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Watches of Switzerland Protects Retail Operations With Cloud Backup Simplicity

With flexible storage contract options, reliable connectivity, and immutability included in its flat pricing, Wasabi was an easy choice.

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Overview

The Watches of Switzerland Group is the UK’s largest luxury watch retailer, with a complimentary jewelry offering. The Watches of Switzerland Group currently has 208 showrooms across the UK, Europe, and the US. Their IT department deployed Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage to modernize backup infrastructure, reduce risk, and support long-term retention of their data across its growing global footprint.

INDUSTRY:
Retail (Luxury Goods)

USE CASE:

  • Backup & recovery

Challenges

The Watches of Switzerland Group needed a better way to protect key data across 208 showrooms and meet evolving business continuity goals. IT stored backups of all the company’s virtual environments to the cloud, but as the company grew, it began to run out of storage, and the old provider required a new three-year contract whenever more storage was purchased. The forced long-term commitment made the business reconsider its options, especially since backups were slower than they should be.

Contract inflexibility

The business did not appreciate being locked into a long-term contract with a single vendor.

Poor backup performance

Backups were slow, which hindered the IT department’s ability to work efficiently.

Budgetary constraints

While the business looked for other cloud options, they didn’t want to increase costs.

Wasabi just works. The best thing about it is that it’s a hot resource, not cold storage, so the data is always immediately available to us. If we need to do a restore, we can retrieve our data quickly.

– Rakesh Borhara, Server Engineer – The Watches of Switzerland Group

Wasabi doesn’t charge extra for backup features. With our previous provider, it was a lot more expensive. With Wasabi, you just tick a box to activate these features and that’s it.

– Rakesh Borhara, Server Engineer – The Watches of Switzerland Group

Deploying Wasabi was simple and straightforward. We had a technical contact who answered our questions, and we didn’t have any issues.


– Rakesh Borhara, Server Engineer – The Watches of Switzerland Group

Solution

The Watches of Switzerland Group use Wasabi cloud as part of its global storage strategy. The team selected Wasabi for its security, simplicity, and predictable costs, making it easier to meet long-term retention needs and reduce risk. The rollout was phased and straightforward, allowing the team to gradually onboard systems over time.

  • Greater contract flexibility – The business was able to sign an agreement that worked for the business with Wasabi.

  • Variety of features – The Watches of Switzerland Group was able to enable various features and Wasabi didn’t charge for them, whereas their previous provider did.

  • Improved performance – Backups take less time with Wasabi, and there is no downtime as they run 24/7.

  • Good support through partners – The Watches of Switzerland Group purchased Wasabi through a reseller, who offered support in contracting and renewals.

  • Easy integration with existing systems – Wasabi integrates seamlessly with the company’s systems and can access the data anytime it’s needed thanks to Wasabi’s single hot storage tier.

Results

With backups now in the Wasabi cloud, the Watches of Switzerland Group team no longer worries about infrastructure limitations or retention bottlenecks. The team has more confidence in recovery and more time to focus on higher-value projects.

Secure cloud devices

  • Improved security – Wasabi security features included in the flat pricing enhance the company’s data protection.

  • More confident planning – Long-term retention is no longer a limitation.

  • Freed up IT resources – Less time spent on reactive backup tasks and less money wasted on fees for testing backups since Wasabi does not charge egress fees.

  • Supports continuity goals – Cloud storage aligns with broader IT modernization plans.

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