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Rapid Delivery, Quality Testing and Seamless Partnership for Pluxee UK’s New Platform

Picture of Elliott Winskill

Elliott Winskill

Director of Technology and Solutions, PMC

Why smooth retail transformation depends on the pipes no one see

Talk to any retail IT leader right now and the story is familiar: fewer resources, tighter budgets and higher expectations. At the same time, they’re being asked to deliver sweeping transformation – digital acceleration, omnichannel upgrades and AI implementation. All while ‘keeping the lights on’.

The pressure is immense. And it’s exposing the cracks in places we don’t always like to look.

Behind every slick UX or seamless checkout, there’s a complex web of systems that need to talk to each other – and too often, they don’t. And when your plumbing doesn’t work? No matter how beautiful the bathroom is, you’re in trouble.

The problem lurking below the surface

Retail is a sector with no shortage of ambition. But beneath the bold roadmaps and glossy vision decks, the reality is that many businesses are still struggling with tangled, outdated integrations – the kind that make even simple changes painfully slow.

It’s not just anecdotal. In 2023, 61% of retailers said legacy infrastructure was the biggest obstacle to innovation, according to Retail Systems Research.

We often say retail needs to be agile. But agility isn’t just about mindset. It’s about infrastructure.

And right now, that infrastructure is buckling.

We’ve seen retailers stuck with custom logic no one understands, integrations no one dares to touch and platforms that were never built to support the pace of change now required. In too many cases, “transformation” ends up being a coat of paint over legacy foundations.

The problem lurking below the surface

Retail is a sector with no shortage of ambition. But beneath the bold roadmaps and glossy vision decks, the reality is that many businesses are still struggling with tangled, outdated integrations – the kind that make even simple changes painfully slow.

It’s not just anecdotal. In 2023, 61% of retailers said legacy infrastructure was the biggest obstacle to innovation, according to Retail Systems Research.

We often say retail needs to be agile. But agility isn’t just about mindset. It’s about infrastructure.

And right now, that infrastructure is buckling.

We’ve seen retailers stuck with custom logic no one understands, integrations no one dares to touch and platforms that were never built to support the pace of change now required. In too many cases, “transformation” ends up being a coat of paint over legacy foundations.

The impact of poor integration is widespread

Integration used to be seen as a pure IT function. It lived in the back end, unnoticed until something broke. But that model doesn’t hold up anymore.

Because now, integration impacts everything:

  • How quickly a new payment provider can be onboarded.
  • Whether real-time inventory updates can support omnichannel.
  • If data moves fast enough to feed personalisation and analytics.
  • How quickly you can react to a disruption – or an opportunity.

If your systems can’t talk to each other cleanly, your entire operation slows down. And in 2025, speed is survival.

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