Company News • 12.06.2015
Epicor Retail unveils new point of sale in the cloud offering
Retailers benefit from accelerated deployment, flexibility, scalability and ease of integration
Epicor Software Corporation has unveiled its new Epicor Retail Store Point of Sale (POS) in the Cloud offering here at Insights, the company's annual user conference.
The new POS in the Cloud solution brings a whole new level of speed-to-value, efficiency and flexibility to retailers in an area that is ripe for change; store-level infrastructure is notoriously complex, and difficult and expensive to manage. POS in the Cloud gives retailers ultimate flexibility to deploy, scale and manage POS deployments with significantly reduced effort and cost. The solution moves all Point of Sale business logic to the cloud, leveraging the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Infrastructure as a Service platform.
The solution supports retailers' most pressing technology imperatives: the desire to accelerate speed to value through cloud delivery models; the need to reduce IT complexity and simplify integration; and the responsibility to address data security and compliance mandates.
Charming Charlie Commandeers the Cloud to Guide Growth
One of the first Epicor Retail customers to leverage the Epicor Retail Store POS in the Cloud offering is Charming Charlie, an innovative women's fashion accessory company that provides high quality style and unrivaled value across its broad product assortment that is uniquely merchandised by color rather than category. Now celebrating its 10th year in business, today Charming Charlie has more than 350 stores across North America and recently announced its expansion into international territory in 2015.
To accommodate this phenomenal growth, Charming Charlie has moved to a cloud strategy that leverages the POS engine in the cloud, but provides offline capabilities in the event the store loses cloud connectivity. In the event the store loses connectivity, the transaction will continue on without missing a beat during failover. Once the connection returns to the cloud, any transactions completed while offline, will sync to the cloud. The Epicor POS in the Cloud offering is designed to provide an outstanding customer and associate experience, and will help to reduce cost and complexity and improve efficiency and agility. The company plans to have its first pilot store location live on the Epicor Retail Store POS in the Cloud solution within 30 days.
"Epicor Retail Store POS in the Cloud will be a game changer for us," said John Hnanicek, SVP - CIO, for Charming Charlie. "We are gaining extensibility, faster time to market and speed to value, and support on a global scale without the need for extensive capital investments, as well as best-in-class disaster recovery, business continuity and site replication."
"By moving away from the traditional IT model of 'managing IT' to leveraging the cloud to support growth and agility, we are free to focus on having the right product, people and strategies in place to expand our retail enterprise on a global scale and best meet the needs of our customers," he said.
Accelerated POS Deployments
It can take 12 to 24 months to roll out an on premises POS platform to a retail enterprise of hundreds or thousands of stores. This lengthy POS timeline is no longer adequate in today's world where retailers must move quickly to deliver personalized, empowered, efficient and seamless experiences that exceed customer expectations at every touch point. The Epicor Retail Store POS in the Cloud solution radically slashes deployment timelines, so that a 1,000-store retailer can now be up and running across the chain in a significantly reduced timeframe.
Maximum Flexibility, Scalability and Ease of Integration
Retailers are continually challenged by complexity in POS deployments. Today's retail enterprise is faced with a growing array of POS devices to support -- from Apple® iPods® to Microsoft® tablets. As well, as retailers expand and push into new regions, they require the ability to cost-effectively expand their POS to serve new customers in new geographies. POS in the Cloud enables retailers to "future proof" their POS systems to scale and support new countries/regions and new POS devices, as well as integrate with new technologies and new partners to continue to innovate and evolve their customer experience strategies.
Data Protection, Security and Compliance Benefits
Data security and compliance top the retail agenda; while the penalties for poor customer data protection and privacy practices are stiff, ranging from negative publicity and embarrassment to costly fines and lawsuits, the "customer fallout effect" can be even more devastating. Retailers must ensure their POS systems stay in compliance with mandatory regulations, such as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), and security best practices such as the forthcoming Europay, MasterCard and Visa ("EMV") initiative.
The Epicor Retail Store POS in the Cloud solution removes the onus on retailers to address these new and evolving requirements. With Epicor POS in the Cloud, retailers can leverage extensive investment in world-class, best practice physical and data security measures and backup and disaster recovery capabilities, to ensure data security and integrity, and regular software updates that ensure POS systems remain in compliance.
"In today's omni-channel retail world, retailers with a brick & mortar footprint have a distinct advantage and opportunity to inspire their customers through a seamless, personalized customer experience that exceeds expectations," said Noel Goggin, EVP, general manager, Epicor Retail. "The Epicor Retail Store POS in the Cloud solution empowers retailers while liberating them from the challenges of their on-premises POS systems," he said. "Over the past year, Epicor Retail has made significant investments in enabling delivery models in the Cloud; with the introduction of our POS in the Cloud solution today, Epicor Retail now has a fully integrated and cloud-based solutions suite spanning POS, Digital Commerce, Order Management, CRM, Merchandising, Planning, Sourcing, Audit, and Analytics."
Source: Epicor Software Corporation
channels: data management, data analysis, data storage, data transfer
