Hornbach Baumarkt AG, one of Europe’s largest home improvement retailers, has rolled out Solace’s real-time, event-driven integration platform to modernise its technology and deliver a faster, more seamless customer experience. The move marks a significant milestone in the company’s digital transformation journey, enabling better data access and reducing time to market.
With over 170 stores across Europe, Hornbach faced increasing challenges in managing a complex web of systems while meeting fast-changing consumer expectations. Its legacy point-of-sale system was reliable but lacked the flexibility and speed needed for modern retail, particularly as demand for real-time insights and omnichannel services grew.
Building a real-time foundation
To address these challenges, Hornbach worked with Solace to deploy multiple event brokers across a poly cloud environment and its physical store network. This created an event mesh designed to unify and standardise event-driven architectures across its operations. By doing so, Hornbach has established a scalable and secure infrastructure capable of handling critical real-time data such as price updates, product information, and sales data.
This infrastructure ensures that data is instantly available wherever needed, powering services like Hornbach’s omnichannel offering and its customer app. By integrating cloud-based systems with in-store operations, the retailer has strengthened its ability to deliver smarter, faster, and more reliable customer experiences.
Carsten Müller, Vice-President of Enterprise Architecture at Hornbach, said, “Solace has been a strategic partner in helping us modernise our technology landscape with a true poly cloud capable Enterprise Event Mesh to meet the real-time demands of today’s retail environment. By moving to an event-driven architecture, we’ve gained the flexibility and speed we need to connect systems across all our stores and digital channels. This platform is enabling us to access data faster, reduce time to market and continue our commitment to driving innovation at scale.”
Driving future growth
With a real-time integration framework now in place, Hornbach is well-positioned to optimise store efficiency, adapt quickly to evolving customer needs, and accelerate its digital expansion. The company’s investment in event-driven infrastructure highlights a broader retail trend of shifting from traditional systems to more dynamic, data-led operations.
Vincent Rontani, Senior Vice-President for Europe at Solace, said, “We’re proud to support Hornbach in transforming their operations with real-time, event-driven integration. The speed and scale of this rollout is impressive and serves as a great example of how a modern integration infrastructure can fuel innovation in retail.”
By combining scalability with real-time responsiveness, Hornbach has taken an important step towards shaping the future of retail, where fast, accurate data plays a central role in both operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.
