Mint Velvet and Retail Assist Win Retail Week Technology Award

The judging panel of this year’s Retail Week Technology Awards awarded our Mint Velvet IT launch project “Project Implementation of the Year” at a glittering ceremony at the London Hilton last night.

New women’s fashion retailer, Mint Velvet engaged us as its outsourced IT partner last June with the brief that all IT systems, software/hardware, infrastructure and communications go live on 1st October to run a fully multi-channel business and to meet their launch into House of Fraser. We planned the optimum solution and delivered this project in three months.

It was a tough category – Mint Velvet and Retail Assist were up against Net-a-Porter, Boots, Shop Direct Group with ATG, Wilkinson with Retail Manager Solutions, Blacks Leisure Group with Sage, Argos and Smythson with PCMS. However the judges were impressed that, despite this pressure and the scale of the undertaking, our core team delivered – on time and 17% less than the original budget – a robust end-to-end retail IT and communications infrastructure.

Comments Stuart Grant, Commercial Director at Mint Velvet: “Winning this award is a testimony to the effort put in by the Mint Velvet and Retail Assist project team who were focused and 100 percent committed to hitting our opening date. Without their supremely professional approach throughout the project, I seriously doubt we’d have got there. We’re very proud to have been recognised by this prestigious industry award in what has undoubtedly been the toughest 12 months for retail in a decade.”

Alan Morris, Managing Director of Retail Assist concludes: “Winning ‘Project Implementation of the Year’ means a lot to us, as the Retail Week Technology Awards are renowned for setting the standard that the industry follows. We are delighted that all our hard work and the vision of the Mint Velvet’s management team has been rewarded. Their talent is just what the market needs right now, and this award-winning launch does not mark the end of our partnership – we’ll continue to pull out all the stops to make Mint Velvet a resounding success over the coming months and years.“