Integration & API Journey

Integration and APIs are critical in the Colruyt Group’s IT ecosystem.

The API Management platform builds on top of its strong SOA foundation and ensures seamless and secure data sharing.

The Colruyt Group is a family-run retail business with a significant presence in Belgium, France, and Luxembourg with over 33,000 employees.

Challenge

Colruyt started its API Journey as a follow-up on its strong SOA foundation. Triggered by new consumption needs of their services. Mobile and single-page applications called for an efficient and secure API strategy. Also, external partners requiring access to APIs, revealed some of the limitations of their existing integration framework.
With a focus on enhancing the delivery speed and tightening security, they looked for an API Management solution. With a strong focus on capabilities in monitoring, security, and quality of service.

Solution

The Colruyt Group embarked on an API journey, selecting webMethods API Gateway as the cornerstone of their new API Management infrastructure.

We helped them with the technical rollout in installing and configuring the webMethods API Gateway and surrounding components. Additionally, the API security model was refined based on their configurations, and DevOps practices were applied.
We helped them with the organizational rollout. The approach (in collaboration with Archers) was marked by a phased implementation, avoiding a disruptive “big bang” deployment. Instead, we opted for a gradual rollout with pilots and smaller teams. Iteratively increasing the maturity until the full organization is embracing the new technology & processes.

Conclusion

The collaboration between the Colruyt Group, i8c, and Archers led to the successful deployment of a comprehensive API management solution. The maturity model provided by Archers ensured a structured and gradual adoption across the organization. The technology choice for Software AG webMethods proved to be stable, reliable, and aligned with their vision for continuous evolution.