Retail giant the Arcadia Group has signed a $5.7m (£3.3m) five-year outsourcing agreement with IBM to revamp its ecommerce infrastructure.

The owner of high-street chains Top Shop, Miss Selfridge, Dorothy Perkins and Burton, among others, needs its web-based systems to handle a projected increase in online sales.

Arcadia information systems director Gareth Hill says the company’s existing technology is limiting its ability to trade online and offer new functionality to customers.

‘The system was not able to scale to the volumes we are experiencing, or will experience, and is unable to cope with things that we deem to be important going forward,’ said Hill.

‘For instance, customer order history and the ability to segment customers were not available, and there were a number of functional areas to do with navigation and presentation that we weren’t able to put in a way to suit our customer base.’

IBM already provides Arcadia with IT hardware and store support services as part of another outsourcing contract.

The replacement of Arcadia’s existing ebusiness technology forms the first part of an ecommerce development project.

The new technology will be based on products from IBM’s WebSphere range.

‘The overall programme objectives are to provide Arcadia with a platform on which we can grow the business rapidly and which will be future-proofed in terms of scale and functionality,’ said Hill.

Arcadia aims to complete the first phase of the project by June, to coincide with the relaunch of its web sites.

Hill says the IBM WebSphere technology will immediately provide the company with additional functionality.

‘Further phases will involve expanding the capabilities we have, to become far more sophisticated in the way we trade online, and increasing the level of multi-channel capabilities we have in our ecommerce space as well as through to our stores,’ he said.

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