Colt, Europe’s leading information delivery platform, announces that it has underpinned Nectar Italia’s rapidly expanding loyalty scheme with its scalable Optimum Services for network and IT. Colt has partnered with Nectar Italia from launch, expanding its services in line with the loyalty programme growth as it has achieved a base of over 10 million customers.
Nectar launched its loyalty scheme service in Italy in 2010. It is the first coalition programme that allows shoppers to collect points from a number of retailers including groceries and petrol stations onto one card. Its business critical IT systems gather data from over 10 million users, and have to be capable of handling a high number of transactions from a growing base of retailers, with nearly 6,000 point of sales systems.
Big data and fast-track commercial expansion demanded a combination of real-time connectivity and rapidly scalable processing power from a responsive network and IT services partner. Colt has played an important role in Nectar Italia’s journey from start-up to household name, and continues to facilitate business growth by providing robust, flexible IT infrastructure and networking services.
“IT is critical to our business,” confirms Francesco Tiberi, Head of IT for Nectar Italia. “Our systems need to be available at all times to receive and process transactions.”
At launch, the Nectar team’s focus was on launching to consumers. To ensure that the IT infrastructure and the network that underpins it was robust it was decided that partnering with an experienced service provider was the best route. After a thorough and stringent selection process, Colt was chosen as Nectar Italia’s information delivery provider. “Colt offered the right combination of service, flexibility, reliability and price,” assures Tiberi. “Each time we have a new IT business requirement, Colt provides the answer – making it easy for us to focus on expanding our services fluidly and achieve our goals.”
Colt’s Optimum Services for IT are combined with Colt’s Optimum Managed Networking and Connectivity services to maintain continuous availability for the Nectar Italia website and other business critical IT systems. Business continuity, high availability and resilience are ensured by replicating the service at a second Colt datacentre, also located in Italy.
Mimmo Zappi, Regional General Manager, Italy, Colt said: “From the outset, we understood that Nectar Italia’s credibility and the success of our partnership would be dependent on a network and IT infrastructure that enabled the successful management of consumer data. At the same time, we anticipated that rapid growth would bring a succession of new challenges. The key was to establish a firm foundation, while continuing to provide flexibility and scale. Together, we assessed and designed the essential services required for launch, and the relationship has grown from there.”
With Colt’s Optimum services underpinning Nectar Italia’s operations, this well-known loyalty brand has been able to focus on its customers. “We have complete confidence in Colt because we know there is a whole team of people managing our infrastructure at all times,” adds Tiberi. “With their support, we can dedicate our resources to our core business.”
Colt press contacts
Colt, Paula Muezerie
DDI:+44 (0) 20 7947 1035
Mobile: +44 (0) 785 5301 078
Email: Paula.Muezerie@colt.net
Weber Shandwick, Emily Wong
DDI: +44 (0)207 067 0352
Mobile: +44 (0) 759 006 6755
Email: Emily.Wong@webershandwick.com
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