M&S logo

Not just any supplier platform.

M&S Food Technical Centre needed a new system to replace their older one and manage their work with suppliers and auditors. M&S Connect brought documents, audits, benchmarking and reporting into one platform, and M&S extended it for nearly ten years.

Client
M&S Food Technical Centre
Sector
Food retail
Services
Discovery workshops, content strategy, design prototypes, data migration, Drupal web application build, hosting, support
Engagement
August 2014 to launch in July 2015, then extended and supported until March 2025
A plate of salad, eggs and avocado on a wooden table.
6
applications in one platform, from documents to benchmarking
3
user groups adopted it: M&S teams, auditors and suppliers

A critical system to replace.

M&S Food Technical Centre needed new software to replace their older system and support their work with suppliers and auditors.

M&S had worked with Pivale before and asked for a new, critical piece of software. It had to hold a document library personalised to each supplier's requirements, a database of organisations, users, roles and permissions, and form workflows with task follow-up.

M&S also needed audit controls generated for each supplier, nutritional benchmarking against competitors' products, and dashboards with on-screen reports and Excel exports. The old system's raw data also had to move into the new one.

A clear interface over complex workflows.

The M&S Connect document store page on an Apple MacBook.
★★★★★
“Connect has been a great success. It is software that is intuitive with clear codes of practice... and it affords us better management of our contact lists with clarity on when updates take place as emails go directly to suppliers.”
Claire Hughes with a gentle smile and a short bob with a side fringe, wearing a scoop-neck top.
Claire Hughes
Head of Central Technology, M&S

Built to keep growing.

  1. 1

    Adopted across the supply chain

    Internal and external auditors, food technologists and supply partners have all adopted Connect.

  2. 2

    Clear contact management

    M&S knows when updates happen, because emails go straight to suppliers.

  3. 3

    Data carried across

    Pivale wrote algorithms to move the old system's raw data into Connect's new structures.

  4. 4

    Room to extend

    M&S added new functionality as their operations changed, with no visual disruption or extra design work, until March 2025.

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