“No retailer can afford to lose business, particularly in the current climate. Retailers’ increasing dependence on technology in store, be it tills, kiosks, printers, mobile devices, shelf-edge label systems or digital signage, raises the risk of hardware failure and exposes them to the risk of losing money if they are not able to process customer sales, and possibly in losing customers altogether. A recent example saw a major grocer close a tenth of its estate due to complete POS failure, resulting in millions in lost sales. It is therefore critical that retailers are able to call on companies that can provide rapid response maintenance as well as advice on best deployment and utilisation of hardware, to reduce the number of calls made to the call centre.

Retailers also need to work with partners that can advise on best practice. While hardware can fail on its own account, failure is often due to negligence or a lack of training on the part of staff resulting in damage or a reduction in hardware lifespan that could have been avoided.”