Based in Singapore, Wincor Nixdorf Pte Ltd is the regional headquarters of the German manufacturer of retail systems and self service products for the Asia Pacific. It oversees the sales and marketing activities for 15 major countries in the region including Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

Its manufacturing plant in Kallang, Singapore has more than 700 employees working in a high-tech environment. Wincor Nixdorf produces high value-added products for the world market. These include point-of-sale (POS) systems, parts for automated teller machines, special printers and LCD touch screen units. All Wincor Nixdorf's POS products are produced in their own factory in Singapore, which is both ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 certified.

No wonder then that Wincor Nixdorf has grown over the years to become one of the most watched and respected vendors in the field of Retail Information Technology, in Singapore as well as the Asia Pacific.

Jieu Wing Leong, business solution consultant, services division, Asia Pacific, Wincor Nixdorf Pte Ltd notes, ”Our strength lies in our experience and expertise in system integration, retail knowledge and ability (and more importantly, experience) to rollout and support after implementation. This is proven by our highly successful installations at the Changi International Airport, Metro, Robinson Group, Ikea, and the Carrefour Hyper mart.”

“Moreover, we were selected to install Singapore’s NTUC Fairprice Point of Sales (POS) terminals, replacing their POS terminals in all 69 of their stores nationwide. This project was right on schedule over a period of 9 months, 3 stores a week, done overnight at a 100% successful rate - without a single problem affecting store opening the following day,” he adds.

“Our partnerships with these world-class retailers have enabled us to understand their business and the importance of providing extremely high quality hardware, and efficient and user-friendly application software,” he says.

Based on its extensive retail experience, the company offers a consulting-led approach to the development and delivery of solutions across the retail enterprise. “Our Retail Enterprise Solutions (RES) approach provides the industry with a comprehensive and integrated portfolio of business solutions, consultancy, integration and implementation services; enabling retailers to increase both their consumer focus as well as their business efficiency. This includes full consultancy, integration and implementation services for solutions spanning central management systems, electronic trading technologies focusing on Business-2-Business and e-Procurement, and data warehousing supported Category Management and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) approaches,” says Jieu.

In ATMs, Wincor Nixdorf is the leading European supplier of cash dispensing and multi-function banking terminals.

Jieu also states that the company is now focusing on its services division. In addition, as part of its business strategy, the company is also now concentrating on outsourcing as well as ensuring the delivery of more value-added services such as monitoring services to banks, handling customer loyalty programs and call center functions. These are not mere thoughts as Wincor Nixdorf already has a lot of the infrastructure for these services already in place. “We can already offer for example, simple, on-demand call center services because Wincor has call centers in place here in Singapore, in Germany and Texas, which currently serve our employees as well as our customers currently.”

He adds that in order to fulfill its new value-added services strategy, the company has embarked on an aggressive marketing strategy.

This strategy, plus the intention of sharing its knowledge, experience and expertise with retailers, service providers and operators, has led the company to organize a three-part seminar series - ‘Retailing for the Future’ - which commences on the 24th of November, 2006.
The first of the series of seminars is jointly organized with their technology partners 3Com and Hitachi Data Systems, and aims to showcase the diverse range of products and solutions that will cater to the exacting needs of every business. It focuses on infrastructure and will feature case studies, presentations and live demonstration sets, but Jieu emphasizes that it will not be a product pitch but will deal with the need for an on-demand network infrastructure.

“We want to show that POS machines can be networked and linked for simultaneous control and collation of information via a central location, while wireless networks allow for business operations to be carried out beyond the confines of a typically wired infrastructure. We will also take a look at how robust storage solutions can offer reliable storage and backup functionality, reducing the possibilities of data loss and down time,” he says.

The second seminar of the series which is ear-marked for February 28, 2007, will focus on the different types of applications – for example, how to handle workforce optimization and how to extend self-service technology. It will especially focus on retailers who are extended enterprises and who have or need to have multiple branches.

The final seminar will focus on the ever-important topic of security including how retailers can protect their infrastructure/assets as well as ensure the protection of their data, thereby ensuring their own as well as their customers’ security. It is scheduled to take place in April.

These half-day seminars will be jointly organized by Wincor Nixdorf and their technology partners such as 3Com and Hitachi Data Systems, Knowledge Touch, and so on, and will be free to all those in the retail industry.

“We’re targeting the retail industry because of a number of factors. Firstly, the retail industry in Asia is slightly behind the banking industry in terms of their knowledge of the IT services available to them and well as in terms of technology adoption. Also, the retail industry faces challenges such as more sophisticated retailers, which requires them to increase their touch point with their customers,” he explains.

“For example, most malls in Singapore provide wireless access. The question for retailers is how do they use this to their advantage? In addition, online shopping is making demographics change. The younger generation especially is more attracted to the virtual world rather than the ‘actual’ world and retailers have to keep up with this.

It’s becoming increasingly important for retailers to have their own websites. Retailers should not and cannot afford to ignore the online community and channel. Then, there are also other matters to look into such as increasing costs and fraud. There are definitely a lot of issues that still have to be addressed, but at the same time, there are also a lot more opportunities,” Jieu elaborates.

He also notes that the recent government initiative to provide island wide wireless broadband connectivity presents businesses with the perfect opportunity to reach out to IT savvy consumers. However, he also adds that the government still has some more work on its plate in order to reassure consumers here of a safe, online shopping experience.

He adds that as a significant provider of wireless commercial services in the retail arena, Wincor Nixdorf sees the immediate need to empower businesses and in this case, retailers, to adapt to technological changes, and evolve into customer centric, highly distributed and technologically  advanced enterprises. “Given the resources and the technology to do so, businesses will be able to redefine their operations and achieve higher efficiency,” he elaborates.

“This is why we are not charging for the seminar. It is all about the retail industry, the technology and what’s available now and what will be available in the near future. Above all, it is about sharing knowledge,” Jieu says.

He also notes that if the “Retailing for the Future’ series of seminars is successful here the company will consider taking it to other parts of the region, most notably, China. ◊