How Persistence, Technology and Partnerships Grew a Global Brand.

Embracing change - how aussieBum adapted with technology and leveraged partnerships to grow into a global, multi-million dollar brand. 

Sean Ashby, owner of aussieBum, founded the ‘company of one’ in 2001 during the dot-com boom period. In many respects, aussieBum was ahead of the curve with e-commerce during that time (self pioneers), trying new ideas, failing and trying again. “I am truly passionate about the brand and want to make sure everything comes together at the right junctions,” says Sean. Over several years aussieBum has grown into the hugely successful multinational brand it is today, with a primary sales channel of B2C.

With increased popularity, comes increased complexity 

As a large online retailer with rising popularity and growth, aussieBum is no stranger to the persistent challenges of rapidly changing technology and fluctuating technical infrastructure requirements. In addition, being an Australian based business trading worldwide with global production, distribution and supply chain processes, there is a significant increase in the complexity in managing technical operations. Key Challenges the company faces are:

• Efficiently maintaining and managing high traffic across the eCommerce platform

• Averting downtime and disruption to customers and internal operations
  
• Data security, understanding, preventing and reacting to threats
• Managing high volumes of website traffic to provide the best experience
  
  
• Changing dynamics during pandemic
• Managing a remote global workforce, securely and efficiently
• Scaling requirements based on unpredictable volume fluctuations in sales
  
  
• Evolving technology and business growth
• Technical knowledge and workforce capabilities needed to run new technologies and systems
• Scalability of the technical team to manage costs vs business growth

A partnered approach introducing robust solutions and AWS knowledge to support scalability and growth with reduced pressure on internal resources

The team at aussieBum partnered with Itoc for a myriad of ongoing transformation and operational support through Managed Services, in addition to implementing solutions for specific larger, more complex projects.

Sean explains why an ongoing Managed Services arrangement appealed to the company, “We are a multimillion-dollar successful company - but do you think we could manage the very basic things? No! You guys can do it with your eyes closed. There have been a number of challenging times where we’ve had to bring ourselves up to speed, and it’s important that the companies you partner with speak the same language. Itoc have shown great value in the depth in solutions they provide and the ability to get in and get the job done. When it comes to communication, Itoc is always responsive, and everyone we’ve dealt with have been very savvy business people.“

As part of the Managed Services arrangement, Itoc oversees and maintains several Managed Workloads for aussieBum, including:

• eCommerce website (production environment); Including high-volume site with traffic up to 1000 sessions/minute during peak periods 
• Wholesale eCommerce website (production environment)
• A support instance
• An order queueing instance
• A processing system
• An internal workload for staff used for stock maintenance and order processing
• Marketplace 

"When you partner with someone like Itoc, the conversations are remarkable and lead to revelations on moving the company forward." 

Sean Ashby

By partnering with Itoc, leveraging Managed Services, aussieBum transformed its technical operations, resulting in multiple successful outcomes.  

• Efficient ongoing management and maintenance of eCommerce website and operations
• Peace of mind knowing website operations are reliability managed with the highest level of commitment around security and uptime
• Confidence in having the most rigorous security certificates enabled and customer data regularly monitored and secure
• Around the clock support to cover global peak sales times (24/7/365 coverage)
• Scalable technical cloud solutions to provide dynamic response to website traffic requirements - improving accessibility, AWS service cost management and customer experience

Sean expressed the importance of this, “Someone on our own IT team may not have the depth of knowledge to be able to solve all of the problems, or provide the 24/7 coverage. Having someone, like Itoc, who understands the situation and is capable of being a problem solver rather than just a ‘mediator’, that’s a game changer. It is really valuable to us and our business having that coverage and support.”

• Managing the change in dynamics during pandemic
• Guidance implementing solutions to enable secure, ‘plug and play’ setups and changes to access requirements to empower a productive remote workforce
• Access to Itoc’s team with the technical skills to manage the implementation of solutions that give aussieBum the ability to scale back and then up again when requirements or demand changes
  
  
  
• Evolving technology and business growth
• Modernisation and continuous improvement to grow and scale the business
• Cost saving - review of AWS services to reduce unnecessary costs
• Itoc’s team of cloud experts increased the knowledge base and technical capabilities of the aussieBum team instantly, without the headache of hiring
• Access to expert cloud operations knowledge 24/7 resulted in managing robust systems that can scale when required across AU and US instances, with applications interacting and running securely at peak performance

Partnering with Itoc for Managed Services has been a vital element in scaling, containerisation, optimisation, best practice, and positively reducing the cost of AWS services. Entrusting Itoc's qualified AWS Architects proficient in deep AWS knowledge to take care of IT and cloud operations made it possible for aussieBum to focus on what they do best - offering great swimwear and service to their global customer base.

The solid working relationship between aussieBum and Itoc continues to strengthen and is a testament to the kind of customer service Itoc prides itself on.