University of Canterbury implements Infinity to improve customer experience and keep data secure
The challenge
Founded in 1873, the University of Canterbury has a proud reputation for world-class teaching and research, and a vibrant campus. Located in Christchurch, New Zealand, the University provides education to over 17,000 students spanning five colleges.
In 2019, the University kicked off a wide-ranging programme of work to upgrade its technology infrastructure and transform the student experience. This included a project to unify its disparate, legacy point of sale systems across the campus onto a single retail platform.
Spanning six different Business Units and a diverse range of offerings sold online and on-site, the POS systems supported centralised services such as parking permits, cashiers, accommodation, lockers and printing centres, through to products and services sold by the Schools and Colleges.
Toni O'Donohue, Finance Shared Services Manager at the University, says that a key driver for the project was to eliminate security risks and ensure the University met the payment card industry (PCI) security standard.
“By upgrading our retail system we would not only ensure that our customer information was protected, but we could also provide our staff, students and stakeholders with a seamless customer experience, now and in the future.”
Unsupported legacy systems
While PCI compliance was a trigger for the investment, the University’s point of sale systems were no longer fit for purpose and overdue for replacement.
“Our existing systems had been custom built over many years and we no longer had the staff to do any development or maintenance work on them,” Toni explains.
Users weren’t able to easily access transactional data for planning, forecasting and reporting. “In addition, our processes were not well understood or communicated, which meant that users often devised alternative approaches because they weren’t clear on what they were supposed to be doing.”
The Infinity solution
The University decided it needed a partner with strong retail sector knowledge and experience to support the University’s growth and reduce the administration burden.
Toni says there were four goals for the new retail system. “Firstly, we wanted to remove the existing technical debt and bring our systems architecture up-to-speed with current best practice. To do that, we needed a POS system that could easily integrate with our Oracle finance system using the Dell Boomi integration platform.
“Second, we wanted to provide visibility of all the products and services sold by the different Business Units through a centralised and detailed reporting capability.”
The third objective was to increase the University’s organisational and administrative efficiency through central management of products and services sold by the University. “Finally, we wanted to meet our requirement to support PCI compliance,” Toni adds.
Deloitte was appointed to manage the project, in tandem with a University-wide PCI compliance programme. After evaluating a wide range of retail solutions, followed by a competitive RFP and tender process, Triquestra was awarded the contract for its Infinity unified commerce platform.
Toni says a key factor in the decision was Infinity’s maturity and support for a broad range of retail environments.
“We needed a proven solution that could seamlessly integrate with our enterprise finance system and technology stack spanning a large number of apps, data and business systems,” Toni explains. “Infinity was the best solution to meet that need.”
Deploying without delay
The programme of work was being finalised when New Zealand entered COVID-19 Level 4 lockdown in late March.
Anne Campbell, Team Leader at Finance Shared Services, says that they used the lockdown period to prepare for the deployment. “It didn’t take long to get ready for rollout, with only a small amount of development work to integrate Infinity with Dell Boomi and Oracle.
Staff training included a mix of online and face-to-face sessions the week prior to rollout, which kicked off mid-August. “We trained each Business Unit separately as they had quite distinct needs and requirements for the different products and services they sell,” Anne explains. Following the training, Triquestra’s deployment and support partner, ECL Group, installed Infinity and new hardware at each of the physical sites around the campus.
Anne says that the rollout was seamless and straightforward.
“All of our end users saw it as a quick and smooth transition,” explains Anne. “Switching Infinity on and getting up-to-speed was intuitive and hassle-free for them.”
Fast, easy and accurate
The University now has a modern retail management system that will adapt and evolve to the University’s future technology, business and regulatory requirements.
“We've had really positive feedback from users about how easy the system is to use and how it's made the whole sales process a lot quicker and more efficient for them,” says Anne.
“Many of the Business Units previously grappled with multiple systems that didn’t easily integrate and were taking a lot of time and effort to maintain.“
“They now have a single system with a consistent process that saves time, reduces errors and frees them up to focus on the customer rather than the transaction.”
The Business Units can now see sales data in a more timely way, with Infinity giving them accurate, up-to-the-minute reporting on transactions to help them improve their forecasting and purchasing.
“And, of course, we’re now PCI compliant,” concludes Toni. “This is critical for our customers’ security and peace of mind, and protects our operations and business reputation.”
If it’s time to upgrade your point of sale to one that will scale and adapt to shifting consumer expectations and new technologies, contact us.
Visit the University of Canterbury to learn more.
More case studies
