Effective Projects: Meet Our Latest Client, Hawthorn

For our projects team, there’s no job too big or too small. Our PRINCE-2 qualified project managers have overseen everything from new software/hardware rollouts, consultancy or tender processes and technology upgrades.

We were very pleased to welcome Hawthorn to our projects team; Hawthorn is an ambitious community pub company with a portfolio that consists of over 700 leased, tenanted and operator managed community pubs run across England, Scotland and Wales. Hawthorn were utilising multiple EPOS systems across their 130 operator managed pubs, duplicating system changes across the multiple suppliers – which also duplicated the cost. Hawthorn needed to review and streamline the multiple EPOS systems across their operator managed estate and choose a single EPOS provider to support the future growth of the business.

Working alongside Hawthorn’s steering team, we were engaged to provide industry knowledge on hospitality EPOS systems and to run a fair tender process, covering functional and non-functional service-related requirements.

The Solution

Our project team conducted a thorough supplier selection process and, once this approval was granted, all workshops and demos with end users were conducted remotely during the Covid-19 pandemic, with our team overseeing the implementation of the chosen supplier.

Matt Ward, Hawthorn’s chief finance officer, said: “We’re delighted with the support we’ve received from Retail Assist; with their help, the tender process of our new EPOS system has been very smooth and we’re very happy with the support they’ve given to our team. Outsourcing to their project services has meant that we have leveraged their expert knowledge and experience to deliver an outcome that’s seen us on-board a new supplier which best fits our growth aspirations.”

What Can Our Projects Team Offer?

Our IT project management services offering is very diverse. Whether you’d like to implement our own solutions, such as OMIO PIM or Merret Pro, or our managed IT services, such as our IT Help Desk, we can also run a variety of in-house projects, too.

Have your existing IT teams got a lot to juggle? Let us take the pressure off. We deal with the headache of balancing third parties, dealing with deadlines and suppliers.

Kevin Greathead, Retail Assist’s chief services officer, said: “At Retail Assist, we take great pride in the support we give to our hospitality customers and how we manage IT services for them; our collaborative approach allows them to be innovative and push through with their business growth plans. Retail and hospitality are fast-paced industries: as the market moves faster, we want to help bring new and usable technology to our customers to keep this pace. Innovation is really key to us.”