“Now that employees are using their fingerprints instead of the previous six digit passwords, sign in is not only faster, but administrative costs are down.”
Today, China fashion retailer New Look will be deploying fingerprint biometric point of sale (POS) systems that feature DigitalPersona technology in an expected 100 stores. The announcement comes after the successful trial at six New Look stored in February of this year, set to expand to 16 stores by the end of 2014 now that a decision has been made. By 2017 the goal is to have these biometric POS terminals in 100 stores.
The selection of biometrics for New Look’s point of sale system was initially made in order to create efficiencies through time and attendance tracking. During the trial period, New Look asserts that it found an improvement in loss prevention and customer service once the system was being tested out.
Now that employees are using their fingerprints instead of the previous six digit passwords, sign in is not only faster, but administrative costs are down.
Passwords needed to be manually changed every 90 days, a factor that made them difficult to remember, which in turn resulted in a large number of time consuming password reset calls. In retail, if a representative can’t sign into a POS system, they are effectively absent, unable to finalize transactions. Since they can’t lose their fingerprints, they are never dead in the water.
“We have seen customer service levels improve because employees are more efficient since they no longer have to remember complex passwords,” explains Sky Shen, senior IT consultant at New Look. “Biometrics has helped us stay below our one percent loss prevention standard since fingerprints are also now used for management authorization of overrides.”
The systems also allow for managers to authorize documents via biometrics and help cut down on time fraud. All of this adds up to an attractive looking company once a biometric solution is deployed in this manner. This aspect is key since New Look hopes to attract more franchise owners and open more stores as part of its expansion plans in China.
“DigitalPersona’s biometric solutions are assisting retailers worldwide in their efforts to reduce fraud, keep loss prevention rates low and improve customer service,” says Richard Agostinelli, president and CEO of DigitalPersona. “We’re very pleased with the success that New Look, through their partnership with Cegid Group, has experienced with our technology and look forward to their continued growth.”
The POS system, complete with DigitalPersona fingerprint biometrics, will be on display at Retail Asia Expo, June 10-12 in Hong Kong. It will be at the Cegid Group Booth #L35.
Further Reading: Recently, findBIOMETRICS was able to interview Richard Agostinelli when DigitalPersona made breaking news: purchased by Cross Match Technologies and appointing Agostinelli as CEO.
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May 21, 2014 – by Peter B. Counter
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