Stanley Adams, a Washington, D.C.-based chain of social printers, has several generations of experience in printing custom invitations and stationery for clients like the White House and foreign embassies. With the acquisition of another venerable printing company, however, what once seemed an opportunity to modernize internal systems became a nightmare that carried a heavy price tag.
 

Owner Mark Garrison takes pride in the quality of work produced by his company and the fact that he began learning the printer’s trade at age 14. He recently purchased the stores of Crane & Co., bringing to 19 the number of retail locations and giving the company a national presence with coast-to-coast operations. The transaction also effectively doubled the company’s size, and it seemed the appropriate time to replace Stanley Adams’ aging POS system with the custom software being used by Crane. Unfortunately, that system was so “custom” it just wasn’t compatible with Stanley Adams’ needs. To make matters worse, renewal on a costly, month-to-month lease was looming, creating a deadline that forced Garrison to install a new POS system for both

entities in a matter of weeks just prior to the fourth-quarter holiday season.

“It was a nightmare,” Garrison recalls. “We looked at upgrading [Crane’s system] but the cost of that was enormous, and the cost of maintaining the old system would have been enormous.”

The eventual solution was a single POS system for both sets of stores, which came in the form of The Assistant Manager (TAM) from Orland Park, Ill.-based TAM Retail, a division of Lode Data Systems.

For Stanley Adams, actual savings came from TAM Retail’s “lower cost of ownership” – it is saving $300,000 in licensing fees annually — and the time savings for managers who monitor inventory, because the data being provided by TAM is more user-friendly.

Customization of its POS system involved using a simple method for recording deposits on special orders and custom engraving, along with lots of specific details — different weights of paper, paper colors, fonts and designs, along with the usual customer information and completion dates.

Some examples of TAM’s functionality help underscore the POS application’s ability to deliver sophisticated, wide-ranging features that are not always available to small and medium-size retail companies.

With the POS application, TAM has the ability to scan a manufacturer’s bar code and have it automatically cross-referenced to the appropriate SKU number. In fact, a retailer’s SKU number can be cross-referenced by three different attributes: SKU number, which can be typed or scanned from labels printed by the software; bar-code number (UPC or EAN, for example), which can be scanned or typed; or the vendor or manufacturer’s own item number (which would have to be typed).

There is also the look-up capability to find an SKU by any of several combinations of product attributes — a portion of the description, vendor name, department, category or class.

In addition to pure POS functionality, TAM can be used to flag certain SKUs that shouldn’t be discounted.

Inventory management
When issues of inventory management are placed in the context of multiple store options, several helpful features come into play. For retailers whose POS system consists of piece-meal solutions, “the ability of our Assistant Manager to automatically identify SKUs that are at or below minimum inventory levels — and also to check whether those SKUs are available in the retailer’s warehouse — is very important,” says Bruce Lode, executive vice president of TAM Retail.

During installation, some relatively small retailers are able to transfer all their SKU numbers and key data from a single file, but that is not always the case. “It varies by [the retailer’s] size,” Lode says. “Small retailers may not have any automation. We’ve also had customers with antiquated systems where the data is encrypted, and we have to use manual formatting to extract that data.”

The client’s existing system “is not an obstacle,” he says. “We can convert just about any type of digital media, including vendors’ UPC coding. We can also bring over some history on vendors and customers.”
Installation and training

At the installation stage, TAM Retail sends teams to a handful of stores to train individuals who will, in turn, become the trainers for other locations. TAM also provides remote access training services, as well as “more specialized training for more senior people within organizations,” Lode says.

For remote access training, a TAM representative walks the user through the programs in personal training sessions. Both the trainer and the user see the same screen, and they communicate over the telephone.

The Stanley Adams installation “went very quickly,” Garrison says. “They had a month to do it, and it was done on time and on budget. The previous system that Crane had took six months to install.”

Garrison is still savoring the benefits of his new system. “We’ve been able to keep track of our inventory with The Assistant Manager, and we have the additional functionality we needed,” he says. “We’re also able to get reports the next day. Today, I have a report on my desk of what was sold for Easter – and Easter was yesterday.”