Managing any retail organisation, be it a

distributed chain, forecourt premises, pharmacy, shopping centre, or large department store is highly complex.

A retail operation by its very nature must offer easy access to the public but be well protected from a health, safety and property perspective.

In any large retail operation personnel management is a major task. Protection of company personnel must always be the highest priority, but there is also the challenge of internal personnel issues relating to cash and stock.

Business visibility is a key requirement in a retail organisation.

This includes the ability to easily identify any issues / alarms which are raised by the system, right down to integrating multiple sources of information with intelligence (e.g. monitoring for the levels of VOIDS passed through the POS; monitoring the frequency of cash drops; managing access to the cash room).

Stock protection is key. For example the cost to a retail outlet if the temperature in the cold room goes out of threshold for an extended period is significant, both in terms of perishable stock and margin lost.

Access to real time business information is vital to ensure that those in Head Office who are charged with maintaining a level of business operation are empowered to do so. Automatic alerting when a store is not opened on time, or is closed early, are simple examples of the business information and actionability which is provided by Cinario EM.