Landmark Group

Transforming Digital Retail Experience

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Retail

Executive Summary

Led Landmark Group’s most critical digital retail initiatives, driving strategy, experience design, engagement, and technology across all brands.

The Challenge

Landmark Group faced a critical need to overhaul and centralise its digital capabilities across its brands, building a foundation for Ecommerce in a region where digital retail was still emerging.

With limited regional infrastructure and consumer familiarity with online shopping, Landmark aimed to establish an advanced Ecommerce ecosystem that could drive digital transformation across the Group and capture new market potential.

Building a Digital Competency

Landmark Group lacked a unified digital framework across its brands, leading to inconsistencies in execution and a fragmented customer experience. A comprehensive digital strategy was essential to standardise best practices across the Group and elevate its overall digital maturity.

Establishing Mobile Commerce

As mobile usage surged, particularly in the Middle East, Landmark’s digital channels needed a transformation to deliver optimised, high-quality experiences across devices. An effective mobile-first strategy was critical to engaging a mobile-centric customer base.

Ecommerce in an Emerging Market

With limited digital infrastructure and a consumer base that was still new to Ecommerce, Landmark faced the challenge of implementing a scalable online retail model. This required a major organisational shift, building digital capabilities from technology to customer support and reshaping operations to support a seamless, secure online shopping experience.

Centralising Technology & Data

To enable data-driven decision-making and streamline digital operations, Landmark required a centralised and scalable technology infrastructure. The fragmented systems in use across brands and regions needed integration into a unified data architecture to facilitate real-time insights, cross-channel analytics, and Ecommerce scalability.

Responsibilities & Impact

A customer-centric, mobile-first strategy was developed from the ground up, anchored in a scalable design system and reusable components. Under the hood, the technology stack was architected to support both Ecommerce and non-Ecommerce websites seamlessly, leveraging SAP Hybris, Oracle Warehouse Management, and Oracle Retail Merchandising to enable and maintain over 15 digital channels.

During the engagement, I was appointed as the design and experience lead, working alongside the department head to oversee and approve all user experience initiatives, ensuring alignment with the overarching digital vision.

CxO Leadership & Strategic Alignment

Collaborated with Landmark’s brand CEOs to unify digital strategies, securing buy-in for a cohesive vision and driving cross-brand alignment. This alignment accelerated decision-making, enabling smoother execution and centralising the Group’s digital competencies.

Digital Organisational Growth

Grew the digital team from 3 to 60 within 18 months, strategically hiring across key functions including design, content, technology, customer support, and product management. This rapid expansion enabled Landmark to execute its ambitious Middle Eastern digital strategy.

Design Leadership & Systemisation

Appointed experience lead to established a scalable, multilingual design system with internal teams and agencies like Huge, reducing design fragmentation by 40% and enhancing brand identity across channels. This initiative standardised design practices across all brands, supporting consistent user experiences.

Enhanced Brand Loyalty

Strengthened brand sentiment by 30% through interactive content, personalised responses, and integration with the Shukran loyalty programme. This drove long-term loyalty across Landmark Group brands, creating cohesive, personalised customer engagement.

Omnichannel & Data Retail

Developed a data-centric omnichannel strategy by integrating insights from in-store promotions, loyalty programmes, and mobile app usage. This resulted in a 40% increase in digital channel traffic, improving customer retention and lifetime value.

Technology Leadership

Led architectural decisions and coordinated in-house and external teams across frontend, backend, testing, and infrastructure, establishing a scalable tech stack to support rapid growth and seamless digital experiences.

Ecommerce Technical Architecture

Architected a centralised data model integrating SAP Hybris, Oracle Warehouse Management, Oracle Retail Merchandising, and multiple brand channels. This enabled scalable Ecommerce operations, increasing daily orders from 50 to over 35,000 and providing real-time inventory and sales insights for faster, data-backed decision-making.

Sales Funnel Optimisation

Led data-driven strategies to enhance the sales funnel, employing A/B testing and tailored customer journeys. This optimisation increased conversion rates by 28% and reduced abandonment rates, boosting engagement and customer satisfaction.

KPI & Performance Monitoring

Defined and implemented key performance indicators (KPIs), including conversion rate, Average Order Value (AOV), Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), and Return on Ad Spend (ROAS). Leveraged SEO and analytics insights to achieve a 15% increase in repeat transactions and an 18% uplift in AOV.

Responsive Experiences

Deployed a fully responsive design framework for mobile, tablet, and desktop, optimising the user journey and achieving a 35% increase in mobile engagement and a 22% improvement in session duration.

Cross-Channel Campaign Performance

Supported multi-channel marketing initiatives using insights from Google Analytics and SEO. Refined social media, email, and search strategies leading to a 30% increase in daily traffic, maximising customer acquisition and engagement through enhanced content and search visibility.

Traffic Growth & Engagement

Increased organic traffic by 45% YoY through targeted keyword strategies and technical SEO improvements. Enhanced session duration by 30% and reduced bounce rate by 20%, significantly improving user engagement.

Keyword Ranking & Optimisation

Achieved top 10 rankings for 30 competitive keywords within six months, positioning Landmark as an authority in Ecommerce, fashion, and lifestyle. This drove targeted visibility and customer acquisition across the Group’s digital properties.

Enablers

Expertise

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  • Customer Service & Support
    • Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
  • Customer-Centric Innovation
    • A/B Testing
    • Customer Journey Mapping
    • Design Systems
    • Feedback Loops
    • Interaction Design (IxD)
    • Persona Development
    • Prototyping & Wireframing
    • Responsive & Adaptive Design
    • User Research
  • Cybersecurity
    • Penetration Testing
    • Permissions & Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
    • Threat Detection & Response
    • Threat Intelligence
  • Data & Artificial Intelligence
    • Business Intelligence (BI)
    • Data Analytics & Insights
    • Data Modelling
  • Marketing & Communications
    • Content Marketing
    • Digital Marketing (SEO, Social Media, Email, PPC)
    • Market Research & Analysis
  • Operating Models & Value Orchestration
    • Agile Methodologies
    • Continuous Improvement
    • Cross-Functional Collaboration
    • Department Management
  • People & Culture
    • Line Management & Leadership Development
    • Talent Acquisition & Retention
    • Team Development & Coaching
  • Platform & Product Strategy
    • Executive/Board Stakeholder Management
    • Feature & Enabler Trees
    • Go-To-Market Strategy
    • OKR & KPI Definition
    • Product Lifecycle Management
    • Release Planning & Management
    • Strategic Roadmaps
    • Value Streams
    • Version Roadmap
  • Product Development & Delivery
    • Backlog Prioritisation
    • Cross-Functional Team Leadership
    • DevOps & CI/CD
    • Feature Prioritisation
    • Product & Agile Team Development
    • Sprint Planning & Delivery
    • User Stories & Acceptance Criteria
  • Quality Assurance
    • Quality Assurance (QA)
  • Strategy
    • Business Case Development
  • Technology & Infrastructure
    • API Management
    • Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery
    • Cloud Strategy & Management
    • Technical Architecture & System Design

Technologies

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  • Commerce & Payment Platforms
    • SAP Hybris
  • Data & Analytics
    • Google Analytics
    • Google Tag Manager
  • Design & User Experience
    • Adobe Photoshop
    • InvisionApp
  • DevOps & Site Reliability
    • GitHub
  • Digital Experience Platforms & CMS
    • WordPress
  • Digital Marketing & Customer Engagement
    • Hootsuite
    • Mailchimp
    • Sprout Social
  • Front-End Development
    • CSS
    • HTML
    • JavaScript
  • Project & Product Management
    • Atlassian Confluence
    • Atlassian Jira
  • Strategy & Business Planning
    • Microsoft Excel
    • Microsoft PowerPoint
    • Microsoft Word

Results & Outcome

This engagement established a scalable and centralised digital competency for Landmark Group, setting new benchmarks in a region where digital, mobile, and Ecommerce were still in their infancy. The Digital Team’s collective efforts significantly enhanced capabilities across all channels, improving digital engagement, strengthening customer loyalty, and positioning the Group for sustained growth in an increasingly digital world.

Receiving the first Ecommerce order symbolised a pivotal milestone, showcasing Landmark Group’s readiness to compete and thrive in digital retail.

Retail