West Midlands Co-operative Society

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West Midlands Co-operative Society Deploys GlobalSTORE across UK

Customer’s Challenge

West Midlands Co-operative Society is a major retailer in the West Midlands and Shropshire, specialising in the sale of Food, Travel Services, Pharmaceutical Goods and Funeral Services. Employing more than 2,000 people across over 130 outlets, the Society's aim is to provide a first class service at fair prices, while building strong links with the local community.

The Society was using a highly bespoke, mixed estate of Point of Sale (POS) systems in its retail stores, some of which had been implemented in 1991. However, because of its age, it was not possible to adapt the technology to handle new initiatives, such as the introduction of Chip & PIN by 2005. Roy Frodsham, General Manager, Food Division West Midlands Co-op, explains, “In management terms, our POS systems were ‘time expired’, but we knew that Chip and PIN was just around the corner, so our infrastructure had to be changed or else the Society would have been at risk.”

Fujitsu Solution

West Midlands Co-op initially undertook a competitive analysis of possible suppliers to identify close matches with the Society’s business and technical criteria. Having narrowed the choice down to four companies, the Society eventually awarded Fujitsu a contract worth £1.3 million to provide a one stop solution, including business consultancy, infrastructure design and implementation, hardware and software support and polling services, for a full GlobalSTORE point of sale (POS) and electronic shelf edge label system - the first of its kind in the UK.

GlobalSTORE is a complete retail software solution that significantly enhances operational performance from the point of sale to the back office, including key areas such as inventory management and replenishment. As well as offering an easy to use interface it provides retailers with the management control and reporting needed to develop and achieve their corporate goals. GlobalSTORE’s technical openness and flexibility also ensures that any existing IT investment is not lost, while future-proofing.

“The new IT infrastructure provided by Fujitsu not only brings immediate business benefits, but also allows us to take full advantage of future developments. And that’s the benefit of working with Fujitsu - it is at the leading-edge of technology and has the interests of retailers at heart.” Melvyn Taylor, General Manager, IT West Midlands Co-op.

Following an extremely successful pilot, GlobalSTORE will be rolled-out across West Midland Co-op's remaining 36 stores. Once implemented, all of the Society’s IT infrastructure, including legacy and third-party products, will be supported by Fujitsu on a 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week basis, using enterprise management and desktop tools to ensure optimum performance and minimum down-time.

“A million pound plus project is a substantial investment for a small Society like ours, but our financial analysis of the cost/benefits showed that it was a sound investment,” explains Roy Frodsham. “The fact that Fujitsu had a tried and tested retail solution, proven to work well with a Co-op environment, was also a major factor in our decision. And we liked the people that we were dealing with. We had confidence in Fujitsu’s ability to deliver.”

Ben Reid, Chief Executive, West Midlands Co-op, comments, “Fujitsu has delivered a leading edge retail solution that provides us with a robust and flexible platform on which we can continue building our business, by ensuring we are able to deliver a great value service to our customers.”

Benefits to our Customer

The new solution will enable West Midlands Co-op to realize significant business and operational benefits:

• Increased revenue – improved on-shelf product availability can increase turnover by at least 5-10%
• Greater operational efficiency and simplified support – through a single, highly integrated store infrastructure
• Better customer service – with more accurate scanning and improved product and sales information
• Reduced staff training – the intuitive user interface requires around 70% fewer hours training.

Fujitsu’s proactive support service also ensures that system performance and availability is optimised in line with the Society’s current and evolving needs. Melvyn Taylor adds, “We asked Fujitsu to act as a one stop shop for all of our support and maintenance services because of the strength of the relationship that had developed. It is also a big advantage for us to only have one partner to deal with, who can manage everything effectively.”

Our Approach

The pilot site for the GlobalSTORE was West Midlands Co-op’s new, flagship supermarket at Bicton Heath, Shrewsbury, in which the Society had invested £1 million to develop.

“Bicton Heath is the modern face of our Society. Not only does it have an exciting new look and feel, but it is also technologically bang up to date, including the integration of Fujitsu self-checkout system, which is a big selling point. While we knew that moving to new system was a risk, and lots of other retailers were questioning what we were doing, we never considered that it would fail. We knew that Fujitsu would make it happen,” said Roy Frodsham, General Manager, Food Division West Midlands Co-op.

Melvyn Taylor confirms, “Fujitsu’s preparation was excellent - it could not have been done much better. The proof of that came on the day that the new system went live as we actually sent the technical support."

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