To remain competitive in today's technology-driven marketplace, Family Dollar Stores, Inc., one of the fastest growing discount retail store chains in the United States, envisioned creating the "Store of the Future," a nationwide initiative to equip stores with progressive technologies to enhance the customer experience. As part of their vision, Family Dollar recognized the need to retire its point-of-service (POS) solution-a DOS-based platform implemented 15 years, 6,000 stores and 18,000 devices ago. The aging system lacked the ability to process credit, debit and EBT transactions, and the flexibility necessary to allow future expansion initiatives.
To accomplish their goals, Family Dollar Stores considered several solution alternatives and chose to partner with Intellinet infrastructure and development experts to modernize its POS solution. Leveraging Intellinet's signature system integrator approach-extending the functionality of existing software to meet real world business challenges-Family Dollar deployed the Windows XP Embedded POS platform, Windows-based POS applications, SQL 2005 Express, and Systems Management Server (SMS) to broaden payment options, automate software distribution, manage security patches, provide custom reporting tools, and enable remote help desk functionality.
By aligning in-store processes with current marketplace trends using an automated, customized POS framework, Family Dollar's "Store of the Future" goals were met, thus satisfying corporate business needs and the needs of customers and shareholders. As a result of the Family Dollar and Intellinet partnership, Family Dollar will save over 36,000 man-hours in deployment time. In addition, due to system automation, installations are two to three times faster than the original implementation of the POS platform and application. The use of SMS to manage the registers allows support staff to fix issues remotely rather than replace registers, and the integrated reporting function helps support staff identify potential problems before they become a disaster recovery scenario. Ultimately, Family Dollar is reaching deployment efficiency; shareholders are regaining profits; and customers are moving through the line quicker.
"It has been my experience that the success of such a significant endeavor like the 'Store of the Future' is contingent upon having the right team with the right skill set. That's why we chose to partner with Intellinet."
