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TESS modernises the industry through its own digital commerce platform

How do you achieve real modernisation in an industry that for decades has been governed by heavy systems, complex processes, and standardised IT solutions? For TESS, the answer was to rethink technology, organisation, and digital commerce from the ground up.

About TESS

TESS is a full-service supplier of equipment, tools, and machinery for the construction industry, public sector, and oil and gas industry. With annual revenue of NOK 4.7 billion and 1,200 employees across Norwegian and international subsidiaries, TESS wanted to lay the foundation for growth and innovation while reducing costs. Combining innovation with cost efficiency led to the conclusion that cloud-based solutions were the way forward—but the starting point was increasing technical debt. The need to migrate to the cloud became clear in order to support their ambitions.

The assignment

Itera has assisted TESS in developing a new digital commerce platform that provides customers with a simpler, faster, and more accurate purchasing experience. Perhaps even more importantly, the project has become a key driver of cultural change, skills development, and innovation capacity within the industry.

An industry in need of modernisation

TESS is one of the largest industrial players in the Nordics within operations and maintenance solutions. In a market characterised by large datasets, customer-specific agreements, and continuous logistics, digitalisation has traditionally been difficult to fully leverage.

In the industrial segment, it is common to purchase off-the-shelf e-commerce solutions, search platforms, and pricing engines. These work well in more standardised industries, but in TESS’s case, they created challenges:

  • Customer-specific pricing and assortments
  • Warehouse-specific data per location
  • Integration with existing ERP and logistics systems
  • A strong need for stability, traceability, and precision

Standard solutions would have meant compromises for both customers and operations.

This became the starting point for a key technological decision: to build the core of the commerce platform in-house.

A strategic technology choice: simple, modern, and powerful

While many industrial companies choose multiple heavy systems connected together, TESS chose the opposite approach: simplification.

Core functions such as search and pricing logic are built directly on PostgreSQL. No separate search engines, rule engines, or middleware layers.

This gives TESS:

  • High performance, even for complex queries
  • Reduced technical debt with fewer systems and less complexity
  • Full control over business logic and user-centred needs
  • Greater flexibility for iterative development
  • Better data consistency and traceability
Mathias Ghinaglia Heggestad (1)

– We built what we actually needed, not what the market expected us to buy.

Mathias Heggestad

Head of IT Development, TESS

We built what we actually needed, not what the market expected us to buy.

Mathias Heggestad, Head of IT Development, TESS

A nine-month hackathon culture

One of the keys to success was how the team worked. TESS established a new development department, and together with Itera built a small, cross-functional team, many of whom were junior developers or students. The traditional belief that industrial digitalisation requires large teams and heavy processes was challenged from day one.

The way of working can be summarised as:

  • Small, autonomous teams
  • High degree of freedom and responsibility
  • Direct and continuous customer dialogue
  • Rapid experimentation and iteration
  • Minimal bureaucracy, maximum energy

The team describes the period as “a nine-month hackathon.” It created space for creativity, speed, and problem-solving in a way typically seen in startup environments. Junior developers were not just included, they were crucial to the outcome.

The result: a quantum leap for both customers and the organisation

The new platform has delivered clear impact, both externally and internally.

Customers describe the solution as a quantum leap from previous systems, highlighting:

  • More precise and intuitive search
  • A purchasing experience on par with modern B2C solutions
  • Faster response times and better stability
  • Easier overview of pricing, availability, and assortments

For an industrial company, this represents a significant upgrade to the customer experience and a clear competitive advantage.

Internally, the impact has been just as significant:

  • The platform has replaced manual catalogues and legacy workflows
  • Pride and ownership within the development team have increased
  • The project has marked a cultural turning point in the digitalisation journey
  • It has strengthened the organisation’s overall ability to modernise

Digitalisation was not just about technology;  it became a driver of collaboration, momentum, and new confidence.

UX as a driver of direction and value

Itera complemented TESS’ strong development team with insights, UX expertise, and structure where additional capacity or cross-disciplinary support was needed. Through user interviews, workshops, and prototype testing, we identified where customers encountered friction, where processes took too long, and what needed simplification.

This led to clear priorities: steps that could be removed, features that could be simplified, and areas requiring clearer structure. The result was fewer clarifications and solutions that delivered value earlier.

We have worked across the entire ecosystem, from e-commerce and customer web to mobile applications, to ensure a cohesive experience.

We have also used AI in the process. It has supported insights, design, and UX writing, and enabled the automation of around 20,000 product descriptions based on real customer needs. This has improved data quality and made product information more precise, especially for customers with complex ordering requirements.

Together, TESS and Itera have developed a platform that is grounded in TESS’ domain expertise and enhanced through insight, simplification, and strong user experiences.

When in-house development is the right choice

Make-vs-buy decisions are part of everyday life in modern IT environments. But in industry, they arise less often, and rarely with the same impact as in this case.

This project demonstrates that:

  • In-house development provides control when complexity is high
  • Technical precision can be a competitive advantage
  • Modernisation can be built by small teams with the right culture
  • Standard solutions are not necessarily standard for everyone

With this project, TESS has shown that the industry does not need to be slower, heavier, or more complex than other sectors. With the right priorities, even an established player can take bold steps, and succeed.

Let's talk about data and innovation

Let's talk about data and innovation
Vishal Kaura-4
Head of AI & Analytics

Vishal Kaura