Ted Baker partners with HP to improve ERP systems and expand global reach

Dustan Steer, Taker Baker IT director, tells Computing why the fashion retailer selected HP to help improve its ERP systems

Global clothing brand Ted Baker has selected HP Enterprise Services to support its worldwide business expansion through the deployment of a brand new ERP system.

With over 2,000 employees across the globe and revenues of more than £320m a year, Ted Baker is a successful fashion retailer with a desire to further expand its business. However, as Ted Baker IT director Dustan Steer explained, its old systems weren't up to the job of supporting growth.

"We're running all our IT centrally from the UK and our then current ERP solution wasn't really suitable for our 24-7 environment and it was giving us challenges given that we're trading out of so many countries now," said Steer "We needed a strong foundation for the future."

The answer was to outsource its ERP servers to a colocation centre, and after reviewing a number candidates the company went with HP in May this year.

"The actual environments are complete and installed now. We're in acceptance testing in the first stage of our ERP rollout now, so nothing is live and running day-to-day at the moment, even though it's all been switched on and monitored," Steer told Computing, adding that operating Ted Baker's infrastructure out of the two Swindon data centres now means the firm is "disaster tolerant".

"Because of the criticality of this system - it is running the business - it needs to be up 24-7. So part of the solution we've had delivered has a failsafe solution in there, which we haven't had before. So, if the solution falls over we can bring it back up in a short space of time," he said.

The nature of the HP Enterprise set-up also means that it isn't the Ted Baker IT department - which Steer described as small - that needs to look after the systems.

"We've also got the right expertise looking after the solution 24-7.

The combination of a disaster failsafe system and the right expertise to manage the data centre, Steer explained, means Ted Baker can fully concentrate on its business, rather than worrying about the IT behind it.

"We've got warehouses and offices across the world, they're all using the services out of the Swindon centre. If the AX platform was to go down, that would effectively mean they wouldn't be able to do any work until we got the problem resolved," he said.

"Moving forward, in the UK we've currently got just our multichannel online taking place out of our warehouses," Steer continued, adding the system means the company now operates a service that better serves customers.

"We're now picking seven days a week, which is something we didn't do before and we're able to offer more delivery slots to people, which means having a reliable service is critical."

Ultimately, Steer said, Ted Baker has made the correct decision for both the business and its customers by choosing HP.

"We have a lot of time for the project team that were brought on board and we don't have a huge IT department; we specialise in fashion, we're a global brand in fashion, so partnering up with the right people just makes sense to us," he concluded.