Alphameric Wins Multi-million Order
The Spirit Group, the largest Managed Pub Company in the UK, has selected Alphameric Hospitality to supply its next generation back office system for the newly combined estate of 2400 outlets following the £2.51bn acquisition of Scottish & Newcastle Retail.
There is no doubt that in today's tough economic climate staying ahead of the competition means optimising company performance to yield even greater results. Spirit has elected to install Caterwide, Alphameric Hospitality's web back office, as the Group recognises that innovative technology and applications will assist in driving operational efficiencies and bottom line improvements. Caterwide is based on open standards and uses the Microsoft.net framework and was chosen by Spirit because it is a state-of-the-art, deployed, integrated suite of business applications giving Spirit a low risk solution from a Company that has a track record of delivering in this vertical sector.
The Spirit Group will be utilising all modules of the Caterwide back office suite - wet and dry stock control, ordering, cash control, payroll and labour management and MIS reporting. As part of the project Alphameric Hospitality will be developing interfaces to Spirit's central systems and linking Caterwide to existing and future POS systems enabling the business to focus on harnessing the competitive advantages that web systems will deliver. Spirit will be able to leverage cost benefits by safeguarding the existing infrastructure so that next generation systems can be deployed at the lowest possible costs, with the minimum of disruption to the outlets, whilst ensuring a common platform for the estate irrespective of till type.
Historically, The Spirit Group has used Alphameric Hospitality's payroll and labour management system (PALM) to control and minimise labour costs throughout their existing 1075 outlets. Seen as a key management tool by Spirit, PALM will now be rolled out to their entire estate, an extra 1450 installations, with central feeds to payroll systems.
Jane Kimberlin, IT Director, The Spirit Group comments "The Spirit Group recognised that the challenge for the enlarged company was to maximise efficiencies through lower technology costs and productivity gains. From this perspective it was essential that the next generation back office had to be a web based enterprise wide business solution that could demonstrably deliver a high level of company performance. Spirit chose Caterwide because Alphameric Hospitality's understanding and knowledge of the Pub and Restaurant sector has produced a web based system which is functionally rich, resilient, and scalable. This gives our business an integrated suite of back office modules operating under a unified technology framework and governed by a consistent set of business rules. We are delighted to be working with Alphameric to give our Group the tools of real time interaction so that we can respond to changes in customer demand and deliver tangible cost savings".
Steve Mansfield, Managing Director of Alphameric Hospitality says "This significant order is the result of a long standing relationship with both companies. Alphameric Hospitality has been working in partnership with The Spirit Group since 1988 supplying their back office systems and has been involved with Scottish & Newcastle Retail during the last two years exploring the business benefits that deploying a web based back office can provide. As a result we have an understanding of both companies, their business processes and central systems."
Alan Morcombe, Group Chief Executive of Alphameric plc adds "Spirit's commitment to Alphameric Hospitality underpins the strength and depth of our current portfolio of products and confirms that web based systems are the ideal platform for the future. The Alphameric Group is delighted to be working with Spirit on this exciting and technically challenging project which highlights Spirit as being a forward thinking Retailer who embraces technology to deliver year on year sustainable growth. This contract endorses Caterwide as the number one web based ERP system in the Hospitality marketplace and clearly demonstrates the fact that our product continues to gain rapid market acceptance"About The Spirit GroupFollowing a successful acquisition of the Scottish & Newcastle Retail (SNR) business in November 2003, Spirit Group became the UK's largest independent managed pub operator. Spirit operates a number of market leading concepts such as Qs, Bar Room Bar, Chef & Brewer, Two For One and Wacky Warehouse, as well as a strong portfolio of local pubs across the country. The Spirit Group has 45,000 employees, makes over 7.5 million transactions per week and sells 124.5 million pints per year. About Alphameric Hospitality
Alphameric Hospitality is a wholly owned subsidiary of Alphameric Plc which is listed on The London Stock Exchange (alm:l). Alphameric Hospitality is an end-to-end hospitality specialist supplying hardware, software and support services to a broad spectrum of hospitality clients including Costa Coffee, J W Lees, Noble House Leisure, Pret a Manger and The Restaurant Group.
The company has products covering web based enterprise solutions, head office and business intelligence solutions as well as in-store EPoS hardware, software and customer kiosk technology. Alphameric Hospitality is a Microsoft Gold Partner for e-commerce. Further information about Alphameric Hospitality is available at www.alphamerichospitality.com.
