JABS Hero 1

JABS Group

When we set out with JABS Group to modernise a central part of the commerce platform, the project was deliberately limited in scope. But a new way of developing software changed what could be achieved within the same financial framework.

JABS raised the bar without increasing the budget

JABS Group is Europe's largest manufacturer of windows and doors sold directly to consumers online. With more than 700 employees, a digital business spanning several European markets and online sales as a central part of the business model, the ability to continuously turn new needs into digital solutions is essential. An important part of the customer experience is JABS' product configurator. Here, customers put together windows and doors based on measurements, materials, glazing, colours, fittings and a wide range of product-specific options. The choices affect one another, while product rules, pricing and delivery have to be handled along the way.

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"For us, it's a strategic turning point that we can more than triple our development capacity on the same budget. We won't treat that as a future saving – instead, it means we pick up the pace. So we're always well ahead of our competitors on functionality and user experience."

Medarbejder

Thomas Hasse

Commercial Director at JABS Group

A complex foundation set the limits

The existing Magento solution had been developed over around ten years. Functionality, product data and business rules had become tightly interwoven, which made it complex to develop the solution further and support new stores and markets. JABS and Novicell therefore drew up a plan to gradually move the platform towards a composable architecture, where product data, the configurator and pricing logic, among other things, could be given clearer areas of responsibility outside Magento. The project budget was fixed, so the original scope was deliberately pragmatic: reuse the existing frontend, build the necessary services around the configurator, and save larger improvements for later.

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When capacity changed, so did the ambition

During the project, Novicell adopted an agentic development model, where specialised AI agents handle larger parts of implementation, testing and code review within defined technical boundaries.

It doesn't reduce the need for experienced developers. It shifts their focus.
People are still responsible for understanding JABS' business needs, defining the desired outcome, making architectural decisions and assessing quality and risk. The agents carry out a larger share of the work between intention and review, while release, infrastructure and critical decisions remain under human control.

As the implementation itself required less human capacity, the team could start revisiting the original plan.

The question was no longer just: What can we achieve within the budget?
But to a greater extent: How would we build the right solution if the traditional constraints mattered less?

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Novicell Agent Infrastructure

"We haven't just moved ten years of complexity into a new architecture – we've used the project to rethink our data, workflows and business rules.

By making the complexity visible, we've been able to take an active stance on what creates value. The result is a more transparent and flexible platform, where new needs can more easily be turned into improvements for both customers and colleagues."

Medarbejder

Betina Jensen

Product Owner at JABS Group

What the increased development capacity made possible

A new configurator instead of reuse

The original plan was to reuse the existing frontend. Instead, it became possible to develop a new, tailor-made configurator built around JABS' current needs rather than the limitations of the existing solution.
From three services to more than ten

The platform grew from around three originally planned services to more than ten with greater functionality and depth, still within the same project budget.
Permanent solutions instead of interim steps

Google Merchant feeds were originally meant to stay in Magento via a temporary integration. As the permanent service could be built with roughly the same human effort, it was instead established directly in the new composable platform.
More improvements could be brought forward

The expanded scope also made it possible to include Fast Track functionality, seller surcharges, delivery-related services and a separate service for starting prices, among other things.

From development capacity to greater agility

For JABS, the key effect isn't just that development can move faster. The change in development capacity made it possible to spend the same budget on a more ambitious solution and reconsider functionality that would otherwise simply have been carried over or postponed until later. It also changed the collaboration. New needs that arose during the work on data and rollout could more readily be turned directly into improvements instead of automatically ending up in a later backlog. The result is therefore not just more functionality. It's a platform where an extensive modernisation was used as an opportunity to rethink how JABS' digital business is best supported going forward. A project that began as a relatively contained modernisation could thus develop into a more complete solution with a wider reach than first planned.

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