One of the UK's largest retailer's long-term commitment to developing retail IT systems in-house has paid off at the point-of-sale (PoS), allowing it to offer multiple customer service, payment and feedback 'channels'.

The Co-operative Group invested in an in-house PoS system, known as InControl, running IBM's StorePay in 2005. Driven in part to prepare for the migration to chip and PIN terminals, it also integrated Smart Technology Solutions' (STS) SmartNS software to link up any smart card application, through any point of interface to any business system, such as the IBM StorePay payment application.

Lawrence Freeman, The Co-operative Group's development manager, spoke to Retail Technology about how that investment as underpinned its development ever since. "InControl is now used in around 4,000 stores and 13,000 lines, which is more than ASDA and Sainsbury's. But we think of it as much more than EPoS [electronic PoS]," he said.

"Many years ago, we wanted to develop open architecture systems that would allow functionality needed in stores not to be tied to any specific device, so we worked with Microsoft to develop a blueprint of how the software should be phased. Now we don't have restrictions in deploying functionality on PoS and handheld devices."

To date, The Co-op has expanded its PoS functionality on its chip and PIN payment terminals to gather customer feedback and improve the customer experience, as well as introducing self-service and mobile checkouts.

Where the PoS systems were able to drive cost and process efficiencies, by streamlining deployment, integration and maintenance overheads, Freeman said the most recently introduced mobile PoS (MPoS) solution is more about improving customer service.

"The MPoS solution was all about getting our staff to get customers checked out of the store faster," he explained. "But we deliberately didn't buy too many devices, but instead used the system to manage pre-basket processing and integrate with a payment station elsewhere. This also meant there was interaction with customers while they were queuing, increasing loyalty, while also delivering increased throughput."

The Group also recently announced it was launching its EPoS and store management system into the retail technology market, branded as InControl-Evolution.

Retail Technology, February 2010

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