Product Business.
The further enhanced modular BEETLE/EPOS system family proved its attractiveness to the market with several orders received for new and replacement investments. It fulfills perfectly specific requirements for retailers operating both internationally and locally. We were again able to significantly grow our sales of POS systems last fiscal year, which boosted economies of scale. This has allowed us to expand our lead in the European market and to consolidate our position within the global arena.
As already mentioned, our retail product business was boosted by the strong demand for reverse vending machines. Wincor Nixdorf positioned itself within this market at an early stage with the ReVendo family of products. We were immediately able to attain our target market share of around 30% of systems ordered in Germany.
Solutions/Services.
Growth in our Solutions/Services business lagged behind the outstanding performance achieved in the area of retail products.
However, we succeeded in driving our global business with the branch software TP.net via implementation at additional large multinational retailers and significantly increasing the number of licenses sold. We were also able to successfully market our NAMOS branch solution for international service station networks.
Our iCash cash management solution met with great interest. This solution automates cash processing workflows from the checkout through to the bank. The closed, automated cash cycle makes manipulation by employees impossible and prevents casual errors, for example when returning change. The main focus, however, is on the savings resulting from the automated processes – both for the transaction at the checkout as well as for checkout handovers and cashing up. We implemented the iCash solution for various customers at the POS as well as in the back office environment.
We established Wincor Nixdorf Retail Services GmbH in order to offer excellent service for the reverse vending machines installed in Germany. Our new service company has geared its offering specifically to the needs of retail customers and is able to rectify defects within four hours of these being reported. Our online service center is located in Ilmenau in Thuringia, the team of service technicians is managed from our Hilden facility.
We have gradually expanded our network of global service partners in order to ensure across-the-board support for our global retail customers.
Furthermore, we have, to a large extent, concluded integration of the U.K.-based Datalect Group acquired in fiscal year 2003/2004. This group primarily offers IT services for retail companies.