Pimkie: Moves fashion forward by migrating two data centers, 300 VMs, and 150 apps with Google Cloud and CGI
About Pimkie
Born 50 years ago, Pimkie is a popular French fashion brand with an international presence. With its varied collections, it targets young women aged 18 to 25, whatever their body type, style and desires. Pimkie is one of the six fashion brands of FashionCube, an economic entity, part of the Mulliez family association. Created in 2017, FashionCube is an ecosystem in which each brand shares resources, know-how and innovations to maximize value creation. Pimkie key figures: 664 Shops worldwide, 38 Million garments sold per year, 546 Million turnover per year, 3,800 Colleagues, 22 Countries, 6 Websites
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About CGI France
CGI is among the largest independent IT and business consulting services firms in the world. In France, CGI ranked #3 in the Retail IT Services in 2020.
Pimkie migrated and modernized its outdated IT infrastructure with the help of Google Cloud and CGI, saving €300,000 and positioning the company to better compete in a turbulent market.
Google Cloud results
- Savings of €300,000, which represents a 70% savings over the cost of maintaining on-premises data centers
- 150 workloads migrated
- 60% of IT infrastructure replaced
Pimkie saved €300,000 by moving to the cloud
Designing a data center migration
In the always evolving and hypercompetitive fashion market, every advantage counts. That’s why in 2020, French fashion retailer Pimkie, one of six brands in the FashionCube family, embarked on an ambitious plan to migrate and modernize its outdated IT infrastructure in the cloud.
Pimkie reached out to the top cloud providers, but only Google Cloud proposed starting with a comprehensive assessment of the company's current IT infrastructure, including two on-premises data centers, using Google’s StratoZone and CGI Maps Software. During the assessment, the Google Cloud team learned that Pimkie needed to close its data centers by the end of 2021, so the team rapidly developed a cost-effective plan for meeting that deadline. "By understanding exactly what was in the data centers, we could develop a business case to demonstrate a return on investment based on committed use discount. We were able to show Pimkie how our lift-and-modernize approach would both save them money and improve the services they offer," said Bertrand Autin, Enterprise Account Manager at Google.
"By understanding exactly what was in the data centers, we could develop a business case to demonstrate a return on investment based on committed use discount. We were able to show Pimkie how our lift-and-modernize approach would both save them money and improve the services they offer."
—Bertrand Autin, Enterprise Account Manager, GoogleStitching in application modernization while migrating 300 VMs
At the same time the Google Cloud team was migrating Pimkie's technical infrastructure using virtual machines (VMs) on Google Compute Engine, FashionCube had entered into a 10-year managed IT services contract with Google Cloud Partner CGI. CGI is one of the largest independent IT and business consulting services in the world, with more than 80,000 consultants in 40 countries, including several thousand dedicated to the cloud and specializing in infrastructure migration and security. Given CGI's expertise, it made perfect sense to shift the application modernization portion of the Pimkie project to them. With 60% of Pimkie's IT infrastructure considered obsolete, the scope of work included lifting and shifting 75 workloads, replatforming an additional 75 workloads, and ensuring all applications complied with security requirements.
"The Google team wrote the application migration process, and CGI realized the process, ensuring that all the business applications were connected to and working well with the VMs we'd put on Google Cloud," said Autin. "We really appreciated the expertise and experience Google Cloud brought to the project."
With CGI onboard, the entire data center and application migration project was finished in 12 months, including migrating approximately 300 VMs and completing certification. Currently, CGI is helping migrate Pimkie’s data to Google Cloud and working to develop a cross-branded data platform for all six FashionCube brands.
"The Google team wrote the application migration process, and CGI realized the process, ensuring that all the business applications were connected to and working well with the VMs we'd put on Google Cloud. We really appreciated the expertise and experience Google Cloud brought to the project."
—Bertrand Autin, Enterprise Account Manager, GoogleRunway-ready results: 70% savings
Beyond improved scalability, agility, and security, Pimkie realized bottom-line benefits by migrating to Google Cloud and modernizing its IT infrastructure. The company saved €300,000 by moving its data to the cloud, which represents a savings of 70% compared to the cost of maintaining on-premises data centers.
"The clothing sector faces tremendous turbulence. Pimkie has embarked on a transformation initiative with the common ambition of creating a new business model that has a positive impact on fashion," said Franck Dumery, CIO of FashionCube. "This transformation requires know-how and cutting-edge technological innovations, which is what we have found at CGI, as well as operational excellence achieved through managed services."
Delivering a fashionable future, together
Going forward, Google Cloud and CGI are committed to working with Pimkie and FashionCube to help them solidify and optimize their business. Further, both CGI and Google Cloud consider the Pimkie migration to be only the first piece of a larger project to migrate all FashionCube brands to the cloud. "The next step is a global FashionCube cloud that creates an even more agile and scalable infrastructure," concluded Autin. "The objective is to bring everything together to create better offerings for FashionCube customers that drive the business."
"The next step is a global FashionCube cloud that creates an even more agile and scalable infrastructure. The objective is to bring everything together to create better offerings for FashionCube customers that drive the business."
—Bertrand Autin, Enterprise Account Manager, GoogleTell us your challenge. We're here to help.
Contact us
About Pimkie
Born 50 years ago, Pimkie is a popular French fashion brand with an international presence. With its varied collections, it targets young women aged 18 to 25, whatever their body type, style and desires. Pimkie is one of the six fashion brands of FashionCube, an economic entity, part of the Mulliez family association. Created in 2017, FashionCube is an ecosystem in which each brand shares resources, know-how and innovations to maximize value creation. Pimkie key figures: 664 Shops worldwide, 38 Million garments sold per year, 546 Million turnover per year, 3,800 Colleagues, 22 Countries, 6 Websites
About CGI France
CGI is among the largest independent IT and business consulting services firms in the world. In France, CGI ranked #3 in the Retail IT Services in 2020.