From showroom to server: e-commerce in top gear at Richa
Richa.be
Richa is an established name in the world of motorcycle clothing. What began in 1952 as a Belgian producer of leather gloves has grown into an international motorcycle clothing brand present in more than sixty countries. Richa is known for its combination of style, safety, and technical innovation, with partnerships including GORE-TEX and D3O. Behind this international expansion and the brand's digital transformation lies a stable, forward-looking IT infrastructure.
One of the key figures in this digital transformation is Kurt de Leeuw, e-commerce manager at Richa — and a keen motorcyclist himself. He started his career as an account manager but quickly became fascinated by the possibilities of digital technology. What followed was a self-taught journey into IT and e-commerce, where he brought technology and commerce closer and closer together. Kurt is both a thinker and a doer, clearly at home in the world where the motorcycle, data, and the customer meet. In such an environment, speed is essential — and so is a partner who can keep pace, adapt, and anticipate. That agility is precisely what makes the difference between stagnation and growth.
"If you want to grow, everything has to move with you: systems, people, and your IT partner."
Kurt de Leeuw, Richa.be
Transition and scalability at Richa
This became clear quickly when Kurt joined Richa in 2024. Both the B2B and B2C webshops were running locally on a server — a situation that was not scalable and posed risks in terms of stability and security. The first step was to separate these environments and migrate the B2C webshop to a dedicated server environment at Duocast. The B2B environment was moved to Microsoft Azure.
Although the bulk of revenue comes from B2B, he sees considerable growth potential in the direct-to-consumer market. That potential can only be realised with IT infrastructure that is scalable, stable, and reliable. He is working on expanding the product range, optimising product data, and launching targeted marketing campaigns — all initiatives that call for infrastructure that grows flexibly and reliably alongside them. "It is essential to be able to rely on a partner who is not only available and solution-oriented, but also anticipates — before an issue becomes visible to the client."
Smart optimisations in retail and logistics
Kurt had previously played a key role at MKC Moto, part of the Richa Group. There, he achieved significant growth in a short time through a series of quick optimisations: improvements to stock management, linking in-store and online inventory, adding local payment options, and activating dormant stock. These "quick wins" led directly to measurable increases in revenue.
These results illustrate how valuable it is for an e-commerce manager to also have an in-depth understanding of IT systems: the translation from technology to results can then be made much faster. Within Richa, Kurt applies the same pragmatic approach: no drawn-out processes, but concrete improvements with immediate impact.
Keeping complexity and dependencies manageable
With systems such as ERP, PIM, CRM, and e-commerce platforms, Richa's IT environment is complex. Growth in such a context requires not only technical integrations but, crucially, oversight and flexibility in the infrastructure to be able to act quickly. "A small change in one system can have unintended consequences in another." He therefore advocates greater oversight, ownership, and control, without consolidating everything into a single central platform. "You have to spread risk but keep coordinating effectively."
Reliability as a prerequisite
For an e-commerce manager, reliability is crucial: without a stable digital environment, consistent growth is impossible. Issues with hosting, speed, or support must not be allowed to hold back commercial ambitions.
This proves invaluable in a fast-growing, international e-commerce environment where every interruption means immediate lost revenue.
