Fueling Growth and Speed for Lids With Enterprise Cloud Transformation

Our work quickly grew beyond the initial cloud integration. Over time, successful deliveries opened doors with different teams at Lids—soon we were partnering with IT, Merchandising, Accounting, and Marketing. SEP assembled multiple teams to build cloud-native integrations, centralize inventory data, and streamline processes to power Lids’ business forward.

Now, let’s review the phases that defined our partnership and drove real impact for Lids—

Architecture Review & Proof of Concept

Our strategy and innovation leaders helped the Lids team with Azure infrastructure architecture. They needed to solve their integration challenges with Dynamics 365 and create a streamlined, cloud-first infrastructure. We turned that plan into a prototype with cloud automations handling core tasks and messaging for reliable data flow.

Building the Azure Integration Hub

Next we built an Azure integration hub, a cloud platform that could be reused for future projects. We shifted key business tasks like checking orders and tracking inventory into cloud automations. We created scripts that clean up data, convert currencies, and automatically load records. Every action was logged, providing full transparency and enabling the team to quickly track issues and implement fixes.

It was a diverse project, so there were challenges, but they were handled very well from the SEP side. The professionalism and expertise of that team were outstanding—I’ve never experienced anything like it.

– Ben Clifford, Software Developer, Lids

European Football Club Integration

To further support a time-sensitive soccer club contract, we established a nightly transfer system to deliver the club’s latest merchandise list every morning. Behind the scenes, our team built an automated process to match each item’s code, size, and price—handling foreign-currency conversions with current exchange rates and looking up vendor-specific reference data. We tuned the pipeline and added robust error-handling mechanisms in production to catch and correct issues on the fly.

We delivered the integrations in time to meet contract requirements, allowing them to deliver on time.

Stadium-Line Web App

We learned that game days at the stadium often meant fans standing in long lines and missing the action in order to grab a jersey. To solve that, we launched a Shopify-based web app so fans could simply scan a QR code, order gear directly from their phones, and quickly pay and pick up their items, avoiding long lines for merchandise.

The app seamlessly triggered cloud automations with each Shopify order in Dynamics 365. A real-time dashboard provided stadium staff with crucial insights into order volume and fulfillment status, ensuring the visibility they needed to keep lines moving and fans cheering throughout the game.

You’re really good at hitting your timelines and quickly fixing any issues. My team never needs to follow up to get status from SEP.

– Alán Nazhat, CIO/CTO, Lids

Excel Ordering Tool Automation

As our partnership progressed, we learned that Lids tracked in-store inventory for campus bookstores in Excel spreadsheets. Handling orders manually often led to unintended errors and delays, making daily operations more difficult than they needed to be. By automating the transfer of Excel data into the Azure integration hub, we improved data quality and accuracy. In tandem, a UI tool streamlined the error handling process, minimizing delays in the order pipeline.