Scenario
Keeping up with digital evolution is essential for all companies to optimize operations, efficiently scale, and above all, improve the customer experience.
In light of this scenario, C&A, one of the world’s largest retail networks with over 1,800 stores in 24 countries across Europe, Latin America, and Asia, decided to invest even more in technology and restructure its marketplace, making its platform scalable with all sales channels integrated.
Challenge
The restructuring was planned using infrastructure based on new technologies capable of allowing long-term scalability, reducing bureaucracy. The marketplace’s foundation provided significant support for the improvements made.
Many processes became automated and agile to make better use of the team’s time.
The primary goal was to reinforce the C&A brand as one of the leading fashion tech companies in the market – capable of intertwining fashion and technology, delivering value to its customers, sellers, and employees with cutting-edge technology, agile teams, and structured projects to grow market share with the digital platform.
Solution
The first step in working with C&A was to identify and map out the route for all necessary improvements in the marketplace – architecture, database, code, and deployment pipeline – with a precise diagnosis of real performance.
With a multidisciplinary squad, involving internal teams and strategic direction provided by C&A, pains were identified, and from there, a personalized plan was developed according to the demands and needs of the teams, pointing out the best solutions.
In addition to the agile development culture, there was also an improvement in the DevOps culture, automating processes, and consequently, reducing delivery time and execution complexity, incorporating all market best practices, implementing and enhancing tools.
From then on, sellers could directly access all their orders, their respective statuses, track financial transfers, as well as handle open tickets, among other functions, quickly and intuitively through the portal.
With these solutions, infrastructure optimization with cutting-edge processes and technology was ensured, generating more value for the business, as well as productivity gains.
“Now C&A has customer service (SAC) and financial features, and we are in the process of building the developer’s journey, which is the DevCenter – companies that integrate with the e-commerce platform,” says Ruy Pedroso, C&A’s Head of Technology.
Results
With the reduction of manual interventions by professionals in production environments, the risks related to data exposure were considerably minimized.
The company’s business partners have already noticed the new features, which increasingly attract sellers. It is known that C&A had a significant increase in sellers in 2021, surpassing expectations.
“Our marketplace was launched with a modernized standard, and we need to expand this model throughout the entire company,” explains the executive.
Another goal is to regionalize the platform to offer, for example, coats in southern Brazil during the winter and, at the same time, lighter clothing to customers in the northeast.
“We aim to be omnichannel, integrate journeys, and make processes more fluid,” emphasizes Ruy Pedroso.
The cost reduction aspect was noticeable in financial operations, with process optimization and results with lower error chances. In the long term, the entire project will bring benefits as it becomes scalable.
One of the qualities of Iteris recognized by C&A was the team’s sense of ownership and flexibility in forming teams.
“We noticed a level of maturity and exceptional care from Iteris professionals, with a high level of engagement, technical quality, and professional ethics,” says Ruy Pedroso.
Another point that caught C&A’s attention was Iteris’ transparency when it came to not pursuing strategies without positive prospects, based on market studies and concrete usability perception.
“In light of these issues, we only see new beginnings for our partnership. We have strong expansion plans until 2024, and we want to take the marketplace case to other C&A teams, providing a better experience for the entire business ecosystem,” concludes Ruy.
About C&A
Founded in 1841 by Dutch brothers Clemens and August, C&A is among the world’s largest retail networks, with over 1,800 stores in 24 countries across Europe, Latin America, and Asia.
In Brazil since 1976, with the opening of the first store at Shopping Ibirapuera in São Paulo, its work philosophy remains the same: offering the best of fashion at affordable prices.
Today, there are already more than 280 stores in 125 cities and over 15,000 employees.
Recognized for inclusive fashion, its mission is to increasingly become a fashion tech company – offering an integrated and seamless marketplace to ensure the best consumer experience.
