36 CASESTUDY
IT OUTSOURCING SUITS LINGERIE RETAILER
Fashion-conscious lingerie brand owner, Eveden has outsourced IT to one supplier for economies of scale in support of growth initiatives
To do business effectively on a global scale, we needed to streamline the management of our entire IT estate. We realised the huge benefi ts that we would reap by outsourcing much of this
E
veden is a retailer and manufacturer of fashion- conscious lingerie and swimwear brands including Fantasie, Freya, Fauve, Elomi and
Goddess. In April 2009, the Huit brand was added to this portfolio following Eveden’s acquisition of the French lingerie and swimwear brand. Eveden’s products are stocked in over 5,000 national, independent and online stores in more than 30 countries, and it employs 465 people worldwide. Eveden wanted to establish an outsourced
partnership with a single company, negating the need for the IT team to deal with multiple specialist suppliers. It worked to establish this with Servo, which had initially supplied the company with a break-fi x service.
Bill Phelan, head of group IT for Eveden, explained:
“To do business effectively on a global scale, we needed to streamline the management of our entire IT estate. We realised the huge benefi ts that we would reap by outsourcing much of this, but most importantly we wanted to ensure that whoever we chose would become an extension of our in-house team. “We also wanted to benefi t from the economies of scale of working with one supplier that could
deliver the full remit of our IT needs. The team and I now only need to deal with two people at Servo – our service and account manager – to sort out a raft of IT issues. If we’d gone the multiple company route, most of our time would be spent managing them, rather than working on the future direction of our IT strategy.” Eveden is also deploying a global enterprise resource system (ERP) system for effective supply chain control. This ensures effi cient stock management so that the right lines in the correct size are available for customers. Servo designed the infrastructure for the roll out of the Citrix network that allows remote sites to access the system. New store IT delivery is also outsourced to
Servo, which has designed a template for standard implementation of communications and computing networks. This template approach means that installation can be completed quickly to minimise time to market for new store openings. It also means that cost for IT implementations is fi xed, which allows Eveden to forecast more effectively. Eveden also relies on Servo’s sister company ICM
Continuity Services to provide its disaster recovery service. This includes work area recovery to relocate staff should disaster strike; emergency offi ce, where staff can use their home PCs to connect to a virtual desktop environment and continue working; ship- to-site, which would deliver replacement systems to Eveden’s computer room and provide on-site technical support; and mobile IT recovery which, should the IT infrastructure fail, will provide the Eveden IT team with a replica system and mobile offi ce as an operations base.
The internet is also becoming a more signifi cant route to market for the Eveden brands. When it decided to completely redesign its individual brand websites, Servo was asked to host them. This included building a dedicated infrastructure to support Eveden’s commercial expansion online with the launch of its new Leia Lingerie e-commerce site for the UK market, for which Servo now delivers an outsourced and managed hosting service. Phelan concluded: “We now have a system that can scale to meet the anticipated growth in demand as more customers buy online. We are confi dent that our premium brand presence and e-commerce services will be up and running 24/7, 365 days per year.”
RETAIL TECHNOLOGY JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011
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