Case Study

Omnicom Standardizes Integration Architecture to SnapLogic

Flywheel and Omnicom Backstory

Flywheel Digital is a Digital Commerce services provider operating in 20 countries with over 2,000 employees. 

In 2023 Flywheel was acquired by Omnicom, a leading provider of data-inspired, creative marketing and sales solutions with over 5,000 clients in more than 70 countries.

The Challenge

Flywheel and Omnicom faced considerable integration challenges tied to their organizational transitions and system needs. 

Prior to the acquisition, Flywheel’s IT team began work to integrate systems and improve data accuracy within the organization. After the acquisition, the team shifted focus, operating as part of Omnicom’s central IT team to build a unified data infrastructure for the entire Omnicom group. 

This massive undertaking faced a number of obstacles. Limited resources and a lack of unified platforms or integration standards placed additional strain on the small team, along with roadblocks like restricted access to some platforms. Legacy systems also needed significant cleanup to address incorrect usage, and knowledge gaps had arisen from staff changes over the years. The team also operated in a decentralized environment without clear authority or consistent business feedback, making discovery and prioritization especially challenging.

The Solution

Despite these barriers, the team remained focused on creating scalable solutions that would unify Omnicom’s operations. As part of this, the central team established standards across marketing, sales, and finance platforms while educating stakeholders on integration’s strategic importance, laying the foundation to overcome inefficiencies and establish a cohesive, global infrastructure.

To underpin these efforts, and after assessing the needs of the organization, SnapLogic’s Intelligent Integration Platform was selected as Omnicom’s central integration platform due to its ease of use and flexibility. Having prior experience working with SnapLogic, the team knew its low-code approach would enable fast integration pipeline creation, ensuring a low time to value.

Business Results

Adopting SnapLogic has delivered significant business results for the group, driving efficiency, standardization, and scalability. The platform’s speed and ease of use has dramatically reduced integration timelines—from months and weeks to days, or even hours. While connecting to source and target systems, testing, and requirements gathering remain the most time-intensive steps, actual builds are quick and straightforward.

Key benefits include a 75% reduction in lead to client conversion time, now accomplished in seven days or less. Additionally, SnapLogic has empowered the team with internal development capabilities, minimizing reliance on external resources. The team has also been able to standardize integration efforts across the group onto one platform, uniting what was once a fragmented approach with multiple offshore developers working in silos. This ensures consistent practices and knowledge sharing across projects.

SnapLogic has also demonstrated its adaptability to changing business needs. When Omnicom acquired a company more recently, the IT team was able to seamlessly integrate the new company into the existing ecosystem, quickly provisioning licenses and enabling them to use the platform from day one, avoiding global licensing process delays and allowing for immediate productivity. With SnapLogic, the team has established a scalable foundation for ongoing integration and standardization efforts.

Adoption

Adopting SnapLogic’s integration platform was remarkably easy and impactful, as it provided a much lower barrier to entry than other platforms, enabling faster productivity. The learning curve felt manageable, supported by effective onboarding and a user-friendly design. This ease of use allowed the team to confidently approach new challenges, knowing the platform could scale quickly to meet their evolving needs.

The reassurance provided by SnapLogic’s reliability was invaluable, particularly as the team navigated complex projects for the first time. With numerous demands requiring attention, having a dependable integration solution alleviates pressure and allows them to focus on other priorities. Knowing that SnapLogic will perform as needed when the time comes has been a significant confidence booster for the team.

Future Use Cases

In the short term, the team is continuing their efforts to integrate more and more of the Omnicom groups systems with the SnapLogic platform to ensure standardization across the groups various organizations. 

The team is also investigating the development of a commercial automation project which would automate the integration requirements of the entire Omnicom client lifecycle.