'The Adaptors' Win PromoStandards’ First-Ever Hack-A-Thon

Brikl, a powerful technology that helps distributors, dealers, promotional businesses and suppliers set up online stores and sell, has won PromoStandards’ first-ever Hack-A-Thon.

The PromoStandards Technology Summit is the premier promotional products technology event. Its Hack-A-Thon featured groups of cross-functional teams working together in a first-of-its-kind PromoStandards challenge. 'The Adaptors,' consisting of five Brikl employees, teamed up with Lisa Hubbard, vice president of sales and marketing at The Vernon Company, to create solutions for real-world industry challenges.

‘The Adaptors,’ a team made up of five Brikl employees, partnered with Lisa Hubbard, vice president of sales and marketing at The Vernon Company, to take first place at PromoStandards’ first Hack-A-Thon.

“I was incredibly excited to be able to participate in this event and contribute my insights,” said Hubbard. “I’m not a tech person or a developer, but I am passionate about making processes and experiences better for our users and customers.

“To see the passion of all the teams while breaking down the competitive barriers to make a better tomorrow for our industry was incredible to see,” she continued. “It’s critical that we lean into technology to help us scale our businesses. Those that don’t will struggle. The brilliance that I was surrounded by during the hackathon just simply had me in awe. I was proud to be a part of this great event and a truly fantastic team!”

The Adaptors, a name chosen to reflect how the team’s solution would act as a ‘universal plug’ for the industry, sought to design an integration with PromoStandards. The challenge lay in websites and platforms being able to integrate effectively with PromoStandards due to its use of SOAP technology, API design and API documentation.

This blocks businesses in the industry from integrating as they often use outdated systems within a legacy infrastructure. Workflows are inefficient due to the multiple software tools involved, and the APIs to search and synchronize data are not fast enough.

The winning entry from The Adaptors posited a working demo that showed the panel how it’s possible to integrate with PromoStandards in 90 seconds, complement e-commerce sites, platforms, and ERPs, and give users the ability to search products, refresh inventory, and submit POs in milliseconds.

“It was an amazing experience to be able to combine Lisa’s deep understanding of industry friction points with Brikl’s expertise in GraphQL technologies to find a problem-solution fit in this hackathon,” said Phoomparin Mano, Brikl’s vice president of engineering and The Adaptors’ team leader. “We’ve adopted GraphQL as it is specifically designed for integrating with multiple PromoStandards services at once, not because it is a newer technology. With the PromoStandards committee being so open to change, as indicated by this hackathon, we can eliminate the friction of integrating with suppliers and decorators, making it inclusive and accessible to everyone — from small businesses to enterprises. I believe that the Brikl engineering team has the potential and expertise to contribute to this unique movement of open technology and implementation accessibility.”

“Brikl’s winning entry reflects how we have the brightest and most creative minds on our staff,” said Jason Reinhardt, chief commercial officer for Brikl. “The industry has relied on legacy technology for far too long and has rested on its laurels when it comes to automation. Our solution showed the industry how critical it is to look at creating efficiencies for their businesses, not just today, but into the future. From being able to plug into ERPs to pulling inventory at warp speed, our winning entry shows that the solutions to long-held pain points aren’t just something people can dream about, but utilize today through Brikl’s technology and talent. I couldn’t be prouder of my team!”

Source: Brikl

The preceding press release was provided by a company unaffiliated with Print+Promo. The views expressed within do not directly reflect the thoughts or opinions of Print+Promo.