Westmorland Limited
Westmorland Ltd dates back to 1972 when it opened Tebay Services on the M6 motorway in Cumbria. The company has since developed into a multi-sited operation employing over 500 people across six distinct businesses. Tebay Services is now a landmark to all M6 drivers in the area and includes farm shops, butchers counter, lifestyle shop and cafes serving homemade food using the best local ingredients, including beef and lamb from the company’s own nearby farm.
The Challenge
The existing Point of Sale (PoS) systems installed were sufficient, however they were looking for an opportunity to leverage greater benefits from their retail systems. The three key objectives were:
- To reduce hardware and infrastructure costs through greater and more effective use of lower consumption technologies
- To better optimise operating costs through access to real-time information to support more effective management decisions
- To reduce hardware maintenance, enabling service levels in store to be improved whilst also successfully reducing costs
The Solution
Westmorland opted for Accord Momentum, our lean Electronic Point of Sale (EPoS) system which is based around a Cloud architecture. The system was deployed initially at the company’s Tebay northbound motorway services which has a high footfall with spikes at various times of day. It was crucial that any risk or disruption to their current systems and customer services was kept to a minimum. Therefore, we worked closely with Westmorland to develop a project plan that facilitated a mixed EPoS environment. This allowed a store to trade using the new and existing POS applications concurrently.
The Results
The new lower specification, greener tills with solid state drives have performed as projected and there was no deterioration in operator performance. Hardware costs reduced because the till kits are more reliable and they can also be maintained by Westmorland, instead of having to call in IT experts. The positive impact this has on reducing the company’s carbon footprint is an additional plus.
Company-wide visibility of real time data has facilitated greater centralised reporting and control, enabling more accurate, quicker replenishment feeding through to improved sales and profitability.
The design of the system has also enabled faster and cheaper deployment of software and upgrades. As markets or business requirements change, new functionality is developed and deployed swiftly and easily without the need for store visits. This ensures that Westmorland can capitalise on market opportunities and maximise sales.
Following the success of the implementation at Tebay Services, Westmorland rolled out Accord Momentum to the rest of its retail outlets in the North.