Retail Manager Solutions (RMS) is a privately-owned software company based in Hampshire, England that provides retail, hospitality and healthcare, teams with a range of SaaS tools that help manage multi-site businesses more effectively.
With solutions designed to support Operations, Compliance, HR, Buying, Project, and Marketing teams, RMS are proud to help more than 80 of the best-known brands and retailers, across more than 100,000 locations in 14 different languages.
The RMS mission is simple – to provide software solutions that allow retail, hospitality, and healthcare teams to ‘do business better’ – the team at RMS constantly strives for new and innovative ways to achieve this goal.
RMS have been a Microsoft Partner since the business was established in 2009, and currently hold a Gold ISV competency.
A need for upgraded communication
The Entertainer Ltd. is the United Kingdom’s largest independent toy retailer, founded by husband and wife team Catherine and Gary Grant in 1981 when they purchased a local toy shop in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, England. The group today operates more than 130 stores in the UK with international franchise stores in Azerbaijan, Cyprus, and Pakistan. The Entertainer was the first RMS customer to adopt Microsoft Cloud Technologies, making their move to the cloud at the start of 2013.
With rapid growth, The Entertainer recognized the need to review the tools they used to manage their retail operations, particularly those relating to communications and compliance. Until that point, traditional forms of communication had been used such as telephone, written memos, and email. As the estate grew, however, these methods resulted in stores being overwhelmed with operational communications and tasks, without clear visibility from the head office to ensure compliance.
The Entertainer approached RMS to provide them with an operational communications solution that would enable better control, targeting, and personalization of communications while also providing the ability to measure their reach and compliance. The solution needed to provide a single consolidated view that was accessible not only in the back office but also at till points and on mobile devices for field management. Given how crucial timely communication and compliance is to any retail business, any solution deployed had to be responsive, scalable and above all, reliable.