How OVS connects 8,000 employees on a single mobile app
Frontline engagement
OVS replaces bulletin boards and top-down cascades with WELLO, a branded mobile app built for store teams. Within six months, the full workforce of 8,000+ people connected. Page views reach 1.2 million in the first year.
In brief
The context
OVS S.p.A. leads the Italian apparel market for men, women, and children, and also operates in underwear, beauty, and home decoration. The company opened in 1972 and has been listed on the Italian stock exchange since March 2015.
The group employs more than 8,000 people across a network of over 2,600 stores in Italy and abroad, under the OVS, Upim, and Goldenpoint banners.
Internal communication sits with the Human Resources Department, which works as a strategic partner close to people and their needs. The team runs a structured system of listening and engagement while collaborating across Corporate Communication, Training, and Employer Branding.
The challenge
Eight in ten OVS employees work in stores, away from a personal corporate workstation. Information travelled through physical bulletin boards and top-down cascades, and reached the shop floor late.
Store teams felt professionally distant from the company. Growth through acquisition added brands, each with its own history and culture, which made a shared identity harder to build.
The team set out to build a cultural bridge rather than a mobile app. The measure of success: a sales assistant in a small regional store reaches the same information as a manager at headquarters, at the same moment.
Three goals framed the project:
- Reach every store employee directly, on a phone
- Give one shared identity to teams across OVS, Upim, and Stefanel
- Turn frontline workers into recognized contributors to the group story
The solution: a zero-friction mobile hub
OVS deploys WELLO, a branded mobile app designed as a virtual hub. Store teams work with limited time between customers, so every design decision protects those few minutes.
Sign-in that takes seconds
Single sign-on with Google credentials opens the app and the HR tools behind it. Access stays immediate, shift after shift.
One interface for every brand
A bring-your-own-device approach puts the app on the phone employees already carry. Whatever their brand, OVS, Upim, or Stefanel, they enter the same group interface. One entry point builds one sense of belonging.
HR language, translated
The team acts as a translator. The "HR Tips & Tricks" section turns legal and HR language into short, direct pills, written for a phone screen and read in a moment.
OVS MAG, a social magazine
OVS MAG carries news about company projects, stores, and the people behind them. Likes and comments turn the group strategy into a shared conversation, and turn store teams into contributors rather than readers.
Communities that run store to store
Dedicated communities let store employees share best practices and visual displays. The narrative moves from HQ-driven to store-led, and a horizontal dialogue opens across brands and locations.
One weekly broadcast digest
Governance keeps the volume right. A single high-quality weekly broadcast digest carries the updates that matter, so every message adds value to the workday and mobile fatigue stays out of the picture.
The adoption: WELLO DAY
OVS built a human-to-digital ritual around the launch.
Store Managers and local leads trained first. Then a synchronized event ran across 2,600 stores on the same day. Every Store Manager gathered the team in the morning for a collective kick-off and introduced the platform with the physical WELLO Welcome Kit.
The kit guided colleagues through their first login and turned a technical download into an official welcome into the company community. WELLO arrived as a benefit rather than as a new tool.
Today WELLO is the reference point for everything outside store operations, from HR documents to personal services.
The results
- 100% of the workforce, 8,000+ people, connected within six months
- 8,000 unique mobile users and 1.2 million page views in the first year
- Average session time close to three minutes
- "OVS Per Me", the benefits area, ranks among the most visited sections
- Upim brand community: 1,500 members, 1,000+ posts, and 21,000 reactions
A model that scales
The same environment welcomed the teams of OVS Innovation and Sustainability, which confirms that the model travels well across the group.
A frontline that sees itself differently
Area Managers and Store Managers describe a clear shift in how store teams perceive their place in the company: from working out of sight to holding real visibility. The corporate experience now adapts to individual needs, and the sense of belonging grows with it.
What made the difference
- Design for the phone first
Single sign-on and a bring-your-own-device approach open the app in seconds, on a device every employee already carries. - Translate before you broadcast
HR Tips & Tricks turns policy language into content a sales assistant reads between two customers. - Launch as a ritual, not a rollout
WELLO DAY turned a download into a welcome, in 2,600 stores on the same morning, led by Store Managers.
What's next
OVS keeps WELLO close to the people it serves. The team continues to extend the model to newly integrated companies, and to grow the space where store teams speak, share, and contribute.
Our partner
Huware guided OVS in developing Wello, a digital workplace designed to connect all employees, from stores to headquarters. Using a design thinking and change management approach, Huware created an intuitive, personalized, and omnichannel platform that improved internal communication and engagement and strengthened the company’s identity, while fully leveraging the capabilities of LumApps to meet OVS’s specific needs.
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