Point-of-Sale Upgrade Boosts Customer Experience, Reduces Downtime, and Saves Money for Leading European DIY Retailer

On a mission to deliver the best possible experience to customers

A decade or two ago, a business could be assured of profits with just a brick-andmortar store with all the essential offerings. But now, few would disagree that this is just a recipe for disaster for retailers across the globe. How does a retailer survive in this highly competitive race?This Capgemini customer — serving a million customers a week at more than 370 stores — knows all the right answers to the question, being the leader in the European DIY market.

Though a relatively young retail group, this company’s corporate website was already featured in the top 25 Global Retail ranking. The website was ranked high on the basis of its user experience, performance, and search engine optimization — all meant to render browsing, choice, and purchase as an effortless experience for visitors and customers.

The retailer has been continuously fortifying its product portfolio and has promoted and renovated more than 25 stores. Further to this, it also opened 10 new stores recently. All its initiatives have been designed to help its customers ‘build the best’ and create the home of their dreams. To support this mission, the company uses the latest technologies to drive brand loyalty through outstanding in-store services and experiences for customers.

Providing superior shopping experiences meant aligning strategy with the most innovative technology

Technology is propelling enterprises ahead. If a retailer misses the opportunity to improve its point of sale (PoS) systems, it’s highly probable it will be left behind while all its competitors zoom ahead in the race for market leadership. PoS systems offer retailers a convenient way of transporting their business into the 21st century.This particular retailer’s PoS system was outdated. It was not compatible with its wider strategic move to improve the customer journey throughout its stores and make its in-store experience consistent with the shifting retail expectations of connected consumers.

Moreover, it needed a flexible and scalable system in order to keep up with a rapidly changing retail market where newer, smaller shops are being added to retailers’ portfolios at a greater rate than megastore sites. Meanwhile, the company’s long-term strategic objective was to centralize management of the company’s fragmented IT systems. In addition, with one eye on the future, it wanted the freedom to develop an ever-more immersive, interactive, and personalized in-store experience — when it had the opportunity — including features such as displaying instruction videos and even gamification functionality.

The retailer approached Capgemini with these challenges due to our established record of working on numerous transformation projects with some of Europe’s largest retailers.

Implementing a technology solution that’s a value-add to the retailer’s stores

The retailer benefited from Capgemini’s retail technology alliance with Intel, which covers everything from guidance on hardware to the development of completely original concepts. Because of its decades-long support for start-ups and the ‘maker’ community, Intel has forged strong connections with a vast and vibrant community of disruptive companies, and it was also able to introduce the retailer to an SME producing innovative PoS solutions.PoS terminals featuring Intel® vPro™ Technology — a hardware-based security and manageability solution that runs on Intel® Core™ processors — were proposed to the retailer. This was the best-suited approach to tackle the need for more advanced PoS systems mainly due to the solution’s centralized management and administration features, and secure network storage – all beyond the firewall.

The retailer could immediately see an extended business case regarding Intel vPro Technology’s manageability features and the power of Intel® Core™ i3 and i5 processors. These solution features would allow them to extend the basic cash function with loyalty and promotion functions in the future while also reducing downtime from the outset.

Marketing and technology experts from Capgemini and Intel work together at the Capgemini Retail Innovation Center in France to develop solutions that help retailers build a single view of the customer by combining centralized, multi-channel communications with in-depth analytics to create a personalized experience that drives the one thing modern retailers prize over everything else – customer loyalty.

Happier shoppers and a healthier planet

The Capgemini and Intel solution has provided the retailer with a standard architecture and a proven remotely based support model with a high level of guaranteed uptime and a system that is many times more manageable and scalable than before. The key benefits derived by the retailer include:

• Protection against security breaches: IT administrators can now access, track, and manage thousands of devices remotely — diagnosing, isolating, or repairing them —so long as they are connected to the network. This is possible regardless of the state of the operating system or whether these devices are powered off. Moreover, threats can be proactively managed by pushing security updates to stores before a breach occurs.
• Good for the environment: The central management of devices, combined with the efficiency of the Intel processors, has enabled the retailer to reduce overall energy consumption and lower its carbon footprint — which the CSR team is delighted with.
• Even better for shoppers: The new PoS system has created a streamlined purchasing experience aligned with what modern consumers expect, while providing a consistent look and feel across the company’s digital and physical shopping experiences.