Off licence chain Threshers is replacing its electronic
point of sale systems following a change in business strategy at
the beginning of the year saw it begin to transfer stores to a
franchise model.
The retailer, which has more than 2,000 stores, is the UK's
largest high-street off licence. Its IT director Simon Thomas said
he had put off a refresh of the company's Epos system when it made
other changes to its business systems because he could not justify
the cost of new hardware and software.
Thomas said, "We were waiting for the clear reason to replace
our till systems. The existing systems were pretty cost-effective
to maintain, but pretty expensive to replace."
The change to a franchise model provided the trigger for change
and the new systems have already been rolled out to the first
Threshers stores to become franchise operations, with 200 more to
follow next month.
Threshers is using supplier Fujitsu to deliver Epos, stock
management, customer relationship management and chip and Pin
applications to the franchised stores through a managed services
contract.
Threshers plans to eventually move to a business model where all
its stores are franchise operations.
The managed service is mandatory for Threshers franchisees.
Thomas said, "If you are going to make something mandatory, it has
to be competitive. No franchisee will be able to say they could get
a better system elsewhere."
Read article: Shopping for holistic enterprise
systems