AppDynamics helps Loblaw meet the surge of digital demand during COVID-19

Businesses closed doors, entire industries collapsed, citizens were asked to stay home — online worlds became the last safe ones. And they were essential for survival.

“What was unprecedented was the sheer volume and scale that really happened overnight,” says Luke Rogers, general manager for AppDynamics Canada. “With this massive shift of everybody doing everything online or through an app, we saw an enormous amount of disruption.”

As the world’s largest and fastest growing application performance management (APM) company, AppDynamics provided critical support to Canadian businesses that faced sudden reinvention. Organizations of all sizes were forced, all at once, to change how they function with digital enablement plans massively accelerated and scaled overnight. With real-time insights and performance metrics, businesses could pivot to meet this unprecedented demand. IT leaders are playing a critical role in helping organizations manage this transformation, maintain business continuity and navigate the way forward.

‘The customer needs us’

The key elements to thrive? Speed and agility — but never at the expense of resilience, says Hesham Fahmy, vice-president of technology for Loblaw Digital, an AppDynamics customer.

Loblaw has invested in digital innovation for years, including through its partnership with AppDynamics. This set the national grocery retailer up to be as prepared as possible for the enormous surges in user demand that resulted during the pandemic.

“I think what the pandemic has shown us — but it’s always been true — is customers’ needs change very fast, and customers’ expectations change very fast,” Fahmy says. “That’s what digital businesses need most — a way to move fast, be adaptable, deploy capabilities to their customers, while keeping their offering very stable and resilient, and maintain that quality.”

As an essential service, Loblaw cannot afford instability: “The customer needs us,” he adds.

One such Loblaw service — shopping for groceries online — is designed to feel effortless for the customer. Browse items, add to cart, select a pickup time. This simple activity, however, requires “a very complex orchestration of systems in play,” Fahmy explains.

From supply chain to online inventory, payment transactions to in-store deployment, Loblaw has to monitor up to 20 unique systems in real-time for thousands of customers.

“It becomes so much noise,” Fahmy says. “That’s where AppDynamics comes in. They help us clear out a lot of the clutter. When things go wrong, you can have that quick turnaround because you’re identifying the problem and able to resolve it, usually within minutes.”

Visibility and insight are crucial

Canadian technologists and IT personnel know the challenges already.

A recent AppDynamics report showed 81 per cent of technologists said COVID-19 has created the most significant IT pressure they’ve ever experienced in their organization. The most important factor during this time? A full 93 per cent said visibility and insight into performance of the entire technology stack — and how it affects customers.

Now, the spotlight is on digital teams like never before.

“What we’ve seen, which is also unprecedented, is how much [technologists] are really front and centre in the strategy of how businesses evolve,” Rogers says. “The technology leaders are becoming the business leaders.”

“Some people talk about digital transformation as if it’s a period in time, with an endpoint,” he adds. “We’ve always made it very clear that it doesn’t end — it continues, always.”

Fahmy credits AppDynamics for providing “the perfect tool” for visibility, resilience and perfecting the customer experience.

In turn, Rogers says Loblaw is a standout customer of AppDynamics. Every facet of its operations focuses on the customer experience; it uses intelligence-gathering and insights to drive its technology investments; and it serves Canadians coast to coast.

“All of us Canadians, we rely on Loblaw,” Rogers says. “It’s a really amazing story of a company that stepped up for Canada during a time of crisis.”

AppDynamics is extending support to companies with a free trial of its APM software, and one-on-one meetings with a consultant, until October 31, 2020. Visit https://www.appdynamics.com/covid-19/assist-program to get started.