Ann Summers overhauls data layer in PMC turnaround

Ann Summers has completed a transformation of its data integration layer with PMC as part of its wider turnaround plan.

The overhaul moved the retailer's data layer to PMC's Graphene platform, replacing older integrations that had become complex and costly to maintain. Completed in three months, the project involved reverse-engineering more than 100 integrations to create a modular structure.

Ann Summers has been reshaping parts of the business as it seeks growth through its store estate and third-party marketplaces. It reported full-year revenue of £93.4 million, up 0.4% year on year, while maintaining 75 UK stores and expanding through platforms including Next.

The technology work was intended to tackle years of additions to legacy systems that had made the group's stack harder to manage, slowing change, adding operational friction and increasing day-to-day costs.

Jeannette Copeland, Technology & Supply Chain Director at Ann Summers, described the point at which the retailer decided it needed to rebuild core parts of its technology base.

"We'd gotten to the stage where we were continually building on top of things," Copeland said. "And that gets to the stage where you're almost building on top of sand... we got to the point where we needed to dig in and change that."

Cleaner, more direct access to data was also important as Ann Summers considers broader use of artificial intelligence. Copeland said those efforts could be constrained without stronger data foundations.

"With the most recent push from an AI perspective, unless you've got your data straightened out, it can hold you back. We are trying to ensure we've got foundations within our data so we can scale in the future and that we've got options, so we don't find ourselves in a technical corner," she said.

Marketplace shift

Marketplace distribution was another driver behind the project. As a seller of adult products, Ann Summers said its website is often hidden from traditional online search results and increasingly from AI-generated search results, affecting how customers discover the brand and reach its eCommerce site.

That has made visibility on marketplaces and through third-party sellers more important. Ann Summers said its existing data set-up needed to change to support that strategy more effectively.

PMC's Graphene platform uses an API-led, headless structure hosted in the cloud. Ann Summers said the move gives it a more composable systems estate that can adapt as requirements change, while reducing integration and running costs.

Elliott Winskill, Technology & Solutions Director at PMC, said the work was designed to bring data closer to source systems and make it more useful for operational and commercial decisions.

"By restructuring its data integration layer, Ann Summers has opened up a much more strategic way of using insight to drive innovation, bringing its data as close to the source systems as possible," Winskill said. "By making that foundational data more strategic at the edge point, we've enabled Ann Summers to do more and, ultimately, deliver more, into the future."

Cost and control

For retailers with long-established systems, integration layers can be among the hardest parts of the technology estate to change. New channels, supplier links and customer services often depend on those connections, so simplification projects can affect a wide range of operations.

The new arrangement gives Ann Summers more room to add integrations as the business expands. Its relationship with PMC will also continue through managed services support as the platform develops further.

Copeland said the change was intended to support both internal teams and the customer proposition as the business grows.

"We are now ready to scale and have a technology partner [in PMC] who can advise, develop and support new integrations during our growth strategy. This benefits teams in both businesses and, most importantly, our customers," she said.