Normal modernizes retail operations and accelerates AI innovation

Challenge

Equipping in-store staff for a human-centric retail experience

If you've strolled around Western or Northern European cities, chances are you've bumped into a Normal store. In less than three years, the Danish company grew from 551 to over 1,000 stores across 12 countries—the equivalent of a new store every 38 hours.

"Despite our growth, we pride ourselves on preserving our unique treasure hunt spirit in our in-store experience," Line Bæk Brorson, IT Business Manager, explained. "While other retailers are closing physical branches and moving online, we're opening more stores and investing in technology to support our staff."

The real technology challenge of this rapid expansion was deploying new in-store solutions without slowing or blocking the business growth strategy.

"In retail, things change quickly. We wanted the flexibility to respond fast, pivot when circumstances change, and refocus our efforts where they create the most value," Line explained.

One critical area was the back-office operations. Staff relied on a mobile app to manage daily tasks, but the software had reached its limit and employees spent too much time behind a computer instead of on the floor with customers.

"We have a relatively small IT department, but we knew we wanted to build something custom that truly matched our DNA and business needs," Line added.

Solution

One mobile app to manage multiple critical daily operations

Normal's senior management team set out to find the right development platform. Several requirements were critical: the platform had to integrate with Microsoft Business Central, Normal's core ERP, and support a fast time-to-market. For the latter, high-code was not an option.

"We chose OutSystems because of the agility and flexibility to build and test a concept in a matter of hours, which would be unthinkable in high-code," Thomas Eldrup, Solution Architect, said. "And because OutSystems is constantly releasing new features, we can always keep pace with the latest technology and follow the market."

With the support from Devoteam, the team built the "Store App", an intuitive mobile app that lets employees find items, track expiry dates, count stock, print shelf labels, manage store opening hours, and much more. Available in 12 languages and used by over 12,000 employees in 12 countries, it manages 95% of daily store operations.

Launching new AI agents in hours

Normal has delivered nine applications with OutSystems, including an intelligence center app, an RPA management tool, a warehouse robot management solution, and a platform operations tool. This portfolio has earned consistent praise from the company’s executives.

So, when the opportunity arose to integrate agentic AI into the company’s culture, Normal became an early adopter of OutSystems Agent Workbench.

"Many businesses use agentic AI to automate everything in the stores and reduce headcount. That is not our aim," Thomas explained. "We view AI as a way to work in the background to support our staff—easing their daily routines, counts, and operations—rather than replacing human interaction with the customer."

That philosophy was immediately put to the test. Thomas had been struggling with an AI agent to facilitate communications across the several countries where Normal operates. With OutSystems, he had a working translation agent in one hour.

He quickly moved to the next opportunity: invoice processing. Normal’s B2B customers had to submit receipt images that the finance team then had to process manually. This workflow could take several days. Now, the invoice agent extracts structured data from those images, automatically reconciles it with the ERP via UiPath, and provides customers with an immediate response.

Results

Faster ideas, zero disruption

The impact of the "Store App" was immediate. Updating shelf labels, a task that once took 10 minutes, now takes 8 seconds. The app also integrates with each country's ERP databases and 4,000+ hand terminals, syncing millions of data points in just 15 minutes, down from 8 hours with the previous system. Devoteam's expertise proved vital here, as it helped the IT team solve a complex integration challenge.

"The greatest advantage of the 'Store App' is that we can handle many different functionalities and system integrations in just one platform," Thomas shared.

As for the new AI agents built on OutSystems, they have made day-to-day operations more efficient. The invoice agent alone transformed receipt processing from a heavy manual task into a seamless, automated flow, freeing up the finance team and providing customers with real-time feedback.

"The finance team manages around 300 of these cases per month. This new agent removed significant manual work, freeing up staff for more value-add tasks," Line added. "It's a win-win for both the customer and the back-office."

Since the launch of the first translation agent, Normal has delivered five more AI agents, including a chatbot, a shelf label extractor, and a Product Operation Model.

From an IT perspective, the business IT team can now move from idea to live product faster than ever.

Normal is now planning new apps and agents, including a unified internal workspace portal and a communication agent to automatically route support tickets and emails to the correct departments.