by
Intercity
Missguided is a fast-fashion online retailer founded in 2009 by Nitin Passi. The brand has a global multi-channel presence focussing on empowering young women to look and feel great! through social media, celebrities and influencers. With around 1100 members of staff, it is a leading fashion retailer with a Turnover in excess of £300 million annually.
The Challenges
From providing connectivity to Missguided’s retail stores to Internet access at pop-up shops, Intercity have been on-hand to deliver agile, innovative, and time-sensitive solutions. The fast-paced nature of Missguided needs a provider who can scale-up quickly can provide connectivity to coincide with shop launches and 4G solutions that can allow secure card payments over the Internet.
The Solutions
As an online retailer, Missguided decided to open two flagship stores as showrooms for the brand, one in Westfield Stratford in London and another in Bluewater, Kent. The first grand store opening had taken place on the CEO/Founders birthday.
The second was due to open in Bluewater, Kent in the summer of 2017. Within the store, there were 20 till-points which all needed an Internet connection to be able to take payments. They also needed reliable Wi-Fi for use within the store as well as for guests. The ‘go-live’ date quoted by BT Openreach after a visit from their engineer didn’t coincide with the store’s opening date.
With it being a big and highly publicised store launch, to delay the opening of the store wasn’t an option. Intercity came up with a 4G aggregated solution, with bonded SIM cards, which allowed a stable and secure Internet connection combining Vodafone and O2 sim cards. Intercity demonstrated their ability to be agile to the needs of the customer in providing an innovative solution to a time-sensitive problem.
“Intercity aren’t just a supplier, they’re a partner. The relationship we’ve built has grown over the short period we’ve worked together, and I’ve been able to call on them to deliver solutions within tight timeframes, and they’ve always delivered.”
Chris Froes, Service Desk Manager Missguided
With the stores, Intercity only provided the Internet connectivity but also provide the store telephony through its Touch Technology, Wi-Fi (both corporate and guest) as well as Internet security. These solutions are all managed by the Intercity Security Operations Centre (ISOC) who work to keep Missguided’s services functioning 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
Intercity has also been on-hand to help Missguided with their ‘pop-up’ sample sale at their HQ, by providing a 4G solution to allow card payments. Rather than providing a fibre connection (that would have been costly and taken a number of weeks to deliver), Intercity provided a solution to consider the needs of the customer within less than a week.
The benefits
With the launch of their second store at Bluewater, through delivering a bespoke 4GDIA solution, Missguided were able to achieve their highly anticipated ‘go live’ date. Additionally, by providing 4G connectivity within a 3-day turnaround, Missguided were able to accept card payments at one of their renowned HQ sample sales.
By providing timely, secure, and bespoke solutions, Missguided has maintained the confidence of their IT team internally and have been able to meet the needs of their customers.