ÁTVR offers faster checkout and enhanced security with LS Retail software
Iceland is one of the few countries in the world that still has state monopoly on the sales of alcoholic beverages. The State Alcohol and Tobacco Company of Iceland (ÁTVR) runs 47 liquor-stores in Iceland. There are 638 full-time and part-time employees and the company returns profits of 1.3 Billion ISK to the treasury each year. ÁTVR is run directly under the auspices of the Ministry of Finance. The company takes care of the purchase of alcohol; the operation, inventory and distribution of liquor-stores; the purchase, import, wholesale and distribution of tobacco and the production of snuff.
Need for a scalable and flexible solution
ÁTVR’s challenges are familiar to other liquor retailers. The staff must handle high-traffic volumes rapidly, yet be alert to the minimum age-limit of customers. To create a more pleasant shopping experience, the shelves must display all wares and employees must be able to access inventory easily. ÁTVR needed an end-to-end solution that could handle the specialized requirements of liquor-stores. During peak hours and seasons, the stress level in the stores can get quite high, so that the company has had to place high demands on the speed and accuracy of the system. Thus, ÁTVR required a scalable technology infrastructure that could support all of their stores. To provide the high level of service expected, it is necessary to ensure optimum inventory levels, consistent central and local pricing control, and to have an overall view of accounting; meaning an end-to-end solution that could support them now and in the future.
Securing customer and business data
LS Retail software is a flexible POS based solution that can be configured according to the user's requirements and maintains common data over the entire organization. Since the POS terminals, back office and head office, all use the same application and functionalities, the individual transactions can be tracked directly from the head office. Reporting is essential to ÁTVR and with the LS Retail software solution and Microsoft Dynamics ERP, this was guaranteed. ÁTVR places high importance on the information system for their operations and this is one of the reasons why the company has been using LS Retail Software Solutions since 2003. Purchasing, warehousing, stores and POS, as well as the back office and financial system are all incorporated in one integrated solution. The reliability and information flow is optimal, and they can extract data, such as sales data, from the system in a fast and easy manner.
High customer service level
The flexibility of the solution also enables better customer service, not least by ensuring that shelves are always full. The inventory planning and management features help ÁTVR to deliver customer service excellence without committing valuable funds, space and logistics resources to unnecessarily high stock levels.
Control stock and purchase order creation
ÁTVR has implemented the Inventory Optimiser, integrated with the LS Retail software solution, and has been using the system for a while to control stock and create purchase orders for their central warehouse located in Reykjavik. The system manages more than 2300 active items from around 200 vendors worldwide. Five users split up all products by item categories such as wine, spirits, beer, tobacco, etc. The best-fit forecasting module is used to analyze sales history for all items and create accurate forecasts on item level. Exception management is then applied to flag certain scenarios that need closer attention, such as potential stock-outs. The system furthermore gives ÁTVR stock visibility of all their 47 stores, showing stock levels as units and as the number of days lasting. ÁTVR has managed to automate the majority of their purchasing process. This has greatly reduced the required repetitive manual work to manage these items, but has also reduced their overall stock, while increasing service levels at the same time.
