Fazer, with a legacy spanning over 130 years, has grown into an international Food Experience Company with a presence in the bakery, confectionery, and plant-based food markets. Operating in eight countries, employing around 6,000 people, and boasting net sales of €1.100 million, Fazer stands as one of the largest food companies in the Nordics. Its iconic products, with a global reach, grace the shelves in more than 40 countries.
To support the global operations and growth to ensure smooth business transactions and reinforce its operational efficiency across diverse business units, each with unique requirements, Fazer needed a modern integration platform as a service. In addition, Fazer searched for a solution that could increase their level of modularity and reduce point-to-point integrations which would accelerate time-to-market.
Frends is currently our main integration platform at Fazer. Since, its introduction, we have implemented several significant integration projects in connection with system projects.
Sami Tillgren, Director, ICT Architecture and Solution at Fazer
Fazer's journey with Frends began in 2018, marking the start of a partnership to overcome integration challenges across a range of projects. At first, Fazer selected Frends for its capabilities as an API management solution, which was to be used in conjunction with the existing integration platform back then.
Recognizing the limitations imposed by this fragmented approach and point-to-point integrations, Fazer chose to consolidate all integrations under Frends iPaaS. So, a few years down the line, Fazer fully switched over to Frends from the previous integration platform.
This strategic move was aimed at improving overall service quality and monitoring capabilities, both within the ERP ecosystem and beyond, thereby simplifying the management of their integration architecture. Fazer also made a strategic decision to centralize its business-to-business (B2B) messaging traffic under Frends.
Frends has become a central technology partner for Fazer, providing both expert consultancy services and the Frends iPaaS platform. The legacy modernization project run with Frends streamlined Fazer’s integration processes, centralizing monitoring, and maintenance, significantly simplifying the management of their IT landscape.
Frends' transparent and technology-neutral platform has granted the company access to a wider range of APIs and systems. This flexibility has been proven to be particularly valuable in the face of system deprecation or when embarking on new integration projects. Fazer has also been able to implement new API interfaces with Frends, which was not possible before.
Frends enabled us to reuse existing components across various processes, leading to significant resource savings.
Sami Tillgren, Director, ICT Architecture and Solution at Fazer
The consolidation has brought numerous benefits, notably the easing of adding new suppliers or business functions into the operations. With Frends, integrating a new system or any other business function has become more straightforward, enhancing operational responsiveness, and speeding up time-to-market.
Frends played a central role in reimplementing all EDI integrations across Fazer’s varied customer base. This extensive project included the integration of Fazer’s core ERP system with the EDI operator, alongside the essential tasks of message transformation, monitoring, and error handling across the company’s different business units.
Fazer was able to develop reusable components, such as EDI data mappings, which streamlined the process for incorporating new EDI partners and enhanced overall adaptability. The implementation of the EDI project was carried out in stages across various business units to ensure that the rollouts proceeded without interrupting Fazer’s regular business operations. Throughout this transition, main order delivery processes continued to run smoothly, efficiently managing several thousand messages daily.
Frends has significantly improved visibility into the time-sensitive flows of messages and potential issues, empowering Fazer’s business users with the ability to monitor and manage transactions proactively.
The transition to Frends iPaaS has been instrumental in the company's journey in modernizing the IT landscape, serving as a gateway that combines legacy and new technologies seamlessly. Fazer has been able to maintain on-premises systems while embracing cloud solutions, effectively supporting a hybrid IT environment and improving the IT department's satisfaction with the integration platform in use.