A leading technology business has been shortlisted for a national award for its work with a top High Street grocery retailer.
Midlands-based Barron McCann has been working in partnership with frozen food giants Iceland for 30 years and it has, over the years, been instrumental in providing in-store hardware maintenance services, managing all of the hardware tech rollouts across Iceland and Food Warehouse stores to ensure the smooth running of the business.
Now, the two businesses are finalists for the Retail Partnership of the Year category in the prestigious Retail Systems awards. The awards, which will take place in June, recognise the best and brightest businesses in retail technology.
Alan Watson, executive chairman and owner of family-run Barron McCann, said: “We are incredibly proud of our long-standing partnership with Iceland and truly value the relationship we have built.
“Since 1994 our partnership has gone from strength to strength, as we have continued to provide a wide range of installation and maintenance services to ensure that Iceland’s entire estate is able to trade seamlessly using the latest technologies.
“Iceland’s continued commitment to innovation ensures that they continue to push the boundaries of grocery retail and we are immensely privileged to support them on this journey.”
Barron McCann and Iceland work together to ensure that all in-store hardware is fully operational across the 980-plus stores nationwide, including Food Warehouse facias, ensuring no disruption to customers.
More than 6,000 calls are logged and resolved by Barron McCann’s IT Services desk every year with its engineers working tirelessly to solve any engineering issues and, when Iceland made its biggest transformation in electronic point of sales technology in more than 20 years, Barron McCann made sure every store opened on time following the overnight upgrades.
Barron McCann’s directors have been known to drive parts to sites personally to support the restoration of services and, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the partnership proved crucial when the UK’s unprecedented demands for grocery were at an all-time high; Barron McCann supported Iceland to ensure no loss of service meaning that customers and communities experienced the best outcome possible.
Louise Dhaliwal is Iceland’s IT director. She said: “The partnership is very important to our business. Supporting our hardware in stores is key to being able to engage with and close transactions with our customers, as well as managing the whole operation from stock management to training of colleagues.
“We are proud of our partnership with Barron McCann and look forward to our continued collective success.”
