CGI wins €96m deal in French retail sector

Europe’s retail sector continues to be one of the strongest sources of major IT services contracts in 2021, with France’s FashionCube announcing a new €96m deal with CGI.

Under the terms of the ten-year contract, CGI will take on the running of all of the customer’s IT activities, and oversee a transformation designed to improve service quality and accelerate key projects. 

CGI will assume responsibility for user services, application maintenance and upgrades and operations and infrastructure upgrades. Some 61 employees will join CGI from France, Germany, Spain and Poland as part of the pact. 

FashionCube is the umbrella group that incorporates the boutique-oriented textile brands under the Mulliez group, including Jules, Brice, Bizzbee, Pimkie, RougeGorge and Grain de Malice / Orsay. The company has been going through a period of restructuring which has massively improved its debt position and it is now looking to drive greater synergies across its different brands, and offer its customers a better omnichannel experience.  

There has been a wave of major deals in the retail space in the last 12 months, as embattled brands look to accelerate their journey to a more digital-centric business model following months of store closures. German wholesale giant Metro and UK department store John Lewis have also committed to major long-term deals in recent months, both with Wipro (with the latter also working with Capgemini). 

Retail is a strong focus area for CGI in France, which can be traced all the way back to the Unilog business it gained through the Logica acquisition. This has more recently been bolstered by the purchase of retail specialist Meti Logiciels et Services in January of last year, which added 300 employees.