New till tech for British Red Cross

The British Red Cross is to roll new electronic point-of-sale (EPOS) systems out to its 330 shops to improve its retail branch technology and management information.

After an 18-month review of its retail operations, the charity decided to update its in-store technology that could be easily adopted by its diverse team of pain and volunteer staff and scale to its extensive branch network.

As one of the longest-established and best-known humanitarian organisations, the retail chain had fallen behind in technology terms, said Paul Thompson, retail general manager at British Red Cross.

"We have been operating with very basic cash registers, and have not had the benefit of any system-generated management intelligence," he said. "It is now time to move to a system that will provide the accurate and in-depth information that will enable British Red Cross to monitor and analyse its business more thoroughly."

The organisation has awarded UK EPOS and e-commerce technology company, Cybertill the contract to supply its hosted, software-as-a-service (SaaS) based retail management software to a refreshed till estate as a result of a tender process.

The Cybertill system will be used as the core retail system in each shop, linking to British Red Cross' central finance system. Deployed as a managed service, the charity will access its functions and store data via a broadband connection to the provider's Glasgow data centre. Roll out is planned to commence during Autumn 2008.

Thompson added: "We felt that Cybertill provided the best all-round package. We will soon be able to benefit from real-time information, a safe and secure environment and the ability to have a great communication tool between the head office and our shops."