12 EUROSHOPREPORT
FAIR HELPS RETAILERS SWEAT IT ASSETS E
uroShop 2011, the world’s biggest capital goods trade fair for retailers, which attracted
2,038 exhibitors from 53 nations and more than 106,000 visitors over fi ve days to 107,000 square metres of exhibition space at the Messe Düsseldorf, closed on 2 March. The strong turnout proved interest in new retail technology was high. HP, for example, made its debut at EuroCIS showcasing all-in-one till touchscreen systems it said operated as more than just an electronic point of sale (EPoS), by integrating with several software system partners, including SAP, Microsoft, Retalix and Torex, as well as with digital signage providers, Scala and YCD. Gwen Coble, HP regional product manager told Retail Technology: “Now we want to leverage our hardware, software, services and global supply chain among retailers. We’ve been one of retail’s best kept secrets until now.” Yannick Waelly, press manager of French till manufacturer Aures Technologies, said its focus on smaller multiples store formats or strong local brands and stadiums was guiding development. The latest Odyssé addition
to its Posligne range of integrated EPoS systems is due to feature a new processor and an exclusive software platform that could offer remote maintenance status updates. While Avery Berkel also sought to extend high-end PC functionality, showcasing its new Xtra range of scale and software products, among others. Peter Williams, Avery Berkel head of retail marketing, said new advances in integrated advertising, cross merchandising and intranet or internet access were possible “without the premium price”. John Smith, retail vice president in continental Europe for ADT, said recent customer research had revealed
retailers had three main priorities: “They want to sweat existing assets better.” Having sold traditionally sold products that protect assets, merchandise and people, Smith added that ADT was now taking a more holistic approach. “All of these systems have data associated with them,” he said. “We work to see how we put it all together to help manage operations better.” This translated to electronic article surveillance (EAS) security barriers with people counting capabilities built in, or more sophisticated camera hotspot tracking linked with PoS management systems to help boost conversion and refi ne store layouts, for example.
MICROSOFT FORGES INTO CLOUD AT EUROSHOP
Retail Technology was invited to attend an exclusive roundtable discussion on hosted cloud computing by Microsoft at EuroShop 2011. David Dobson, Microsoft
worldwide retail industry manager, said: “Our retail customers want us to provide the right technologies for them that enable them to support their existing infrastructures, and we’ve continued to innovate in this way for 15 years. The difference now is that we want to provide equivalent capabilities in the cloud, through our ‘software plus services’ model.” Mana Yelin, Retalix vice president
of marketing strategy, said the current retail IT challenge was to balance greater integration, scale and growth – across geographies,
RETAIL TECHNOLOGY MARCH/APRIL 2011
brands and channels – with reduced overall total cost ownership and deployment time. “So we are working on the cloud enablement of our portfolio of retail solutions using .Net, Azure and Windows 7 to create a central engine to aid in fl exibility of deployment,” she explained. “The key is to have a technology infrastructure or architecture that enables these options.”
Mathias Steinberg, chief executive
of Lokad, was on hand to explain why his business analytics services were built entirely on the Microsoft Azure cloud operating system. “We can provide fully automated, on-demand sales forecasting at a signifi cantly reduced cost to the retailer, who can access hundreds of
thousands of servers for an hour to detect patterns in large volumes of data. Azure give is the power to do this,” he said.
Wladimiro Bedin, president of Microsoft partner and retail web service provider aKite, said that before building its cloud retail management system on Microsoft’s platform it evaluated Amazon Web Services. “When it comes to using a platform-as-a-service, the biggest issue is managing load balancing, fault tolerance and automatic update problems. If you design a system based on the Microsoft platform, you get all these features ‘in-app’. This keeps costs down and customers know all their stores are getting the same service levels.”
◆ EuroCIS, the retail IT part of EuroShop 2011, and the EHI Retail Institute distributed the third European retail technology awards (reta) at a lavish event in Düsseldorf. Winners in the ‘Best Customer Experience’ category were the Swiss hypermarket operator Manor, the French supermarket chain Intermarché and the German fashion retailer s. Oliver. In the ‘Best In-store Solution’ category, Albert Heijn, Sonae and The Co- operative Group were awarded prizes this year. And REWE Informations- Systeme, Gerry Weber International and Otto International received awards in the ‘Best Enterprise Solution’ category.
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