit trails for regulatory oversight, and automated error handling.

It can also help to de-risk platform migrations by syncing data across old and new platforms in parallel. For example, during an ecommerce platform migration from Adobe to Shopify, a brand could use Patchworks to sync inventory levels, orders and fulfilment statuses across both platforms before fully retiring Adobe. This would allow Shopify-ERP workflows to be tested in live conditions, whilst decreasing manual data handling during the transition and reducing the risk of go-live disruptions.

This protects the integrity of your data during a replatforming project and ensures a better experience for both your ecommerce team and your customers. 

Case study: Leveraging Patchworks as part of an accelerated ecommerce migration

Seeking to reduce ongoing platform costs and deployment times, the team at leading pet food retailer Natural Instinct made the strategic decision to replatform from Adobe Commerce B2B (formerly Magento Enterprise B2B) to Shopify Plus.

The migration needed to be completed before the business’ annual Adobe contract expired, putting a hard deadline on the project.

Working to an accelerated replatforming timeline, we leveraged Patchworks to build an integration between Shopify and Sage 200, without the lengthy deployment times typically associated with brand new integrations.

You can read more about this project in our Natural Instinct replatforming case study.

Replatforming with Swanky’s systems integration specialists

Replatforming your commerce stack is about much more than a new ecommerce solution or ERP tool. It’s about repositioning your business for the next chapter of growth, making your infrastructure leaner, more flexible and more resilient. Patchworks helps to de-risk and accelerate this transformation.

Swanky is proud to have dedicated Systems Integration teams in the UK and Australia, leveraging iPaaS tools like Patchworks to help retailers navigate their digital transformation projects with confidence. We have used the Patchworks platform to complete successful integration projects for the likes of FutureYou Cambridge, Inverawe, Wray & Co, and Computer Lounge.

If you’re looking to replatform your commerce tech stack with enterprise-grade integration, contact our team to discuss how we can support your business.