Central Retail Streamlines Tech Stack and Optimizes Customer Messaging in Record Time

Thai multi-billion dollar conglomerate Central Retail has experienced massive growth since its humble origins as a 1950s neighborhood grocery store founded by Mr. Tiang Chirathivat. Today, Central Retail’s portfolio spans a wide range of industries, including major brands in retail, real estate development, hospitality, and food and beverage. They aim to be at the “center of life” for Thai customers and their global audiences, able to meet the needs of today’s society and to develop new products for the future.

Central Retail engages its diverse audience—ranging from customers of brands like Guess, MLB, Wrangler, Crocs, to those of Central-branded businesses— through cross-channel campaigns that leverage email and push notifications, strategically timed to key customer moments.At the core of Central’s success is customer engagement, a value Mr. Chirathivat instilled early on, starting with his personal commitment to stellar service and innovative marketing in his family’s shop. This focus on customer-first experience laid the groundwork for the brand’s lasting legacy.

The Countdown Begins: Reducing Complexity Across 7 Business Units in Under 2 Months

Central Retail suffered from a common issue shared by many fast-growing businesses: Their tech stack simply hadn’t scaled at the same pace. In a span of four years, the team had added headcount, multiple business units, and an additional 150 automations to their marketing outreach. It was time to move off their previous provider. Central needed a solution that provided excellent migration support with little downtime, prioritized complex integrations and campaign customization, and did it all while streamlining data resources and maximizing efficiency.

That’s where Braze stepped in. Central Retail had a tight timeline for their transition—a whirlwind 1.5 months to migrate all 7 BUs and their 250 relevant campaigns. Central partnered directly with the Braze Onboarding Team to create a rigorous project plan with clear task ownership and weekly follow-ups.

In teaming up with Braze, Central Retail hoped to:

• Migrate to a less-complex tech stack in less than 60 days
• Improve customer experience via a cohesive customer journey
• Employ a unified cross-channel approach, focusing on retargeting and win-back efforts
• Create a 360-consumer view across platforms (social and in-app)
• Enable real-time personalization and segmentation
• Power targeted campaigns via loyalty program data

Some key actions between Braze and Central Retail that led to their results:

• Outlining all use cases and data requirements early in the process
• Partnering on 10+ onboarding sessions and training plans customized to each team
• Establishing a prioritization matrix for all 250 campaigns to triage setup
• Leaning on the Braze Onboarding Team’s technical solution recommendations
• Creating an internal migration team to synchronize implementation efforts
• Driving internal self-sufficiency and competency by completing Braze Learning Courses
• Communicating clearly to all affected employees during the migration process
• Optimizing brand messaging via Braze Canvas

To kick off the work together, the Braze team spoke with key stakeholders to better understand Central Retail’s goals, use cases, and data needs. This turned out to be a critical first step, helping set the stage for a more detailed plan with clear milestones. It took about two weeks to sketch out the onboarding scope, and then the team was ready to agree on key deadlines.

Once everyone was on the same page, the Braze Onboarding Team suggested a phased rollout plan with milestones and deadlines to manage the project’s complexity and speed. They created a prioritization matrix to evaluate all 250 campaigns, assigning importance to each based on key deliverables. This way, no content was missed or overlooked during the implementation.

Central’s team also had objectives around content quality. To support adoption and train teams on how to target specific audiences with Braze, the Onboarding Team put together more than 10 tailored training sessions, customizing the content for each group based on what they needed. The same team also led discovery sessions to provide personalized technical recommendations to achieve a seamless integration architecture.

Central Retail didn’t just rely on the Braze Onboarding Team for support— they also dedicated internal resources to drive the migration forward. They set up a Center of Excellence (COE) to simplify coordination and project management across their business units. This group played a key role in helping internal teams by providing documentation and workflows, ensuring implementation ran smoothly and without delays. Communication was key, with leaders at all levels staying connected, although a select group of senior executives formed a steering committee to speed up decision-making across the organization.

To further support the transition, Central employees were encouraged to supplement their tailored onboarding sessions by taking advantage of Braze Learning Courses and certifications. With these extra resources, the core quickly built expertise, driving self-sufficiency and mastery of the Braze platform.

By the end of 50 days, all BUs had been migrated and successfully launched their first campaigns. Almost 98 million messages had arrived in customer inboxes. These campaigns reflected more customer data than ever before, powered by a leaner tech stack—all in the span of less than two months. Even with an aggressive deadline, Central Retail had beat their own clock.

“The level of collaboration we experienced with Braze was exceptional; they truly understood our goals and tailored their onboarding process to meet our unique needs.”

Muhammad Nauraiz Kharal

Group Head of CRM, Central Retail

More Customer Insights, Less Legacy Tech Stack

Central Retail’s success is a direct result of their commitment to the migration partnership with Braze and the careful planning by both teams. Thanks to their thorough implementation, Central’s marketing teams now have access to valuable customer insights, enabling them to send millions of messages and run dozens of Canvases each week tailored to each brand’s unique goals.

Key Takeaways

1. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Central Retail reduced their tech stack’s overall complexity by first planning how they would tackle each facet of the migration, adding temporary bulk to an already difficult problem set. Thoroughness in planning built the runway that allowed their efforts to pick up speed during the migration process.
2. Aggressive timelines are possible with enough dedicated resources. You can accelerate any project timeline by partnering with experts, allocating resources to the people that need it most, and having carved out time for planning your next moves.
   

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