ASOS is 16 years old
Mission to be the world’s #1 global fashion dealer for 20-somethings
Story with Microsoft started about three years ago
Conversation about “Is this software stack the thing that will support our journey to be a truly global company”
No
It was a good platform and did its job for 15 years, but could not continue to scale effectively
Ripped out and replaced everything with Microsoft / Azure
Implemented new platform just before Black Friday and it performed very well
Joined ASOS running the DevOps program
20 releases in 2011 to 500 releases in 2016
Majority of platform and architecture are built on Azure
Some peripheral elements / third-party tools run on AWS
Mobile first
More broadly want new platform that can support consumer challenges in a way we were previously unable
Azure PaaS allows us to focus on competitive advantage
Azure regional centers align closely with clusters of ASOS customers
High availability / global distribution
Familiar software development tools
Clear separation between services and consumer channel
Office 365
Focus of Microsoft relationship is support primarily for digital platform
Hi Tony – hope you’re having a good week. Since we last spoke, another Microsoft customer has bubbled up that I think you might be interested in. I wanted to offer you an interview withBob Strudwick, CTO of ASOS – a leading online global fashion brand for 20-somethings, who recently moved to the cloud withMicrosoft Azure.
For background – as evidenced from ASOS’ latest investor update last week, ASOS is growing rapidly and globally, with more than 850 brands, 80k SKUs and 106M unique visits per month, anda higher monthly average visit frequency on its mobile app than retail giant Amazon.
Bob can discuss ASOS’ decision to move to the cloud and future digital transformation ambitions, including ASOS’s adoption of the latest trend of microservices – a technology which empowers ASOS to be more agile and never miss a beat by redistributing new features and capabilities. Additionally, Bob can share his vision for a new type of “virtual store” using VR to “try on” new styles before purchase.(More details on technology adoption and results below my signature.)
The Challenge
With Microsoft Azure, ASOS, which delivers more than 12 million items per year, is better able to meet the company’s global-scale needs: a resilient infrastructure, more mobile and website reliability and the ability to quickly capitalize on e-commerce trends and adopt new features and capabilities while leveraging the app architectural trend of microservices.
The Results
ASOS’s digital transformation driven results during Black Friday week:
Orders per second increased 100 percent YOY, peaking at 33 orders per second on Cyber Monday
Sales growth by over 45 percent black Friday week
Withstood 68 percent mobile traffic of total traffic mix