HomeRetail & commerceCase study · T-001

Sainsbury's: legacy-to-new systems bridge for a FTSE 100 grocer.

Sainsbury's, the FTSE 100 grocery retailer, was caught between three generations of technology: older, inflexible legacy systems, rigid vendor solutions that couldn't be bent to fit, and new systems still being built. Enigmatix engineered the bridging software that made these complex interactions work — the unglamorous connective tissue inside mission-critical retail systems. The brief was explicitly interim: the software needed to last 12 to 18 months while replacements landed. It was still in active production five years after it was written, inside mission-critical systems — a verdict Fraser Pearce, Senior Engineering Manager at Sainsbury's, summarised as software that "stood up well". Interim code that outlives its replacement plan by a factor of three is the quietest kind of engineering proof.

Web app

Selected clients since 2008
Power to LiveRBM GlobalDragonflySquiblerMOOSainsbury'sMPCX-LinkPower to LiveRBM GlobalDragonflySquiblerMOOSainsbury'sMPCX-LinkPower to LiveRBM GlobalDragonflySquiblerMOOSainsbury'sMPCX-Link

What the numbers said.

Every engagement ships with a named set of measurable outcomes. These are the numbers that mattered for this one.

5 yrs
in production past a 12–18 month interim scope
3×
outlived its planned lifespan

What it was built with.

The exact tools in the delivered system. We pick the stack to fit the problem and the team, not the trend cycle.

Systems integration
Legacy modernisation
REST APIs

Where AI fits in retail & commerce.

Search that understands what shoppers mean, product copy and imagery generated against your brand rules, and support assistants that check order status before they answer.

Explore AI development
“Enigmatix Global did some great work for Sainsbury's, bridging complex interactions between some older less flexible systems, some rigid vendor solutions and the new systems we were building. The software Enigmatix Global developers wrote stood up well, long beyond the interim scope of it needing to work for 12 to 18 months, and was still in active use 5 years after its creation, since it was part of mission-critical systems.”
Fraser PearceSenior Engineering Manager, Sainsbury's

Questions about this build.

Still wondering something? Ask an engineer

  • It was engineered to production standard regardless of the 12–18 month brief — clean interfaces to legacy, vendor and new systems meant nothing forced its retirement.

Let's build from here.

Thirty minutes with an engineer who builds. No sales, no drip campaign. If we're the wrong fit we'll tell you and point you somewhere better.

Response
Within one working day
Minimum
Two-week discovery