WS Audiology (WSA) has over 140 years of experience in pioneering the use of technology to help people with hearing loss hear the sounds that make life wonderful

With truly differentiated brands and diverse assets across wholesale, retail, online, managed care and diagnostic solutions, the company is active in over 125 markets. As a global leader, WSA’s ambition is to unlock human potential by making wonderful sound part of everyone’s life.

The Results

With the upgraded, optimized Adobe Commerce 2.3 solution in place, WSA has:

• Reduced product reindexing time from 6 hours to just 25 minutes 
• Improved overall website performance with quicker, more streamlined functionality for features like add to cart and checkout
• Faster, more accurate search that provides a better customer experience

After this project was finished, we helped WSA upgrade to Adobe Commerce 2.4, which went live in November 2021 for the EMEA region and January 2022 for the North America region. We are currently working with WSA to make its Adobe Commerce solution headless, along with additional improvements to its technology stack. 

Key Challenges

In 2020, WSA’s B2B eCommerce site was running on Adobe Commerce 2.2 — a version of the product that was quickly nearing the end of support. To ensure its website could continue to serve its B2B customers, the company needed to transition its solution to Adobe Commerce 2.3 before support for version 2.2 ended. Additionally, during the shift, WSA wanted to upgrade its site’s product indexing and search functionality to provide a better user experience.

Solution Highlights

WSA reached out to EPAM for help with the upgrade to Adobe Commerce 2.3 because the company was impressed by the work our team did during an audit of its original site in 2017. EPAM and WSA’s teams quickly got to work by running discovery sessions that would produce a path to upgrade.

Discovery
To start the project, EPAM and WSA ran a series of discovery workshops to define the scope of work, business requirements, timelines and budget. We also reviewed WSA’s current architecture and its Adobe Commerce platform. Once completed, we created the following plan for the platform update:

1. Optimize the preexisting platform code 
2. Transition to Adobe Commerce 2.3
3. Improve search functionality and upgrade product indexing 

Code Optimization & Platform Update
To prepare for the transition, EPAM optimized the platform’s code quality to ensure complete compatibility with Adobe Commerce 2.3 and any future versions of the product. We also analyzed Adobe Commerce’s existing integrations with other systems, including WSA’s Infor ERP system, content management system and product information management system. After analysis, we implemented custom code upgrades on Adobe Commerce for these integrations. 

When we finished retooling the code, EPAM then worked with WSA to roll out Adobe Commerce 2.3. By refactoring the code, we significantly reduced the time it took to move to version 2.3, which enabled us to update both the North American and EMEA websites on time and on budget. The North American site upgrade took about six months and was completed in June 2020. The EMEA site update took just three months and was completed in July 2020. 

Search & Product Indexing
Once the move to Adobe Commerce 2.3 was complete, EPAM and WSA upgraded the solution’s search functionality. Better, more accurate search has provided a seamless experience for clients, improving conversion rates and even customer loyalty. 

While upgrading its search functionality, EPAM also optimized WSA’s product indexing to improve product availability on the Adobe Commerce storefront. Products no longer disappear during reindexing, which ensures they are always available for purchase. Additionally, this upgrade reduced the costs of WSA’s product release and import processes.

The Results

With the upgraded, optimized Adobe Commerce 2.3 solution in place, WSA has:

• Reduced product reindexing time from 6 hours to just 25 minutes 
• Improved overall website performance with quicker, more streamlined functionality for features like add to cart and checkout
• Faster, more accurate search that provides a better customer experience

After this project was finished, we helped WSA upgrade to Adobe Commerce 2.4, which went live in November 2021 for the EMEA region and January 2022 for the North America region. We are currently working with WSA to make its Adobe Commerce solution headless, along with additional improvements to its technology stack. 

Technologies Used

• HEAR FROM THE CUSTOMER

Yassine Medhioub
VP, Information Technology at WSA