WHAT THEY NEEDED: A modern, software-defined Point of Sale (POS) infrastructure

Weigel's is a convenience store chain based in Powell, Tennessee, with 79 stores in the East Tennessee region.

Faced with store downtime as a result of POS hardware reliability issues, lines at the counter due to slow loyalty transaction speeds and the challenge of integrating new technologies with their legacy POS provider without excessive costs, Weigel’s sought a more flexible, resilient and future-proof POS infrastructure.

To fulfil their desire for the latest POS software without incurring the cost of a full POS hardware ‘rip and replace’ project, they looked for a software vendor that was hardware agnostic and experienced in virtualizing other retail vendor POS systems. Additionally, they wanted an innovative partner capable of delivering a platform that could seamlessly adapt and integrate new applications for future needs.

WHAT WE DELIVERED: NCR Voyix Edge. A future-proof virtualized store infrastructure

NCR Voyix met the complex challenge of virtualizing Weigel’s existing POS hardware, by decoupling the software from the hardware. Weigel’s now runs NCR Voyix’s latest POS software on their incumbent hardware, with full peripheral integration due to the software’s unique virtualization capabilities for all peripherals such as scanner, printer and cash drawer. Virtualization was expanded to other key applications, including Customer Self Service (CSS), Site controller and Electronic Payment Controller (EPC).

Weigel’s has one single birds-eye view of their store systems’ performance through a cloud-managed Intelligent Control Plane, making troubleshooting easy and enabling them to remotely monitor and manage the devices across their store estate.

”Considering that NCR Voyix was virtualizing a completely new piece of hardware, we overcame any hurdles quickly, ensuring a successful rollout process.”
– Mike Bee - Director of IT, Weigel’s

From original proof of concept to customer lab tests, through to building and delivering the final solution, the project has been a great example of teamwork between Weigel’s and NCR Voyix’s Advanced Engineering, Engineering and Professional Service teams. The teams became experts in the rollout process, enabling rapid deployment with minimal business disruption.

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT:

Extending the life of Weigel’s existing hardware across the store estate has delivered considerable cost savings. Meanwhile, their new software-defined infrastructure is delivering improved store system performance and better uptime, and Weigel's is using the platform for further virtualization projects, such as Virtual Fuel, to drive greater store operation efficiencies and improve the customer experience.

”NCR Voyix Edge's agile infrastructure and hardware agnostic approach enabled us to run their latest POS software on our existing Verifone hardware, delivering enhanced resilience and the agility to elevate the customer experience.”
– Mike Bee - Director of IT, Weigel’s

Reduced Total Cost of Ownership – Virtualization has enabled Weigel’s to eliminate the need to replace their POS hardware and integrated peripherals, providing substantial cost savings.

Continuous Operations – Gone are the days of sending IT support out to assess and remedy hardware failures on-site, a drain on resources and cost. Weigel’s can now identify issues remotely and deploy changes to software in minutes. Overall uptime has already improved over 20%.

”Having one single view so we can identify and resolve an issue remotely instead of a truck roll to store, even if it’s a late night, is a huge benefit.”
– Mike Bee - Director of IT, Weigel’s

Enhanced Resilience – Compared to a hardware-centric single point of failure world, Weigel’s now has the flexibility to add new images, replace images, update images and troubleshoot down to the lowest level without needing to be on-site. Having the same capabilities across every store through a standardized setup ensures Weigel’s can keep trading, even when there is disruption.

Faster Transaction Performance – Weigel’s wanted clear baseline software improvements such as speed of loyalty transaction going through the system. With NCR Voyix Edge, loyalty transactions are over 40% faster, eliminating lines at the cash register and delivering far superior customer service.

”Loyalty transactions are easily 40% faster as it was quite painful on the old platform.”
– Mike Bee - Director of IT, Weigel’s

Platform for Innovation – Weigel’s has the capabilities to add more applications to the NCR Voyix Edge infrastructure and are already running a Virtual Fuel project to drive improved performance at the pump. In support of a hardware-agnostic software-led approach, back-office virtualization can be incorporated later, and they also have the option of extending virtualization to self-checkout and mobile applications in the future.

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