British Red Cross selects Cybertill EPoS software

This article is brought to you by Retail Technology Review: British Red Cross selects Cybertill EPoS software.

EPoS & e-commerce technology company, Cybertill Limited, has revealed that it has been awarded a contract by British Red Cross, one of the longest-established and best-known humanitarian organisations, to supply EPoS systems to its extensive network of charity shops throughout the United Kingdom.

Over the past 18 months, British Red Cross has been conducting a review of its retail operations.  One of the key conclusions to emerge was the need to improve technology and management information at a shop level.

Paul Thompson, General Manager of Retail at British Red Cross, accepts that the retail chain had fallen behind in technology terms.  We have been operating with very basic cash registers, and have not had the benefit of any system-generated management intelligence.  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.

Given the scale of its requirement, British Red Cross undertook a comprehensive supplier evaluation and asked a number of companies to tender for its business.

Explains Paul Thompson: 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.

System ease of use was particularly important to British Red Cross as its shops are staffed by a diverse team of paid and volunteer workers.  The organisation was also intent on selecting a supplier with the capacity to provide the scale of backup, support and training that it required, and who could demonstrate its ability to manage a phased system roll-out of the required magnitude.

Adds Ian Tomlinson, Managing Director at Cybertill:  We are very proud to have secured the business of British Red Cross.  Whilst we already have clients in charity retailing, this will be our largest EPoS deployment in the sector.  It is a real feather in our cap to have won this contract.

The Cybertill system will become the core system of each shop, and will link to British Red Cross finance system.  It will be deployed as a managed Software as a Service, giving the charity access to functions and to its data via a broadband connection to Cybertills Glasgow Data Centre.  System roll-out is planned to begin during Autumn 2008.