Digipal: Building a Cloud‑Native IoT Asset Tracking Platform on AWS from Day One

Digipal, a UK‑based supply chain technology company, set out to bring real‑time visibility and intelligence to reusable logistics assets using IoT‑enabled assets. Digipal partnered with BigData Boutique to design and build an end‑to‑end asset tracking and analytics system on AWS. The result was a production‑ready platform that enabled Digipal to scale to millions of tracked assets for large enterprises.

Digipal is a UK‑based innovator modernising traditional supply chains through a combination of reusable plastic pallets and real‑time digital asset tracking. Its mission is to help retailers, producers, and logistics operators reduce costs, increase operational efficiency, and lower environmental impact by replacing single‑use pallets with durable, trackable alternatives.

At the core of Digipal's offering is a circular service model built around lightweight, long‑lasting plastic pallets embedded with IoT sensors. These sensors capture data such as location, movement, and environmental conditions as assets move through the supply chain. By pairing physical infrastructure with a digital platform, Digipal gives customers continuous visibility into where assets are, how they are being used, and where losses or inefficiencies occur.

Digipal's solutions are used across a wide range of UK supply chains — including retail, fashion, parcel delivery, and logistics — supporting smarter asset management, reduced loss, and more sustainable operations.

Digipal's vision depended on IoT, but raw sensor data alone was not enough. While various technology partners could supply tracking devices and collect basic telemetry, Digipal needed a platform that could turn that data into clear, actionable insights for customers.

At the time, Digipal faced several constraints:

• A need to integrate with multiple IoT hardware and data providers
• A requirement for a customer‑facing portal that answered practical questions such as:
  • Where are my assets right now?
  • Where have they been?
  • Which assets are missing, idle, or under‑utilised?
• Strong time pressure: the ability to demonstrate a working system was directly tied to closing customer deals

Rather than coordinating multiple vendors or specialists, Digipal needed a single partner that could take responsibility for building the platform end to end.

BigData Boutique joined the project from the very beginning, acting as Digipal's primary engineering and delivery partner. In this engagement, BigData Boutique's role was not advisory or consultative — it was to design, build, and deploy a complete production system.

Platform Architecture and Delivery

BigData Boutique designed and implemented a cloud‑native platform on AWS that included:

• Data ingestion pipelines to collect and normalise IoT data from multiple hardware providers
• Post‑processing and analytics layers to enrich raw signals with business context
• A scalable backend capable of supporting real‑time and historical asset queries
• A customer‑facing portal with dashboards and analytical reports focused on asset location, movement, and utilisation

The system was deliberately designed to be hardware‑agnostic, allowing Digipal to work with different sensor vendors and deployment models without locking the platform to a single technology provider.

Acting as an Extension of the Digipal Team

Digipal's early focus was on product vision, commercial traction, and customer relationships — a deliberate choice to move fast to market. BigData Boutique stepped in as a close delivery partner, allowing Digipal to iterate based on business feedback and deploy production infrastructure on AWS without delay.

As Digipal began making its first technical hires, BigData Boutique continued to operate as a close partner, supporting delivery while helping stabilise and evolve the platform.

The collaboration enabled Digipal to move from concept to a deployable, customer‑facing product in a timeframe that would have been extremely difficult to achieve independently.

Key outcomes included:

• A fully operational asset tracking and analytics platform
• The ability to demonstrate real‑time asset visibility to prospective customers
• Support for multiple IoT technologies and deployment scenarios
• Faster deal cycles, with the platform directly enabling new commercial agreements

Most importantly, Digipal was able to bring a modern, cloud‑native product to market quickly — scaling commercially while building out its technical capabilities in parallel.

Digipal chose BigData Boutique for its ability to operate as a one‑stop engineering partner, combining cloud architecture, backend development, data processing, and product delivery within a single team.

Rather than coordinating multiple vendors or specialists, Digipal worked with a single AWS‑aligned partner capable of building and deploying a complete system end to end. This execution‑focused partnership allowed Digipal to remain focused on its core business while confidently bringing a digital asset tracking platform to market.

With the platform in production, Digipal now has a solid foundation for expanding its digital offering — adding deeper analytics, new integrations, and enhanced reporting as customer needs evolve.

BigData Boutique remains a trusted technology partner, supporting Digipal as the platform grows and the business scales.