How does Cegid Retail support the Messika Group’s international development?

A well-known reference in the French luxury market, the jeweller Messika is based in mainland France but has its sights set high when it comes to international development. Already present in Europe and the Middle East, the company has recently expanded to the USA and is now investing in new Asian markets, more specifically China and Japan.

The major challenges for the Messika Group, and how Cegid Retail met their needs

How can it continue its international development, while retaining the same level of quality and detail in its expansion and management? And how can it do all of this while continuing to provide an exceptional customer experience, increasingly important for luxury goods companies? To achieve this, Messika looked to the Cegid Retail unified commerce platform.

Franck Diogo, Chief information officer of the Messika Group, explains the reasons for choosing this solution: “To support our continued growth in France and around the world, we need the right tools that allow us to quickly develop new activities”.

Cegid Retail provided a response to two of the company’s major challenges:

1. To have a standard payment system certified across all countries with different legislation, and able to provide flexible support for Messika’s international growth.
2. To offer customers, irrespective of their country or channel, an exceptional brand experience in keeping with a brand of Messika’s standing.

Flexible internationalisation: Finding an easy tool to roll out

Messika is a well-known luxury company, with objectives in keeping with its prestige. Already boasting some 400 stores, both company-owned and franchises, its aim was to open more than twenty additional points of sale in 2022 alone!

To achieve this, Messika therefore searched the market for a tool that was easy to implement: “We needed a stable and modern solution”, their CIO tells us. To set up in all countries, following the group’s roadmap, they opted for a solution that was easy to duplicate: “When you invest in a new country, you need a tool that’s easy to duplicate. That’s why we chose Cegid Retail to accompany us in managing our points of sale”, explains Franck Diogo.

Another problem was the fact that Messika has limited teams dedicated to development. In order to set up new stores around the world without necessarily being able to dedicate a large number of employees in the field, the SaaS offer of Cegid Retail’s unified commerce platform proved invaluable.

Cegid offers a management solution that is “easy to use”, easy to roll out, and can therefore be used to “industrialise the implementation of point of sale management”, continues Franck Diogo. It is then easy for employees to get to grips with this intuitive solution. Cegid Retail also adapts to the specific local practices in each country: a major benefit, contributing to the successful opening of so many new stores!

An omni-channel customer experience: How to provide an exceptional shopping experience

The French fine jewellery specialist also had another essential requirement, one which Cegid was able to meet: the need to offer an impeccable customer experience, in keeping with its product offer.

This, Franck Diogo tells us, is in fact one of Messika’s key strategies: “We were looking for solutions, processes and tools that could provide a response to the issues we faced: how to get to know our customers better, how to better welcome them and, indeed, how to anticipate their needs and expectations”.

To do this, the back office IT teams need to be able to add and manage all customer data from all channels, and consolidate the data from sales and inventories.

Objective: to offer an optimal customer experience, in all countries in which the luxury brand operates. This is exactly what Cegid Retail offers. Messika therefore had the flexibility to manage its omni-channel retail activities and provide an exceptional and customised shopping experience, anywhere in the world. “For each customer that comes to us, there is no simple purchase. The act of purchasing is an important one, with a lot of emotions attached”, says Franck Diogo.