Christmas Tree Shops turns to SnapLogic

Christmas Tree Shops (CTS) has completed the separation from its previous corporate parent in less than a year with the help of SnapLogic. CTS was able to become technologically independent while upgrading and integrating its hybrid-cloud technology operations, all prior to the start of the recent peak holiday season.

CTS has completed more than 250 integrations in the past year using the SnapLogic Intelligent Integration Platform, improving and accelerating operational and analytical data flow across the enterprise.

The SnapLogic platform features a unified user interface that is powered by Iris AI. The platform’s low-code approach provides maximum productivity for both line-of-business managers and integration specialists.

CTS is a specialty retailer selling a range of goods, from furniture, home decor and bedding, to kitchenware and holiday decorations. The company began a separation from its previous corporate parent, Bed Bath and Beyond, after being sold in 2020, meaning it needed to separate itself from operational technologies and platforms it had been a part of for nearly 20 years. The team also had a deadline of less than a year to complete the task, as it needed to be technologically independent with a "bullet-proof infrastructure" before the start of the 2021 busy holiday shopping season.

CTS had a mix of legacy, off-the-shelf, and self-developed systems. It saw the opportunity to modernize its operations and the technology running them, by upgrading core existing systems while at the same time bringing on board newer, best-of-breed cloud technologies that allowed it to explore new opportunities.

However, the company did not want to lose existing data and information that had been stored in their corporate parent’s systems and needed to move fast. The company turned to SnapLogic to help it integrate core legacy systems with new, cloud-based technologies in order to streamline and speed up business processes across HR, finance, sales, operations, and more. For example, SnapLogic helped CTS connect its existing time-and-attendance solution used across its more than 80 stores with its recent implementation of Workday, ensuring all employees were paid promptly for time worked, without disruption.

In addition to improving its time-and-attendance function in stores, SnapLogic also helped CTS gain visibility into near real-time sales during the busy holiday shopping period. Under its previous parent company, access to information was challenging and leadership had no visibility into intraday store performance. Using SnapLogic, the company was able to parse sales from our legacy point-of-sale (POS) system and provide hourly sales reads within a few days of receiving the request. This capability allowed CTS leadership access to information they would have previously not received until the next day, thus providing an opportunity to adjust strategies to best meet the needs of the business.

“It was critical that while undertaking this separation and updating our technology infrastructure that we not impact the front line of the business—the selling of goods as well as the onboarding and compensation of our employees had to continue without interruption,” said Chris Corbin, vice president, enterprise systems at CTS. “SnapLogic’s ease-of-use and fast time-to-value enabled us to complete these integrations quickly and be ready for the holiday season when both the volume of sales and the number of seasonal staff increased.”

“Ease-of-use coupled with enterprise power has always been at the core of our platform,” said Craig Stewart, chief data officer at SnapLogic. “We’ve architected it such that users of all skill levels across the business can be productive quickly while ensuring the platform holds up to the most complex enterprise integration requirements. Many organizations are in situations similar to CTS—where integrations need to happen quickly to speed up business processes and data flow across the enterprise, all with zero downtime or disruption to the business. We’re thrilled to have helped CTS rebuild its infrastructure during this important transition and look forward to continued partnership.”

For more information, go to www.snaplogic.com.