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C&A: Streamlining Retail Operations Across Europe

Fash­ion trends evolve at an ever-increas­ing pace: new clothes rapid­ly fill store shelves and dis­plays, which in turn demands swift automa­tion to accel­er­ate turn­around times. C&A, a lead­ing glob­al fash­ion retail­er, uses dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies to improve oper­a­tional effi­cien­cy and increase cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion.

Over the past sev­er­al years, our col­lab­o­ra­tion has sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduced paper usage, opti­mised store lay­out process­es, and enhanced over­all com­mu­ni­ca­tion across their exten­sive net­work of Euro­pean stores.

  • Operational Efficiency
  • Retail Automation
  • Sustainability in Retail

A collaboration between

  • Numble
  • Knight Moves
A tablet screen displaying C&A’s digital task management system, showing detailed instructions for fashion window and mannequin displays. A C&A store employee assists a customer at the checkout counter, placing items into a C&A-branded shopping bag.

Challenge

C&A’s busi­ness man­agers need­ed to address sev­er­al crit­i­cal issues to boost their retail oper­a­tions. The man­u­al process of updat­ing store lay­outs was not only labor-inten­sive but also prone to errors. For instance, store man­agers need­ed up to two weeks to roll out updates across stores. This heavy reliance on paper also posed a notable envi­ron­men­tal impact, with high vol­umes of paper used for oper­a­tional tasks. Plus, the mul­ti­lin­gual envi­ron­ment of C&A’s Euro­pean stores com­pli­cat­ed con­tent dis­tri­b­u­tion and con­sis­ten­cy. Head­quar­ters couldn’t guar­an­tee all loca­tions received time­ly and accu­rate updates. A solu­tion was required to auto­mate these process­es, ensure time­ly updates, and sup­port mul­ti­ple lan­guages seamlessly.

Services used

CMS Development

Mobiele Applicaties Development

Automatisering van Vertalingen

Digitaal Task Management Systeem

Doorlopend Technische Ondersteuning en Innovatieconsultancy

Solutions

We set ambi­tious goals to auto­mate C&A’s store lay­out updates, aim­ing to reduce paper usage and improve over­all com­mu­ni­ca­tion across their exten­sive net­work of Euro­pean stores. One of the pri­ma­ry objec­tives was to sig­nif­i­cant­ly cut down on paper con­sump­tion in their 2000 stores, where each store pre­vi­ous­ly print­ed around 10 pages of updates week­ly. Togeth­er, we devel­oped a com­pre­hen­sive solu­tion to meet these needs.

  • Our team of devel­op­ers cre­at­ed an effi­cient con­tent man­age­ment sys­tem using Umbra­co CMS. It stan­dard­is­es store lay­outs and allows effi­cient updates across mul­ti­ple loca­tions. Today all stores receive con­sis­tent and time­ly updates tai­lored to their indi­vid­ual needs. 
  • To fur­ther sup­port store oper­a­tions, we devel­oped a cus­tom mobile appli­ca­tion with offline capa­bil­i­ties. This allows store man­agers to access essen­tial infor­ma­tion and per­form tasks with­out requir­ing con­stant inter­net connectivity.
  • Recog­nis­ing the impor­tance of clear com­mu­ni­ca­tion, we imple­ment­ed an auto­mat­ed trans­la­tion sys­tem using arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (Ope­nAI GPT). This ensures time-effi­cient con­tent dis­tri­b­u­tion across dif­fer­ent coun­tries, sig­nif­i­cant­ly speed­ing up the trans­la­tion process and C&A’s oper­a­tional efficiency.

Fur­ther­more, we devel­oped a dig­i­tal task man­age­ment sys­tem to stream­line the work­flow for store man­agers and staff. This clear­ly defines and tracks their dai­ly tasks, there­fore improv­ing over­all pro­duc­tiv­i­ty.

Implementation

The imple­men­ta­tion and roll­out was struc­tured in phas­es to ensure smooth inte­gra­tion and min­i­mal dis­rup­tion to C&A’s oper­a­tions. We start­ed with work­shops in dif­fer­ent regions to under­stand the unique needs and process­es of staff mem­bers in each area.

In 2017, we kicked off with the Bel­gian team of IT man­agers and ICT sys­tem admin­is­tra­tors, iden­ti­fy­ing pain points and areas for optimisation. 

In 2018, we expand­ed our efforts to France, apply­ing the same thor­ough process to address the unique needs of the French stores. This com­bined under­stand­ing from Bel­gium and France pro­vid­ed a strong basis for our solutions.

By 2019, we had extend­ed our work in Ger­many, this time engag­ing busi­ness, IT, and mar­ket­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives from var­i­ous Euro­pean offices like Switzer­land, Spain, and the Nether­lands. In these co-cre­ation ses­sions with stake­hold­ers, we shaped the solu­tion to meet diverse needs across the continent.

We used an iter­a­tive devel­op­ment approach using the Scrum method­ol­o­gy. This involved bi-week­ly demos and feed­back ses­sions, ensur­ing con­tin­u­ous improve­ment and align­ment with C&A’s objec­tives. The first phase focused on rolling out the Umbra­co CMS and mobile appli­ca­tion in Bel­gium. This ini­tial deploy­ment pro­vid­ed valu­able insights and pos­i­tive feed­back, which we used to refine the solution.

Building on the success in Belgium, we gradually expanded the deployment to other European countries, including France, the Netherlands, and Germany. Each phase was carefully managed to address local requirements and ensure seamless adoption. This incremental approach allowed us to deliver a robust and scalable solution that met the diverse needs of C&A’s extensive store network.

Nicola Nauwynck Founder & Managing Partner @ Numble

A stylish mannequin display showcasing C&A's latest fashion collection inside a retail store.

Results

One of our proud­est achieve­ments was reduc­ing paper usage by 87%, sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er­ing the envi­ron­men­tal impact of C&A’s stores. Our solu­tion dras­ti­cal­ly improved the speed of updat­ing store lay­outs, cut­ting down the time required from two weeks to just half an hour. C&A now has a quick response time to sea­son­al changes.

Over­all, the project not only opti­mised C&A’s work­flow but also set a new stan­dard for oper­a­tional effi­cien­cy and sus­tain­abil­i­ty in the retail sec­tor.

The exterior of a C&A retail store, framed by two tall trees, with a view of the inviting interior through large glass windows.

Next steps

We suc­cess­ful­ly deployed the sys­tem in 15 coun­tries, cov­er­ing approx­i­mate­ly 2000 stores. This wide reach ensured con­sis­tent and effi­cient oper­a­tions across C&A’s exten­sive Euro­pean net­work. By automat­ing rou­tine tasks, improv­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and cre­at­ing an auto­mat­ed trans­la­tion sys­tem, store man­agers can focus more on cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion and store management.

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