Green IT: Save energy, cut costs and win over customers

Retail charts Course for the Future:
Save energy, cut costs and win over customers with Green-IT

EuroCIS 2010 presents wide variety of “green” solutions for IT and Security Technology in Retail


German retailers are increasingly interested in solutions that consume less energy and reflect Corporate Social Responsibility concepts for their IT systems installed at both outlets and headquarters. This was the result of a “snap poll” conducted among the exhibitors at EuroCIS 2010, Europe’s leading Trade Fair for Information and Security Technology in Retail, held from 2 to 4 March 2010 in Düsseldorf.

According to Daniel Joha, Head of Retail Marketing Management at Mettler Toledo “The sustainability theme will continue to gain importance for retail, both on a national and international scale. Range policy focused on sustainable products will allow retailers to stand out from their competitors. But sustainability is also increasing in importance for retailers against the background of cost and Corporate Citizenship considerations. Rising energy costs and the climate change debate also move resource consumption for infrastructure into the limelight. Here energy-efficient devices meet both ecological and economic requirements.”

Stefan Clemens, Area Industry Leader Retail & Hospitality at NCR GmbH, underlines that the USPs of IT hardware often only become visible on second glance, while efficient, environment-friendly solutions provide retailers with an immediate, decisive added benefit and, hence, are a key criteria for shopping decisions.

Initially, the principal reason for retailers to bank on Green IT for modernisation projects is cutting costs. According to Winfried Nolte, Product Marketing Manager/ Head of System Marketing, Wincor Nixdorf International GmbH, it is particularly large retailers who have realised the saving effects due to their elevated IT expenses and who are showing interest in “green” solutions. In his view smaller, independent retailers do benefit from this too but are not the ones taking a strategic approach.

However, for those who already adopting a strategic approach to their sourcing decisions and favouring both cost-cutting and sustainable solutions, the marketing aspect also plays a key role. “Products stemming from environment-friendly manufacturing provide retailers with excellent sales arguments. For many tenders the environmental compatibility of products is a decisive criterion,” says Frank Schenk, Senior Manager Business Unit / Professional Graphics & Systems Devices at Epson Deutschland GmbH.

In Germany environment-conscious corporate strategies are not being publicly communicated for the time being since the cost savings to be expected are still the major reason for investment in energy-saving measures. In contrast to this, retail companies in other European states, above all in the United Kingdom, do leverage environment-saving IT solutions strategically by using them as evidence for shoppers to prove they are committed to environmental protection. An environment-conscious attitude also holds huge potential in Germany for stealing a march on competitors, which is also why this aspect will be of growing importance for IT spending.

The providers specialising in retail IT have already realised the marketing potential of Green IT showing their retail customers how they can capitalise on this in their businesses. “Many Epson products feature the Blue Angel environment-protection certificate, the Energy Star or other seals. We provide our customers with these certificates and results in marketing tools as an argumentation aid,” says Fran Schenk, Epson.

Numerous IT solutions providers are already role models for Corporate Social Responsibility, such as Citizen Systems Europe GmbH, for example: “In marketing we have implemented CSR in so far that we largely forego printed product information and manuals. Printed information is only available on demand or made available in digital format. In product development there are concrete approaches to make our products green. Since we regard this as only part of our responsibility we also reorganised our logistics last year. Until 2008 our customers obtained the merchandise direct from Japan largely shipped to Europe by airfreight. When we opened our European Central Warehouse we changed over to more ecological sea freight,” explains Jörk Schüßler, Sales and Marketing Manager Mini/POS Printer at Citizen.

Motorola Enterprise Mobility Solutions also “lives” the sustainability idea: “Since 2005 Motorola has reduced its CO2 balance by 20% and now increasingly focuses on renewable energies for supplying its subsidiaries with energy,” explains Olaf May, MSSI Vice President Central Europe at Motorola.

The portfolio of green solutions customised for retail is wide including e.g. the mobile terminals by Höft & Wessel AG. Commenting on these products Peter Claussen, Vice-Chairman of the Board, says: “Even today our mobile terminals make for efficient processes. Our devices used in retail logistics contribute to reducing the number of empty trips through relevant routing and, in conjunction with mobile data capture and transmission to the merchandise information system, they ensure optimised goods management.”

NCR relies on sustainable technology with its patented two-side thermo-printing process. The sales receipt is printed on the front and back of the paper enabling retailers to reduce the paper consumption for slips by up to 45%, to cut costs and make a valuable contribution to the environment.

IGEL Technology, which comes care of Igel Technology GmbH, is ISO 14001-certified and therefore features an environmental management system to improve environmental protection in harmony with business, social and political requirements. IGEL Thin Clients boast a long service life of 6-8 years and produce over 50% less electrical scrap than PCs. On its website the company provides ample information on the Green IT theme, including a CO2 calculator that shows how much CO2 and electricity a company can save by changing over from PCs to thin clients.

Wincor Nixdorf focuses on power-saving operating modes and customer dialogue: “In our check-out and kiosk systems we employ power-saving processor technology and most recently also energy-efficient 80PLUS power packs. Our current BA8x screen lines and the check-out printer TH230 are switched automatically to power-saving modes. Furthermore, we discuss the use of the power management properties of our systems with our customers in depth in order to prompt them to switch to power-saving sleep or standby mode in inactive phases. Using the energy-efficient technologies currently available power consumption and CO2 emissions can be reduced by as much as 30 to 70% over earlier technologies,” explains Winfried Nolte.

Similar solutions are also possible in retail security – a case in point being ADT with its SmartEAS®-System. “By remote control the Sensormatic® Local Device Manager controls the operational ability of the EAS®-systems, remedies malfunctions and updates the firmware. The system controls the energy consumption of the peripheral equipment by switching to the power-saving stand-by mode. Another example from the area of video control is the successive use of IP-based systems that make for considerable power savings,” says Marco Lange, Sales Director Retail, ADT Sensormatic GmbH.

These examples show the huge potential held by the modernisation of the entire IT landscape in retail. Tudor Andronic, Retail Business Development Manager at Bizerba, sums up the complexity and the brief of Green IT as follows: “Green IT means not only consistently using less energy per output but also measuring all IT processes and systems or making them measurable like a carbon footprint. The aim of this exercise is to obtain measurable criteria to make on-going improvement visible and controllable. To me the greatest benefit of Green IT is that old structures force us to adopt new ways of thinking and that innovations and changes are generated because there is no progress without change.”