Located in the textile district of Nola in Italy, Liu Jo UOMO offers high-quality men's clothing through a series of stores in Italy and Europe. Over the past five years, Liu Jo UOMO has expanded through dozens of retail stores in Italy as well as in France and Spain, as well as in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, selling one million items of clothing each season.
The challenge
More than 25 years ago Giuseppe Nardelli, a keen observer of modern customer needs founded CO.CA.MA. in Italy. The company's core business is the distribution of high-end brands, adding value through retail projects that conform to the original brand's philosophy of high quality.
In 2012 CO.CA.MA. acquired the exclusive license to produce the Liu Jo UOMO brand, aimed at fashion-conscious men who like to explore different styles. An innovative retail approach, real customer focus, excellent value for money and a Made in Italy philosophy have led to the success of the Liu Jo UOMO brand.
Over the past five years, Liu Jo UOMO has expanded through dozens of retail stores in Italy as well as in France and Spain, as well as Eastern Europe and the Middle East, selling one million clothing items each season. In 2015, as the company's expansion accelerated, the strain on the IT infrastructure was beginning to be felt. CO.CA.MA. knew it was time to overhaul its entire IT infrastructure.
It looked for a cloud-based solution and turned to power2Cloud, and found it with Google Workspace and Google Cloud Platform.
The solution
Success for CO.CA.MA., like the retail business in several stores in Italy and abroad, depends on daily communication and collaboration. As the company expanded with limited resources, IT staff found that more time was taken up with managing the previous software platform, email systems, and server maintenance.
By 2015, it was clear to CO.CA.MA. that its local infrastructure was neither scalable nor supporting the current rate of growth. In addition to being able to scale rapidly, the company wanted to make its workforce much more mobile. Staff had to leave the office often to visit suppliers, stores, or to evaluate new positions, and CO.CA.MA. found that important documents and data would get lost in e-mail attachments or on pendrives.
CO.CA.MA. wanted to overhaul its entire productivity system and infrastructure. By partnering with power2Cloud, CO.CA.MA. adopted Google Workspace as its new productivity platform. "It was time to migrate the email servers to the new Google Cloud Platform infrastructure and welcome power2Retail, the new retail software," says Vincenzo.
With Gmail, IT staff no longer had to manage local email servers with strict space and storage limits. Meanwhile, company employees could communicate instantly via Google Meet, reducing their dependence on email. Real-time editing capabilities in Google Documents allowed them to collaborate without clogging mailboxes with attachments. With Google Drive as the most secure and user-friendly storage and backup solution, Liu Jo MAN knows that his staff can continue to work in full capacity even if a laptop is lost or there is an equipment failure.
In addition to helping with technical implementation, power2Cloud provided a change management plan to help CO.CA.MA. and employees adapt to the new system. In addition, power2Cloud helped migrate the company's infrastructure from its local servers to Google Compute Engine instances for easier and faster scalability and to reduce latency in the company's network by leveraging Google Cloud Platform regions and zones.
For Vincenzo, the move to Google has helped "improve interaction between departments and provide information in a simple and clear way. Google Drive has been the highlight for us. Having the ability to access documents from anywhere at any time while keeping information more secure has made it indispensable for everyone."
The results
Google and power2Cloud have helped further accelerate Liu Jo UOMO's remarkable expansion. In the past two years, Liu Jo UOMO has added about 30 stores to its existing network, bringing the total to more than 50 stores in Italy.
"This has been possible," says Vincenzo, "thanks to the ease of creating new stores in the Liu Jo UOMO network and registering them with Google accounts. It used to take more than three hours to set up new managers with the software platform and e-mail, now we can get everything done in ten minutes. With a simple browser, Google Chrome, we access the software platform and all Google Workspace apps."
In addition, the IT department, was freed from a heavy maintenance load, created an intranet in a few days using Google Sites. This intranet helps the company distribute internal communications and marketing materials much more quickly, efficiently and economically.
As Liu JO MAN continues to expand and strive to continue to improve its processes. The company will take full advantage of G Suite Mobile Management when it starts distributing tablets to its employees in late 2017, further mobilizing its workforce.
With power2Cloud and Google, the company's IT infrastructure can continue to evolve as the company grows. "Google and power2Cloud have helped turn our strategic vision into reality," says Vincenzo. "My colleagues now have the power to leave headquarters, solve problems in the field, and still have more secure access to all the data they need in real time."