Enterprise Convergence of Vente-Privée, Privalia, and Vente-Exclusive — a Retrospective of a Successful Journey via Focus and a Set-in-Stone Plan.

How do you ensure you succeed with a significant, challenging convergence for your company? vpTech knows!

How do you make sure your dish is a success? You sharpen a knife and follow a recipe, along with some cooking rules. Of course, you also leave just enough space for flexibility and improvisation.

How do you ensure you succeed with a large, challenging convergence for your company? You set some rules, sharpen your best skills and stick to the plan.

Veepee, vente-exclusive (Belgium), and Privalia (Spain) convergence required a laser-sharp focus and a solid plan for the vpTech team. Fusing three companies is not something you can wing and see how it goes. Thomas Consul, the Operations Lead Architect at vpTech, has revealed how his team has handled the convergence process with the help of clear, non-negotiable rules.

Ingredients: vente-privee, vente-exclusive, and Privalia.

The idea of focus is very present in modern culture, together with determination. As long as we establish our ‘non-negotiables,’ it is more apparent how to move forward. No matter how hard it gets along the way, a set of smart rules and principles defines this way.

Rule #1: Stick to the date

Like a recipe mentions cooking and preparation time, the convergence project had to be attached to a specific date. It was a strategic decision that allowed the team to get on board and working. Everybody in tech will say it’s a bad idea to base the project around a date, so why did vpTech do it?

A strict deadline forces you to find a solution that is working. It also forces you to make a trade-off. You cannot merge two (or more) large companies if you are not ready to do some significant trade-off.

This approach's advantage is focusing on WHY you get there, not HOW. And, as we know, a person can figure out any HOW if they have a strong WHY.

As a result, there was one final date and a pool of dates to adjust the sizing.

Rule #2: Prioritize tasks and features

When a project is dictated by a deadline, it is crucial to go over the features or required technical work and categorize them into must-haves, should-haves, and nice-to-haves.

This allows you to answer the critical questions first. Then, you start building the order in which these features will be delivered: all must-haves are delivered first, should haves — second, and nice-to-haves — at the very end;

In most cases, the nice-to-haves are not investigated further until the must-haves have been tackled.

“The sum of all must-haves represents the minimum amount of work to be achieved at the given deadline to consider the project a success.”

This list should be as close to set in stone as possible.

Also, every single team member must know what they are doing. The experience of the team and the set plan allow to pre-define the features beforehand. The convergence is a project involving three companies with different budgets and many requirements.

A solid plan removes the pressure and allows you to stay entirely focused.

Rule #3: Stay very involved

You don’t want your dish to burn if you get distracted by another chore. 75% of the team was 100% involved in the task. The workforce of all three teams was concentrated on the project.

Such large projects also allow the team to look at the existing processes in the planning phase. You evaluate what has been working, and you decide on what will be part of the convergence or not.

Rule #4: No shortcuts when it comes to architecture principles

Each company has its set of architecture principles, and they must stay intact. They evolve with the company but differ from what you plan to apply on your new platform. These principles are the pillars that hold the process together.
For example, when working with legacy, you can work with the flow but can’t touch the data models.

Rule #5: It’s not the time to take risks; it’s the time to do what you do best

This whole process is a depiction of pragmatism and risk management. When you work with such complex subjects, you do it based on two rules:

• Base your work on your best, strongest skills
• Take pragmatic decisions — the risk tolerance is next to zero.

Then, you reassess the risk during the whole process. Having clarity about skills, deadlines, and features allows this risk evaluation to be as precise as possible.

Rule #6: Distribute the workload evenly

Another golden rule is to involve all the team members smartly. In large projects, requirements are often directed to certain members, and it’s crucial to review the workload distribution to avoid the scenario where one team ends up with an endless to-do list.

Rule #7: Transparency

It is an enterprise project, with many different teams implementing it. Architects and project leads are central information points that keep track of all moving parts. They are responsible for ensuring every team has the freshest information possible and that communication runs smoothly.

“Convergence is both a tech and business transformation. You can’t succeed without having transparency on the two levels”.

It is ok to make mistakes — this is where transparency comes into play. However, any blocking point or error must be revealed to the team as soon as possible to avoid wasting time and finding the relevant solution. It is not a personal project; it is teamwork, and it’s by merging efforts and being transparent that we can move forward. For that, you need the correct information at the right time. The decision record must be public and communicated.

« It is only by fully respecting large principles that you can allow yourself to be flexible with the rest. »

Architecture implies a lot of risk management, and in large projects, it’s crucial to have a guideline where the team knows what exactly they have to do. The vpTech team loves working with new technologies and experimenting. In this particular case, which was a considerable challenge for the team, the process had to be thought through based on skills, experience, and needs. As a result, the convergence has been an enormous success.