N Brown Gets a Digital Makeover

Overview: Understanding N Brown

N Brown was established in Manchester in 1859, a time when the city’s cotton mills were the beating heart of the global textiles industry.

While much of the garments industry has migrated east to Asia, N Brown has grown and diversified, aided by technological advances introduced throughout its 160-year history.

The company started out selling clothing from mail order catalogues where customers would pay for items on installments. Fast forward to 2021 and it’s a fully digital fashion retailer with five distinct brands offered via e-commerce platforms. Throughout all this change, N Brown has stuck to its core values. Its inclusive ethos is built on a ‘fashion for all’ philosophy – the company offers stylish clothing for people of all ages, body shapes and income levels.

“We first started investing in tech in 1968,” says Adam Warne, Chief Information Officer at N Brown, “so we've always been quite entrepreneurial with how we use tech in the business.”

A partnership built on shared values

Printed in giant typeface on the walls of the open-plan offices of N Brown is the message “Together for the Customers.”

It’s a core value for every member of the team. As part of a partnership, TCS team members quickly assimilated this, and N Brown's other values into their digital transformation work. Moving beyond a customer-client relationship in this way has been key to the success of the collaboration. The real magic happens when the values and purpose of both organizations align.

That’s the view of Alyson Fadil, Chief People Officer at N Brown. “Not only is it fundamental to the digital journey that we're on, but it's important that those partners are also aligned in order to serve our customers, our brand and our colleagues. So, we feel they're just an extension of us and our business, having those aligned values allows us to have a one team mentality. So, we don't see our partners as being suppliers. We see them as just that, trusted partners that help us on our vision to create the best e-commerce business we possibly can.”