Marks & Spencer opts for cloud service for social media and tv campaigns

The UK’s M&S experiences a massive demand during December each year.

During December 2013, its television advertisement directed shoppers to a dedicated website.  They were fully aware that the boost in traffic would require a site that would cope, thus resulting in them using Microsoft Azure for its website as they had confidence in its ability to cope with the potentially high traffic volumes.  This was a saving on physical servers and having to employ IT resources.

M&S was first founded in 1884.  It has expanded to 50 countries, with a staff complement of 82000 and operates 800 stores in Britain alone, as well as an e-commerce arm.  Its main aim is to convert the M&S.com site into a flagship store and the company is also looking at an omni-channel method.

The company’s use of Microsoft Azure worked particularly well during the 2013 holiday season and it has been used again for other major annual holiday events.  M&S has gained confidence in the system as they are fully aware that if any of their campaigns are successful and traffic increases dramatically, Azure is able to cope.

The use of Azure has been a huge boost for M&S as regards team productivity.  It fits perfectly with M&S’s plans to boost their sales on special occasions.