Major Canadian Retailer Cashes in With Microsoft Management Tools
Canadian Tire Retail operates over 460 stores across Canada, selling a diverse range of automotive, hardware and household products. After updating its point-of-sale (POS) system, the company needed a way to centrally manage checkouts across its retail locations. Canadian Tire required a management system that would allow it quickly identify and fix problems at the checkout, without dispatching an IT professional for on-site support. As well, Canadian Tire wanted the ability to install and update applications over its network, instead of manually installing them on each register – a process that took two weeks. The retailer evaluated a number of possibilities before choosing Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 and Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003. With improved management capabilities, employees are empowered to monitor the system and provide software updates from head office, helping them avoid system crashes that cause long lineups and frustrate customers. Moreover, the company has reduced its IT maintenance costs by 50 per cent.
Situation
Canadian Tire Retail and the Canadian Tire Dealer’s Association comprise one of Canada’s largest retail networks, with over 460 stores from coast to coast. Company research shows that about 90 per cent of all Canadians live within a 15-minute drive of a Canadian Tire store.
Such proliferation does not guarantee success in the competitive retail market, however. To win customers Canadian Tire dealers sell a diverse range of automotive, hardware and household products. They tailor their inventories to meet the varying needs of customers in different communities, and have regular in-store promotions.
Retailers know that aside from their product offerings and promotional programs, quick, efficient service goes a long way in keeping customers happy. So when Canadian Tire updated to a Fujitsu-based point-of-sale (POS) system, it realized it also needed a more efficient management system that would allow its IT team to monitor, update and repair checkouts centrally from the Canadian Tire head office.
“In the past, we did not have an efficient management system for our legacy POS system. The old DOS-based cash registers crashed frequently, requiring us to dispatch IT professionals to each location to identify and repair the problem,” says Andrew Wnek, Senior Vice President of IT and Chief Information Officer at Canadian Tire. “What resulted were long line-ups, frustrated customers and stressed-out employees. To improve customer satisfaction, we needed a solution that empowered employees to proactively identify and fix problems from our head-office. Plus, we wanted to be more strategic with IT and customer data at the checkout level, but we had no capability to expand the usage of our cash registers beyond the most rudimentary transactions.”
As well, the DOS-based system required sales promotion data to be manually installed on each register in every store – a process that took two weeks. Adding new applications also required IT personnel from head office to travel offsite and deploy updates in each store.
“The main systems at the store level were home-grown solutions, and even though each location is connected to head office through a dedicated IP network, we’ve never been able to share data easily – it’s always involved some manual intervention and paperwork,” Wnek says.
Each Canadian Tire dealership has its own AS-400 database, and head office has standardized the company’s business and productivity tools on Microsoft® software – making a Microsoft-based POS solution a natural fit.
Solution
Canadian Tire researched a few options before choosing a management solution based on Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005 and Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003. The retailer worked with Toronto-based Microsoft Certified Gold Partner LegendCorp to deploy the software.
“Network stability is a prime concern at Canadian Tire, as is the ability to exchange data between the stores and head office. Canadian Tire was also looking to lower operational costs and enable its employees to provide the highest level of profitable service. We worked with the organization to help them understand the capabilities and features of MOM 2005 and SMS 2003, so they could make the right decisions about how the new POS system should be integrated into the corporate network to best meet their needs,” said Andy Papadopoulos, president, LegendCorp.
MOM 2005 monitors system performance using a knowledge management database to proactively address issues when they arise. It informs IT administrators about potential problems, and takes action to head them off before they can impact the infrastructure.
SMS 2003 manages large groups of Windows®-based computer systems. It gives IT staff remote control over the network, and enables patch management, software distribution, and hardware and software inventory processes.
“We looked at an IBM solution and a few others, but from an ongoing cost perspective, the Microsoft solution was cheaper,” Wnek says. “And because we’ve standardized on Microsoft at the enterprise level, employees were already familiar with the technology which made it much easier for them to use. We were also able to gain savings through existing licensing agreements.”
Benefits
With centralized system monitoring and software updates, Canadian Tire has reduced its operating expenses by lowering IT maintenance costs by 50 per cent.
Increased stability
MOM 2005 offers Canadian Tire a single point of control for maintaining its POS system. This enables the IT team to monitor the network and troubleshoot problems from a central location, so downtime is negligible.
“In the DOS world we were running out of memory, we had a lot of crashes – system downtime was affecting our level of customer service because it meant fewer checkout lanes,” Wnek says. “With MOM 2005 we have this great problem alert system that gives us essentially zero downtime. Lane count reductions have been cut by 10 per cent as a result.”
More profitable IT
SMS 2003 enables the IT team to push out customer-facing applications and software releases from head office. By managing everything from a central location, the company saves the time and expense of sending administrators to individual stores to deploy updates.
“The Microsoft solution keeps our business agile, while helping reduce the cost of operations. We’re now in a position to make overnight changes at the cash register level that immediately impact the customer – our two week deployment process is history,” Wnek says. “If we want to run a special that gives triple Canadian Tire Money coupons over the weekend, it’s so much easier to do in the Microsoft world than in our previous environment.”
Cash registers with PC functionality
In its previous environment, Canadian Tire could only collect and share a limited amount of information with customers at the checkout. Now, with its network-based Microsoft management system, it has added a range of functions to its cash registers.
“Whether it’s prompts for up-selling, on-screen advertising or gathering customer data, our world has gone from simply doing each transaction to one where we have an expanded capability to impact our overall business,” says Wnek.