Wanting to keep its focus on candy production, Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory (RMCF) left the majority of its sales operations to its 300 franchise stores. Each location maintained its own point-of-sale (POS) systems and e-mailed its sales and inventory data to the main office. Compiling the data took a great deal of time and effort, and by the time it had been assembled into a usable report, it was typically outdated. Unable to see clearly into its sales and inventory processes, RMCF had a difficult time identifying sales trends and ensuring that the necessary stock was being delivered to meet the trends. Ultimately, RMCF decided that, to effectively manage its business, it needed a standard POS platform across all of its stores.

Teaming with IBM Business Partner Retail Anywhere, RMCF procured and deployed IBM SurePOS 500 Express hardware and Retail Anywhere Point of Sale software. After running a successful training program with the new solution, RMCF has rolled out the new POS system to more than 100 franchise locations. Now, RMCF plans to install the solution in all new stores as they open.

RMCF also implemented Retail Anywhere Enterprise software at its company headquarters, enabling the organization to view and analyze current sales data from stores with the new IBM solution.

"It's hard to believe that we went so long without a standardized point-of-sale solution," said Key Jobson, chief information officer, Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. "We can run our business so much more effectively and with so much more insight using the SurePOS 500 Express system and Retail Anywhere software."