How Datamars AG Gave Their Retail Teams a Platform They Actually Use
The Situation
Datamars AG operates a global network of retail partners. Managing trade relationships — product catalogues, orders, partner accounts — was running through a system that hadn't kept pace with the complexity of the business.
Teams were spending time on coordination the platform should have been handling. Partners in different markets were working around the system, not through it. Every exception created manual work. The old quicktag website at the centre of it couldn't be extended without significant effort.
They needed a platform their teams could operate: across regions, without a developer in the room every time something needed to change.
What Bicatalyst Built
We started with the problem, not the stack. The ask wasn't "build a better website." It was: build a system that absorbs operational complexity and gives retail partners a single, reliable interface.
The result: a web-based trade platform handling user management, order processing, product management, and partner accounts. Built on Django. Background tasks via Celery and Redis, handling volume without touching the user experience.
The architecture was modular because Datamars operates across subsidiaries. A monolith would have made every future expansion a problem for whoever was in the room at the time.
The Outcome
The platform has been running without Bicatalyst involvement since mid-2023.
Datamars' team operates it. Partners in different markets run standard workflows without IT support. Order volume moves through background queues cleanly.
Uninterrupted operation. One support engagement after launch. No dependency on the team who built it.
That's the measure.
A Note on the Stack
Django, Celery, Redis. Proven, well-documented, widely understood. Any competent developer can pick this up. That matters, because the most expensive software is software only its creator can maintain.
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