Mango to open a digital innovation centre in Barcelona’s tech hub 22@

Mango fuels innovation. The Spanish fashion retailer is negotiating several locations within the 22@, the technologic district of Barcelona, to open a digital innovation center in 2019. The company could have been exploring different locations for the last months, as sources have confirmed to EjePrime.

Mango, the second biggest fashion retailer Spain (only behind Inditex), is currently looking for a surface of 800 square meters and 1,000 square meters in the 22@, which would host up to a hundred workers.

According to sources close to the company, the plans of the enterprise presided by Isak Andic include having a digital innovation center with about a hundred workers in a period of two years, considering the current personnel and new incorporations.

Mango’s new office could host up to a hundred employees

Mango’s digital innovation centre will be constituted by the brand’s e-commerce and omnichannel team, led by Elena Carraso, one of the biggest experts in digital commerce of fashion in Spain. Mango has set the goal to attract new developing engineers with their relocation in 22@.

In their search for a house for their techies, Mango has visited several properties from the technologic district of Barcelona during the last months. From the complex of offices belonging to the family office Barcelonesa Investments (in which the smaller of the three buildings is owned by Catalana Occidente) located in Pallars street, to the property owned by Renta Corporation in the Pere IV street. Furthermore, the textile leviathan could have taken a look at many co-workings that have lately been opened in the area of Poblenou, according to previously mentioned sources.

The new digital innovation center of the company will be constituted by part of the e-commerce and omnichannel team

Mango’s headquarters is located in the municipality of Palau-Solità I Plegamans, in the province of Barcelona. The company counts with a global workforce of 15,970 people, 36% of which is situated in Spain. Out of the total workers, 2,605 belong to the structure, and the rest to the personnel in points of sales.

As sources close to the company have told to EjePrime, the initial intention of the group was set on transferring a bigger group of people towards the district of Barcelona, but ultimately, they have opted to move only the group linked to e-commerce and omnichannel strategies.

Mango is one of the pioneer groups in online channels. The company launched its first e-commerce platform back in 2000, with Elena Carasso leading the operation, six years before Tendam did so with Women’secret and ten years before Inditex.

22@: the hub of offices in Barcelona

22@ is the place where all companies want to go to for the last year in Barcelona. The technologic hub casts more than 370,000 square meters of offices’ surface. In 2018 alone, the district had welcomed great multinationals like Facebook, who rented the space in the iconic Torre Glòries, the producer of technologic products Hewlett&Packard (HP), the consulting Everis or the French marketing company Criteo.

Furthermore, co-working is one of the office concepts which generates a higher interest in the demand for working spaces around 22@. The international behemoths WeWork and Spaces landed in Spain through this area in Barcelona. The former owns two properties in the district, summing up more than 11,000 square meters of surface.

For its part, Regus’ co-working brand, Spaces, announced before the summer a space expansion in their property located in Pallars street, which already occupies more than 3,500 square meters of surface.