Teamwork, Persistence Pay Off In Deal To Install Inventory-Management Solution

It was the deal that almost got away. A department store chain in the New York metro area had decided to buy inventory-tracking handheld computers from a competitor of systems integrator tekservePOS. But through teamwork with data-capture solutions vendor CipherLab and multiple meetings with the customer, tekservePOS persuaded the retailer to change course. The result was a $100,000 installation to manage inventory processes at the retailer’s 100 locations.

tekservePOS deployed 120 CipherLab 8300 rugged handheld computers and a custom-written application to manage in-store receiving, markdowns, and out-of-stock items. “Prior to this solution, the customer had no integrated way to manage these processes and, instead, was managing them through a series of manual efforts and reports, along with disparate and old systems,” says tekservePOS President John Pruban. The manual processes were time-consuming and prone to error.

During a routine meeting at an industry conference in spring 2012, the customer mentioned plans to invest in a new system. tekservePOS, a 100-person systems integrator based in Hoffman Estates, IL, already provided POS (point of sale) systems to the retailer, so the integrator saw an opportunity to expand the relationship. The customer, however, had different plans. “The customer was going down a path of purchasing another hardware solution from Motorola and looking to another consultant to custom develop the application,” Pruban says.

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