N Brown Group Selects Sopra Steria to Support its Transformation into a Digital-first Retailer

LONDON, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Sopra Steria, a European leader in digital transformation, has today announced a new partnership with N Brown Group, a leading multichannel retailer, to help support its strategic direction of becoming a digital-first retailer.  

A leading multi-brand fashion retailer, N Brown is undergoing the biggest business transformation in its 140 year history, refashioning itself from a direct mail-led to digital-first retailer.

Following a competitive process, Sopra Steria was chosen as a partner to assist in the creation of a unique platform to help N Brown drive technology change and business transformation.

Sopra Steria will run a core applications and infrastructure support service responsible for the management of IT service sub-contractors, data centres, servers and mainframes. The company will also provide technical support across a number of N Brown locations including its national headquarters, call centres, stores, UK warehouses and other remote locations.

In delivering an agile, cost-effective, digitally focussed IT department, N Brown was keen to ensure its new partner had a close cultural affinity to minimise any impact on colleagues whilst transforming their risk position.

"Sopra Steria was a natural partner with an impressive track record in delivering similar projects at scale, and whose culture and approach neatly matched our own," said Andy Haywood, COO at N Brown.

"Together with Sopra Steria, N Brown will have the ability to become more agile, responsive and, most importantly, focused on customer experience and satisfaction. We will move towards being a technology company that sells fashion, rather than just a fashion company using technology.

Undergoing a large organisational change, N Brown not only needed to create a strategic partnership to help them leverage new technologies, but also had to maximise the retention of existing customers with an unnoticeable change in service. Twelve weeks prior to the contract's start, Sopra Steria began knowledge transfer with N Brown and took on all services during this time. This led to a seamless handover with no downtime in service.

Barry Fazackerley, Executive Director at Sopra Steria said, "We are delighted that N Brown chose us to be their strategic partner and help deliver their vision for the future of the company. In such a fast-paced and competitive market, the efficient and effective delivery of this transformation is vital to N Brown's business. We are proud to be helping to deliver the desired changes to their core business and realise their strategic vision to be a digital-first retailer."

About Sopra Steria 

Sopra Steria, a European leader in digital transformation, provides one of the most comprehensive portfolios of end-to-end service offerings on the market: consulting, systems integration, software development, infrastructure management and business process services. Sopra Steria is trusted by leading private and public-sector organisations to deliver successful transformation programmes that address their most complex and critical business challenges. Combining high quality and performance services, added value and innovation, Sopra Steria enables its clients to make the best use of digital technology. With over 38,000 employees in more than 20 countries, Sopra Steria had revenue of €3.6 billion in 2015.

For more information, visit us at http://www.soprasteria.com

Info ComFI: Sopra Steria Group (SOP) is listed on Euronext Paris (Compartment A) - ISIN: FR0000050809

N Brown Group 

N Brown Group is a leading multi-channel specialist fashion fit retailer headquartered in Manchester employing over 3.200 people. The company's strategy has been to focus each of the brands in its portfolio towards niche markets which are poorly served on the high street, such as the plus size and more mature customer segments. The Group has total sales of £818m for year ended Feb 2015, and online sales were 62% of revenue in Q1. Current brands include Simply Be, Jacamo, Fashion World, JD Williams, Marisota, House of Bath, Figleaves and High and Mighty.