| | December 20158CIOReviewAzure Cloud at the Forefront of Development By Phillip R. Kennedy, Director IT, PANDORAAt PANDORA, our mission is to celebrate women and special moments in their lives by offering them the opportunity for personal expression. We happen to use high-quality, contemporary jewelry at affordable prices to do this. The vision is to become the world's most loved jewelry brand. To accomplish this, it starts with great product and is supported by an engaging, memorable, and fun customer experience. Our pieces are sold in more than 9,500 stores in over 90 countries; sometimes our end customers shop at our corporate owned stores or franchises, while others seek out PANDORA at other retailers. As a company, PANDORA is growing - by leaps and bounds, which is a testament to the beauty and quality of the products we make. To support this rapid growth, we have worked to remain at the forefront of technology, realizing the massive benefit a well executed technology solution can have on the business. Information Technology as an internal competency within PANDORA is relatively new, being a little over 6 years old with all IT functions previously being outsourced. This had worked in a smaller organization but as the company's growth accelerated, it was apparent having a strong, agile internal IT team was critical to success. Once the decision was made, the first key hires focused on internal user support and infrastructure. After these areas were brought up to high level, the next area was to better support our retail partner network. Being a manufacturer, wholesaler, distributor, and retailer we have a number of IT customers in and around the organization. Running a lean team while supporting these customers in a rapidly growing organization poses some unique technical challenges. We decided to hire a highly skilled internal team with both technical and business backgrounds and ensure they had a deep understanding of how the organization worked. Keeping the In myOpinion
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