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POS evaluation using the
Point of Sale POS
RAPID Project Toolkit ™
C-CORE has conducted over 16 POS evaluation and selection projects using the POS RAPID Project Toolkit in the last 4 years for Tier 1 and 2 Retailers in the $500M to $20B annual sales range.
We specialize in large, complex organizations:
Multi-Banner
Multi-Country (Language, Standards, Tax, Processors)
Multi-Channel (Store, On-Line, Call Center, Kiosk, Catalog)
Multi-Business Models (Corporate stores, Franchise, Wholesale or a mix)
Typically, a POS engagement consists of two separate and distinct phases:
1. POS RAPID Project Toolkit - Scope and Objectives, requirements definition, RFP and vendor evaluation.
2. Deployment Rapid Project Toolkit - Project Launch, including project planning, phasing, pilot and deployment management.
You may choose to use C-CORE for either or both phases, to accelerate your project timelines and drive the POS application selection process from vendor evaluation to project planning to full deploy.
Our toolkit methodology provides for an efficient method to quickly prioritize the more than 4000 requirements for Point of Sale and review suitable offerings based on your priorities.
In the first 4 hours of discussion with the retailers project leads we typically reduce the number of requirements for a retailers project down to 1000-2000 needed. These are then prioritized in a facilitated fashion with the specific retailer team members.
Each toolkit template or tool has been refined from multiple uses, providing for the most efficient use of your time, tested and proven in more than 20 retail consulting engagements in the past few years.
Our methodology has a strong, flaxible scheduling component which ensures all critical activities are performed. C-CORE usually acts as facilitator and assists your project manager during the project, ensuring a smooth knowldege transfer.
Our Methodology has helped us drive down the timeline and amount of business time needed, while improving the overall quality of your project.
We have evaluated over 40 POS Software Vendors in the last 48 months.
The selection of the right vendor for your company requires that you define the best vendors for your critical differentiators -PCI/PA-DSS, POS Suite, extensibilty requirements, Technical platform, integration needs, and Configuration Management as examples.
Once we review your requirements, we are able to identify the best vendors to include in your POS evaluation and selection project.
Our POS Rapid Project Toolkit methodology when used for a POS evaluation progressively reduces the vendors in scope with our proprietary vendor scoring methodology. We provide for RFI’s, webinar reviews, RFP’s and onsite demos in our POS evaluation process, depending on what is right for your project. We get you to your goal of selecting the best vendor fit for your priorities, typically in 120 days or less, allowing you to use your time and resources to focus on using the technology to drive business improvement.
Scoring Grids can be at any Level you require
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's)
Why C-CORE?
Quite simply, speed and experience. When you deal with C-CORE you are dealing with a core group of experts with over 50 combined years of retail front line experience. When you use one of the large consulting outfits you are generally receiving the low level experienced personnel in the engagement or paying exorbitant fees for the principals and a delayed project timeframe. With C-CORE , you get both a proven methodology and experienced consultants delivering the speed to market and the experience of many installations and vendor selections.
Finally, with our partner IHL's Retail Technology Database, we are quickly able to find multiple references for each vendor (not just the references they hand select). Together, we can provide an unmatched solution of technology insight, contacts, and selection/implementation.
Will the POS RAPID Project Toolkit work effectively with my existing project methodology?
The POS RAPID Project Toolkit is content rich and designed to be quickly aligned with project management best practices. The Toolkit focuses on jump-starting the requirements definition and vendor evaluation and provides Microsoft office compatible based templates easily converted to a retailers templates and methodology to launch the project quickly while leveraging the project disciplines that retailers have developed in their IT organizations. Our toolkit methodology has been reviewed to be consistent with PMI methodology.
Why would I need to use the toolkit for a POS evaluation? I have a strong IT organization.
Vendors and Retailers have both expressed concerns over the challenges of starting a project such as a POS evaluation or implementation. Many of the resources responsible for the current platform support have been promoted, or moved to other organizations. Typically, retailers have not placed much value in creating and updating process and requirements repositories. In a recent engagement, a retailer provided a list of 85 requirements that represented a month of work to develop. They were amazed to prioritize an additional 2100 functional and 800 technical requirements in only 5 days.
The RAPID PROJECT TOOLKIT provides the mechanism to jump-start the POS evaluation process and move through business requirement definition and vendor selection quickly.
Why would I not use the NRF ARTS RFP instead of this toolkit?
The POS Rapid Project Toolkit includes the ARTS RFP Framework but takes the process to a much deeper level than just the business requirements and an RFP template. It provides tools and templates for due diligence around the vendor evaluation and scoring process required today due to SOX. It also includes training requirements estimates, deployment plans, testing plans and risk management templates. Finally, the RAPID PROJECT TOOLKIT also provides a user adjusted weighting system so that the retailers can present the RFP according to the most important needs of the retailer. In other words, it allows the retailer to direct the RFP towards how they operate rather than a standard industry document only.
How much help will I need to use this toolkit?
We estimate that project support and skills transfer can take place in 15-50 full productive days, including customizing the information for the retailer's business, depending on the complexity of the retail operation.
Contact us today for more information on our POS RAPID Project Toolkit for your POS evalation project.
Customers who have used the Rapid Project Toolkit
for a POS evaluation
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