How Daikin Philippines Built an Advanced E-commerce Platform in 6 Weeks using Xamun

Siddharth Wadehra
January 16, 2023

Daikin Industries, with its headquarters in Osaka, Japan, is the world’s leading manufacturer of air conditioning and refrigeration units.  The company today boasts of widespread global operations with regional teams and offices in China, Australia, the United States, India, Southeast Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa apart from its presence in Japan. Daikin is known to be a prolific innovator in the space and has made the first split and multi-split air conditioners, which has catapulted the brand and the products into a is a market leader globally.

The advent of the pandemic and the rapidly evolving customer expectations posed innumerable challenges to the growth ambitions of the organization. With limited accessibility due to lockdowns imposed by the government to control the spread of the coronavirus, Daikin Philippines wanted to provide their customers with an opportunity to purchase their favorite Daikin products and interact with the brand in an efficient and seamless manner. However, the unique nature of the business ensured that the requirements were not that of yet another E-commerce store. They were unique – the needs of the large number of partners associated with the company needed to be considered. Moreover, unlike buying a t-shirt or a pair of shoes from your local e-commerce store, the high-value items sold by Daikin needed to be more interactive and educational. They needed the solution to their unique custom requirements ready for deployment in weeks, which made ground-up custom software development ideal for their go-to-market requirements, unsustainable.

Key Pain Points and Issues

The changes in the market needed the team at Daikin Philippines to take swift action. They needed a technology platform suited to their unique needs; however, none of the off-the-shelf- solutions would meet their requirements. The unique needs were more suited to ground-up custom development, but that would not only be risky, but the company did not have the capabilities to build the solution in-house. Not to mention, hiring developers and project managers for custom development would be time-consuming and Daikin needed to go live within the next 6-8 weeks to not lose momentum.

Specifically, Daikin Philippines had the following unique challenges for which they needed solutions:

  • Functionality: The features that the team had envisioned for their E-Commerce could possibly not be provided by the current off-the-shelf solutions. This included creating a marketplace for all the partner stores.
  • Design: The user interface and the experience that Daikin Philippines wanted to provide all its customers would not be possible with any off-the-shelf solution available in the marketplace.
  • Automated payments: Daikin Philippines did not want the headache of processing payments for all partners and wanted it to be automated and hassle-free.
  • Advanced feature requirements:  They wanted to include advanced features such as virtual tours within the platform so that the platform could be more interactive and educational
  • Aggressive timelines: Daikin Philippines had an urgency in terms of the deployment and roll-out. Rather than in months, they wanted everything done within weeks.
  • Partner sub-brands: They also wanted specific partners to have their own site and their own store virtual tours to encourage store visits.

After a careful analysis of the options available in the marketplace, Daikin Philippines discussed with Xamun whether the automated development approach might help Daikin with its unique requirements and decided to proceed with the same.

Software 2.0: Using Automated Software Development to Launch Market-Ready Solutions in Weeks

The results of the engagement were beyond expectations. Xamun was able to meet the deadline in terms of development. Rapid advancements in AI, automation and the effective use of open-source libraries have empowered automated software development platforms like Xamun to build fully functional, high-quality platforms or applications at record speeds. Xamun was able to meet the stringent go-to-market deadline allowing Daikin Philippines to focus less on the nitty-gritty of building the software application and delivering unbeatable business value to all its key stakeholders – partners and customers. The co-creation approach of Xamun ensured that they brought in critical knowledge of external third-party solutions and their integration with the core platform to meet the technical requirements. These included Photosphere, a technology used for virtual tours, and Paydynamics, which was able to solve the pain points around payment processing.

Automated software development platforms like Xamun will help you create the basic structure of your software instantaneously, so you can focus on customization and fine-tuning. Automated software development platforms are NOT low-code platforms, its visual development platforms powered by automation. It also allows for complete code ownership – with automated development, the code belongs to the client, and they are free to undertake any modifications or changes as and when they deem appropriate. Additionally, the upfront cost for automated development is typically lower than the costs the client might incur if the application is custom developed. This is primarily because of the fact that it's expanding or building on an existing tech stack to which developers could make modifications. Moreover, the co-creation process ensures that the client is involved in all the phases of development, namely Scope-Build-Deploy.

Xamun: Custom App Development Made Modern and Easy through Automation

Software development is on the edge of a revolution. Advancements in AI and automation are redefining how software is built and deployed. Automated software development could be the ideal option for companies looking to fast-track digital transformation. Companies can look to launch applications in a matter of weeks and look to improve the customer experience without burning a hole in the pocket. A fully functional software application ready to launch in 6-weeks without any of the risks, timelines, or associated costs of building software applications.

The Daikin case study just goes on to elucidate the potential benefits of Automated Software development, listed below:

  • Lower risk for greater success- Xamun minimizes your project’s risk areas: cost, quality, scope creep, business continuity, and schedule.
  • 70% faster app build- Launching as soon as possible is critical for your business. Get faster time to market vs. building everything from scratch.
  • 30% cheaper than outsourcing- Not all software projects need hiring an outsourced team. Have your app built at a lower cost, but the same quality.

Furthermore, you would have access to a well-documented and human-readable source code output, which would be easy to work with ensuring that enhanced or new features could be added easily. Xamun also does not have any hidden fees – unlike most SaaS-based low-code platforms, one would not need to pay a recurring fee to use any software application built on top of the platform.

Xamun allows you to focus less on building software and more on delivering unbeatable business value. Get in touch with one of our digital transformation evangelists HERE to kickstart your journey toward the digital future.

About Xamun
Xamun revolutionizes software development with AI, unlocking innovations that have been long shelved or even forgotten. It empowers product owners, and startup founders to bridge the gap between business and software engineering to create top-notch cloud software within weeks.

​Xamun mitigates development risks, providing cost savings versus full-code outsourcing. It’s a potent no-code/low-code alternative, offering rapid customization and full source code ownership, free from recurring subscription fees.

Developed by BlastAsia, a major player since 2001, renowned for software engineering in the Philippines.