Atlanta Business Expands to Middle East and South Africa

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Not too long ago, Flip Flop Shops was just a business plan for a flip-flop franchise. Five friends, Brian, Darin, Sarah, Alan and Todd set up shop out in Kennesaw, and their business had grown to a modest size by 2009, posting $2.3 million in sales. Locations focused on Las Vegas and California, but the small team wanted to reach farther.

Three years later, the story had become much more impressive. Sales were $21 million, and the following year Flip Flop Shops had risen to #20 in the rankings for Atlanta metro area businesses, according to Inc. The firm recently received substantial media attention when it announced expansion into the Middle East and South Africa, where it will compete for a bigger slice of the $200 billion international market.

Flip Flop Shops is exceptional, but it is not alone in its high-paced success story. Companies like Dollar Shave Club, Quidsi and many others have gone from local to international in a matter of years. Whereas most of these stratospheric rockets depend largely on eCommerce for their sales, Flip Flop Shops is a retail franchise. Setting up shop in such a vast array of real-world locations is a very real challenge, which would have been impossible for a startup to overcome even just a decade ago.

What technology did this company utilize, which was previously unavailable?

Modern Communications Provide Seamless Conferencing and Training Tools

Consider for a moment the organizational requirements for opening a new store location, or the sheer number of servers that the company would have been forced to buy as its website traffic spiked. The sophistication and adaptability required to deploy across the globe within a matter of years was unattainable for startups. The cloud changed everything.

Cloud-enabled business communications solutions drive easily affordable solutions for businesses like yours. Voiceover IP phone systems and cloud solutions enable easy expansion.

Give us a call to find out how IT can take your business to the next level.