For more than 50 years, Heinen Delfts Blauw has been creating Delft Blue ceramics with a strong Dutch signature. The family business built its success mainly through physical stores in tourist areas.

This made the organisation highly dependent on seasonality, store traffic and international tourism. COVID-19 exposed this vulnerability and accelerated the need for digital transformation. Instead of choosing a temporary e-commerce solution, Heinen Delfts Blauw set a bigger ambition: to grow from a local souvenir retailer into an international home & living brand, supported by a scalable digital commerce foundation.

Before the collaboration, Heinen Delfts Blauw worked with a fragmented digital and operational landscape. Sales channels operated separately, while systems for inventory, orders, customer data and fulfilment were only partly connected.

This created a lot of manual work, limited real-time visibility and made scaling difficult. International growth and new sales channels had to become possible without adding extra complexity or disrupting existing B2B relationships.

Together with Heinen Delfts Blauw, we worked from the Accelerate Framework across three areas: a scalable platform, smarter processes and an organisation ready for digital growth.

Process

In working sessions, we remapped and digitised sales and fulfilment processes to support scalable growth across multiple channels. Using tools such as a RACI matrix, we clarified roles, responsibilities and workflows. Automated order flows reduced manual work, increased operational efficiency and made inventory management more accurate.

With A/B testing, behavioural insights and continuous optimisation, Heinen Delfts Blauw improved product discovery, product positioning and the customer experience.

People

Commercial, operational, retail and digital teams were brought closer together. With an accountability chart, we made roles, responsibilities and measurable goals visually clear. This gave teams more ownership, better alignment and a clear digital roadmap. As a result, the organisation shifted from reactive execution to proactive optimisation.

Platform

We implemented a scalable B2C commerce architecture on BigCommerce, integrated with KatanaPIM, KING ERP and Algolia.

KatanaPIM centralises product data, KING ERP connects inventory, orders and logistics, and Algolia strengthens search, merchandising, cross-sell and upsell. This created a strong digital foundation that helps Heinen Delfts Blauw grow more easily through its own webshop and marketplaces.

Collaboration

We work with Heinen Delfts Blauw as long-term strategic partners. Strategy and execution come together in a fixed way of working with weekly check-ins, sprints and demos.

Through short optimisation cycles and a shared roadmap, we make fast decisions, keep improving continuously and accelerate digital growth step by step.