Cath Kidston Case Study
Cath Kidston Ltd was founded in 1993 when designer Cath Kidston opened a tiny shop in London’s Holland Park selling the vintage fabrics,
wallpapers and brightly-painted junk furniture she remembered fondly from her childhood. Her clever, witty re-working of traditional English country house style meant that her shop soon became a cult success, and today sells everything from china and bed linen to bags and accessories, women’s and kid's wear. Currently there are 45 Cath Kidston shops and concessions in the UK, two shops in the Republic of Ireland, seventeen in Japan and six in Korea. The business is also driven by very successful web, mail order and wholesale divisions, with UK, Euro and US transactional websites. Cath was awarded an MBE for services to business in February 2010 and the company was ranked at number 22 on the Sunday Times' Profit Track 100 for 2011. The Challenge
Before working with Daisy, the business had simple point-to-point circuits connecting its offices and stores. However these circuits were not providing the flexible service that the business required and the cost of the lines was not favourable for the company going forwards.
As an emerging business, Cath Kidston wanted to implement a resilient and flexible wide area network (WAN) that would help them to facilitate their growth, as the solution it already had in place wasn’t the correct tool.
The Solution
Following a review carried out by Daisy, a managed IP Virtual Private Network (VPN) with internet breakout was installed throughout the Cath Kidston estate. The network which is co-located in Daisy’s Harbour Exchange Data Centre provides secure connectivity, both between the shops and to its head office in the West End of London and St. Neots warehouse in Cambridgeshire. Daisy also supplied the company with Zyxel routers to provide connectivity throughout its many UK store locations.
The Result
The new VPN provides the company with a large store network with the flexibility for future expansion.
Andy Struthers, Head of IT at Cath Kidston says: “The solution which Daisy supplied has allowed our business to grow, without being restricted by our IT network. There have been a number of major changes within the business – increased staff, widened distribution and migration to a new warehouse. The IPVPN Network has coped with all of these key developments.”
“We have been happy with the very reliable service that we have received. When we have had new services implemented the Service Delivery Team has supplied a very effective and attentive provisioning service.”
The Future
“Daisy is a key partner of ours. They continue to provide a service to our head office, warehouse and our growing network of UK stores.”
“From our experience we have seen good technological initiatives come from Daisy which challenge existing services in the market, to provide an improved solution. We have received a positive service from Daisy and we will continue to work with them on different IT solutions.”
