YOOX Net-a-Porter Group picks IBM for 'game-changing' post-merger tech platform confirms CIO

"Multi-brand", "omni-channel" and a lot of other buzz phrases

YOOX Net-a-Porter has revealed that it's chosen IBM to handle the development of a unified customer technology platform, following last year's merger of YOOX and Net-a-Porter.

CIO Alex Alexander called the choice a "game-changing alliance".

"This game-changing alliance will benefit our customers and brand partners, allowing us to push our ambitions even further as we continue to create the future of fashion," said Alexander.

"The partnership with IBM will enable our exceptionally talented technology team to focus on what it is renowned for: industry-leading innovation, cutting-edge technology and customer-centric solutions."

As the combined companies operate what they're calling "multi-brand proprietary online stories" in addition to "numerous Online Flagship Stores" of leading fashion and luxury brands, the firm decided that pulling together all of YOOX and Net-a-Porter's technology under one umbrella was the best way to proceed.

IBM products that Alexander will roll out include IBM Order Management for order fulfilment, as well as IBM WebSphere Commerce for the e-commerce piece.

The new group expects the adoption to "expedite and facilitate the post-merger system integration process" while "minimising costs and execution risk" across a global 2.5 million customer base in a business that made €1.7bn in 2015.

Alexander has been in the CIO post at Yoox since July 2015, subsequently becoming CIO of the new group after the merger completed in October 2015. Hugh Fahy, who was initially CIO of Net-a-Porter, replacing Richard Lloyd-Williams as CIO back in 2014, has since moved to the CTO role at notonthehightstreet.com.

Lloyd-Williams moved to another e-commerce company, Discover&Deliver, as CEO, but was let go in 2015 by founder Isabel Rutland.

Rutland told Computing at the time that she would never hire another ex-CIO in a CEO role, explaining that "CIOs tend to be by nature introverted people" who are better "working in very small groups or on their own".

Rutland claimed that being a CEO was "not for him" when discussing Lloyd-Williams, and in future she would seek a CEO with the "right human characteristics and a dynamism" that a CIO "probably wouldn't" possess.