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Not willing to be outdone by the giants in the supermarket
arena, the Dutch-based SPAR group will celebrate its 40th
birthday in the UK by becoming the first operator in the
convenience store retail market to launch a completely new IT
retailing solution for its 2,500 UK outlets.
The decision is part of the group's long-term strategy to
maintain its position as the world's largest food retailer in
terms of turnover (£21bn in 1996).
Roy Ford, Retail Systems Manager for SPAR takes up the story "We
were the first to do extended hour trading and we had nearly ten
years of that before the supermarkets caught up and started
trading equal hours. Now we need to move on"
The £6.5 million investment comprises a new custom-built point
of sale network system to implement this. SPAR is working
together with Microsoft Solution Provider, Vista.
The new system, SPARPoS is a Windows based client/server
application running on DigiPoS retail hardware.
The solution was developed in conjunction with BCP, a Microsoft
Software Solution Partner, who has worked in partnership with
SPAR for the last ten years. They worked to achieve a seamless
integration with a back office system operating on an NT
Workstation, running in over 1000 SPAR stores. This will mean
an easy upgrade path for existing users.
SPARPoS aims to shorten queues and allow store owners to capture
valuable data about their customers buying patterns. This,
together with the systems ability to maintain records for stock
control, sales reporting, automatic ordering and high speed
credit checking, will enable the group to monitor each outlet's
performance and optimise the group's sales and marketing
strategy.
Grant Gutteridge, Chairman at Vista, is committed to an
approach, which combines state of the art technology with high
levels of staff accessibility and responsiveness. He adds that
he is confident that the solution developed in conjunction with
SPAR will prove a very attractive proposition for retailers
considering joining the SPAR group.
The system will be installed at over 500 SPAR stores UK-wide
over a two year period, and all in-store systems will be linked
to the SPAR group's head office in Harrow.
The SPAR group took the decision to install the system
nationwide following a successful pilot project at a flagship
store managed by wholesalers, Alfred Jones, in Waterloo,
Warrington.
Warren Ward, IT manager at Alfred Jones was impressed: "The
Waterloo store is open 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, so the
project had to run smoothly in demanding conditions. Apart from
the quality of the DECPoS hardware, what really made the
installation a success was the outstanding dedication and
commitment of the Vista team."
Ward was greatly impressed with the functionality of the system
"It has built-in facilities for loyalty card schemes, discounts, multi-buys and
any kind of consumer one can think of. The replacement of end of the day procedures
by real time updating makes this a truly Ôopen' system, that can be mixed and matched
with most non-proprietary Périphériques - this is ideal both for SPAR and our
plans for the future"
The loyalty card scheme is more complex for SPAR than those of
the larger retail supermarkets, as SPAR's customers make more visits but on
average spend less on each trip in order to get over this problem, the group will sign
a deal with a non-competitor, to run a joint scheme, this will run along similar
lines as Shell's loyalty trial with John Menzies and Dixons in Scotland - where customers
can claim points at all three retailers.
Roy Ford, hopes that SPARPoS will give the group an edge by
allowing it to collate detailed information on customers which can be used for joint
projects with suppliers. Further SPAR initiatives to be launched later this year include
the introduction of American-style fast food outlets such as Subway or Blimp into
its stores.
"SPAR is leading the field in implementing flexible IT tools
which address the specific needs of small to medium sized retailers. The new
system is a Rolls-Royce piece of equipment - it will provide an easy upgrade path for
existing users and taking scanning traders into the 21st century in one single
step."
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