Discover how Sii helps its strategic client PUMA with IT nearshoring services

PUMA is one of the world’s leading sports brands, designing, developing, selling, and marketing footwear, apparel, and accessories. For 75 years, the company has provided the most innovative products for the fastest athletes on the planet. Headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Germany, PUMA distributes its products in more than 120 countries. For more than nine years, Sii specialists have supported the client in developing and enhancing business applications using a full range of technologies.

Sii has become PUMA’s partner in February 2014. The very initial interest in PUMA was related to Sii’s expertise in the execution of custom development projects, specifically within the Java programming language and Vaadin framework. Since the start of the collaboration and the first project deliveries, Sii was offered to take on other often critical business projects across multiple areas e.g., Business Intelligence, IT Retail, and Digital Workplace Solutions, the most critical being the custom development of a new product lifecycle management platform.

After 8 years of cooperation, Product Lifecycle Management remains the biggest area of Sii’s involvement. The set of loosely coupled applications allows Developers, Designers, and Product Managers to work on their ideas from the vague concept, through the prototype right up to the final,  signed-off product. It will support them in designing, pricing, and defining the specifications of all products.

Thanks to the modern technology stack, new service, and cloud-based architecture, these applications offer users more flexibility, durability, and improved UX. They allow PUMA to respond quickly to dynamic changes and challenges of the current market like an even bigger emphasis on e-commerce post-Covid or topics related to sustainability.

Over the years, one project evolved into a program with scalable teams of experts. PUMA emphasizes the fact that Sii is a reliable partner to quickly and effectively set up dedicated project teams to take on new PUMA-driven IT initiatives or address project peaks.

— Crucial for us is that Sii can provide high-expertise project teams within a relatively short time. Their engineers are experts in their respective fields and contribute valuable, goal-oriented input and a vast experience to our projects – says Kurt Walther, Global Director IT at PUMA. — The proximity to Sii’s headquarters in Poland is also a benefit for PUMA. Whenever necessary, we are able to call face-to-face power sessions at our headquarters offices in Herzogenaurach with short notice to create an even stronger interaction between PUMA and Sii’s project teams. Our normal way of working is based on digital meetings and ad-hoc communication that can easily be scheduled without thinking about time zones — Walther adds.

— Sii takes great pride in working with PUMA, the brand supporting the fastest athletes in the world. Not only were we given a possibility to contribute to the global success of the brand but also found a partner with exciting projects in terms of business domain and technology stack, which brings a lot of satisfaction to our employees – says Grzegorz Brzostowski, Germany Business Lead at Sii Poland. After 8 years of cooperation, we are honored to have a very strong partnership with the brand that enjoys solid business growth despite the geo-political landscape impacting consumer sentiment throughout the last few years. We do our best to contribute to the development of PUMA’s IT landscape every day with our hard work and commitment – he adds.

Today, close to 200 Sii engineers take part in PUMA-related processes. They help to cover application development projects executed in different technology stacks like JAVA, .NET, Office 365, and Microsoft PowerApps. Other Sii teams work hand-in-hand with PUMA’s infrastructure teams on the development and maintenance of a growing Azure environment or support the migration of Business Intelligence applications into this cloud. Last but not least, Sii supports PUMA’s Atlassian environment with operations and enhancements.

Sii provides comprehensive cross-functional teams to sometimes cover the full project scope from business requirements detailing through architecture design, development, testing, implementation, and maintenance. In some highly specific areas, Sii implements dedicated technical teams to work hand in hand with PUMA’s internal staff to increase existing IT capacities to address project peaks or, whenever possible, suggest optimizations via the managed services model.

— We are hoping for long-term cooperation and are committed to helping PUMA to become the fastest company within their industry sector, not only in the business meaning but also as an IT organization — Brzostowski concludes.

Find out more about projects created by Sii experts for PUMA – the product lifecycle management system and business applications supporting a modern workplace environment.

Contact us and discover opportunities for collaboration with Sii teams.