Åhléns has been a trusted name in Scandinavian retail for more than 100 years. Today, that experience translates into a strong omnichannel approach, resulting in a number-one position in the Department Stores & Hypermarkets category across the Nordics.

Behind that success is a clear vision: companies that want to remain market leaders must be willing to rethink. Together with Fenego, Åhléns is taking the next ambitious step. While previous initiatives focused on growing the e-commerce platform, the focus today is something more fundamental: completely reinventing the IT landscape.

The existing landscape had reached a turning point. Years of expansion had made it complex, costly to maintain, and too slow to evolve alongside the business. Integrations relied on batch processing, data arrived too late, and innovation was constrained by technical limitations.

For Åhléns, the conclusion was clear: optimization was not enough. To be ready for the future, the foundation itself had to change. More control, less dependency, and above all more room to focus on what truly matters: customer experience and growth.

Together with Fenego, Åhléns opted for a clean break. Rather than applying patches to a legacy environment, the company chose a thoughtful rebuild of its landscape, guided by control and flexibility.

At the heart of the transformation is a modern integration model, where systems no longer wait for one another but communicate continuously. Through queue-based integrations using Azure Service Bus, the landscape is evolving from slow and fragmented to fast, scalable and future-ready.

At the same time, one element remains firmly in place: Intershop. In a landscape where almost everything is being replaced, the e-commerce platform continues to serve as the stable core. Not by chance. Intershop’s flexibility enables Åhléns to support and further refine its unique hybrid processes, where retail and e-commerce seamlessly converge.

Fenego acts as both architect and accelerator, connecting systems, translating business needs into technology, and continuously optimizing where needed.

The first results immediately demonstrate why this approach works. Processes that once lost valuable time are now noticeably faster. Stock updates, which previously took 30 to 45 minutes, are now processed in just a few minutes. This means fewer errors, less frustration, and a significantly better customer experience.

Behind the scenes, the impact is equally substantial. The platform is now more stable than ever, with uptime measured in months without intervention. What was once a challenge has become a silent strength the business can rely on.

Perhaps even more importantly, Åhléns has regained control. Less time is spent on maintenance, and more energy can be devoted to innovation. The IT landscape is evolving from a limitation into a driver of growth.

With the go-live approaching, Åhléns is not just building a new platform, but a new way of working. Responding faster to customer needs, launching new ideas more easily, and further refining the omnichannel experience will become the new standard.

The decision to keep Intershop at the core of a completely renewed landscape highlights that this is not a traditional replatforming project, but a focused evolution. One that builds on existing strengths and extends them into the future.

Together, Åhléns and Fenego demonstrate what true transformation means: letting go of what no longer works, strengthening what does, and creating a future-ready foundation for whatever comes next.

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