"Every step in our supply chain, from receiving a product at our distribution
center to managing it through a store's inventory to ringing it up at the point
of sale is serviced by HP. The reason is reliability."
—Paul Singh, Director of Information Technology, TSC Stores L.P.
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A universal wish
Every business wants to be closer to its customers.
TSC Stores, a retail hardware chain with 33 mostly
rural locations across Ontario, Canada, accomplishes
this goal by hiring customers to serve other customers.
The idea is that no one knows someone's needs better
than a neighbour.
Customers seem to agree. The hardware chain was
able to grow its store count by 30 per cent last year
while at the same time replacing 15 per cent of its
existing store network. In the coming years, the
company plans to continue to grow store count in the
20 to 25 per cent range and is committed to replacing
all of its existing traditional stores.
Several other factors contribute to the chain's growth.
TSC invests heavily in training to give each of its nearly
550 employees extensive product expertise.
The company also uses its knowledge of customers at
each location to carefully select an extensive inventory.
TSC caters to people who enjoy the country lifestyle,
stocking 17,000 items for farm and country home
improvement, working the land, and outdoor hobbies.
"Customers often tell us," says Paul Singh, director of
information technology at TSC, "that if they can't find it
anywhere else, they can find it at TSC. What keeps
them coming back is our product range and our
product expertise."
The challenge at all 33 stores is to keep the right items
on hand at an affordable price. And the critical link to
ensure this is IT.
TSC has standardized its IT infrastructure on HP. "Every
step in our supply chain, from receiving a product at
our distribution center to managing it through a store's
inventory to ringing it up at the point of sale is serviced
by HP," says Singh. "The reason is reliability."
Improving the customer experience
"The objective of our IT solutions," explains Singh, "is
to help employees focus totally on customer service.
We take as much manual labour as possible out of
steps such as inventory control, store scheduling, and
decision support."
HP entered the picture in the early 1990's with printers.
An HP Business Partner named Protek Systems began
serving the account in 1995.
In 2001, TSC decided to network all locations.
Influenced by a positive experience with Protek service
and HP products, the company chose an HP
infrastructure. As Singh recalls, "HP's reputation for
reliability and security is something we'd experienced
for ourselves." Now the company's network consists of
39 HP ProCurve 2524 switches and 57 HP servers,
many of which are HP ProLiant ML350 G5 systems.
"Our HP servers are the most critical component of our
HP solution," Singh says. "We need 24/7 operations
in our stores. We have night crews receiving and
restocking product and our warehouse is managing
inventory at all hours. The servers have proven to scale
easily and dependably handle a 25 to 30 per cent
annual increase in throughput."
Lowering desktop and notebook TCO
As of 2004, TSC had desktops and notebooks from
several manufacturers and decided to standardize on
HP. "Probably our most reliable equipment is HP,"
Singh explains. "We've had other notebooks over the
years that have failed and been replaced. When
there's an opportunity to replace a piece of
equipment, we tend to turn to HP for a solution. As a
result, the amount of non-HP equipment we have is
negligible."
The gain is efficiency. "Because equipment and
systems are consistent, we have a cookie-cutter
approach," Singh says. "We're very effective at
building new stores, renovating old ones, getting cash
registers up and ready and trouble shooting any issues
that might arise. Training time and administration time
are minimized. A standardized platform lowers our
overall TCO."
Another benefit is fourfold-faster PC deployment.
"Using an image deployment tool, we can deploy a
standardized desktop in a little over an hour,
compared to the four to five hours it would take if we
had systems from multiple vendors, and had to deploy
each machine manually," says Ron Dewsnap,
infrastructure manager at TSC.
The company is currently upgrading to the HP dc5700
Business Desktop PC to serve its staff of more than 550
employees. Mobile workers, including top executives
and trainers, use about forty HP Compaq nx9420
notebook PCs. Technology is refreshed on three-year
lease cycles.
Getting the right fit
"HP's range of choices is valuable," Singh says. "We
don't need to deploy Cadillac solutions to all users.
We want to tailor a solution to each set of needs, and
HP gives us a broad range of functionality, processors,
speed, and power to choose from."
HP dc5700 Business Desktop PCs serve as point-of-sale
(POS) machines in stores, running Microsoft Windows
XP. "POS machines are the final handshake in the
customer transaction," says Peter McMahon, vice
president of sales and marketing for Protek Systems,
TSC's HP Business Partner. "We recommended the
5700 because it supports a reliable, smooth,
enjoyable customer experience."
"We have only three or four checkout lanes in each
store," Singh adds. "We can't afford to lose one."
The company chose HP Compaq nx9420 notebook
PCs because they have wide screens and keyboards to
ease the transition for workers from desktops. "From a
performance point of view, the HP notebooks have
been great, running everything from basic applications
right up through our compute-intensive AutoCAD and
Intactix store-planning applications," Dewsnap says.
"With the dedicated graphics in our HP notebooks,
our staff can take an application like Intactix right out
on the store floor to do our planning," Dewsnap adds.
"And we have a group of executives, trainers, and
other workers that travel between stores. Our HP
notebook PCs let them take along everything they
need."
Protek is more than a partner
TSC counts on Protek to be its R&D lab. "We give them
the requirements and they do the research, coming
back with the appropriate solution," Singh says. "We
view them as our business partner. They know our
growth plans, our product and IT strategies, and
they've demonstrated they can bring the right solution
to us at a cost we can afford. Their expertise has been
invaluable for us."
Protek is currently helping TSC in its plans to bring the
printing of advertising flyer and point-of-purchase
materials in-house. "We're looking to HP for high
quality, high definition printers," Singh says. "Doing
this kind of printing ourselves will give us faster
response times and more flexibility."
The new printers will complement 10 HP printers
currently serving the company, ranging from LaserJet
9000 series to " 130 series models. "We're simplifying
our printing and copying into one consolidated
multifunction device from HP, the Laser Jet 4345mfp,"
notes Singh. "We're impressed by its reliability and
ease of use. It's another example of where Protek
Systems has shown us a cost-efficient option that's a
good fit for us."
The IT team's efforts and a loyal TSC customer base
are supporting the store's fast growth.
"We are a niche retailer with more than 30 stores in
Ontario looking to transform ourselves to be a national
mid-size retailer over time," Singh sums up. "We need
good partners to get there, and we've found two of
them in HP and Protek."
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