Case history

Spiegel Publishing House

Easy access and payments in SPIEGEL with Zucchetti’s POS solution

Client: SPIEGEL publishing house
Sector: Hospitality
No. of Employees: 1,200
Website: www.spiegel.de

Client Profile

SPIEGEL is Germany’s most important news magazine with the highest circulation in Europe. The SPIEGEL group encompasses the brands DER SPIEGEL, SPIEGEL TV, SPIEGEL ONLINE and manager magazine. SPIEGEL group has more than 1,200 employees and the building where the SPIEGEL publishing company is located, in the Ericusspitze in Hamburg’s HarborCity, is one of the biggest office buildings and also stands out for its ecological construction.

TCPOS POS Solution

The concept of sustainability does also dominate processes in canteen, snack-bar and at coffee dispensers inside the SPIEGEL publishing house, where a new payment system was needed. Another requirement was to be able to use the same card not only to pay but also to access the company’s premises.

Moreover, the customer did not want to rely on paper anymore and was therefore looking for an entire online-system operating on a terminal server, that did not store money on a card but in the back office system, that could also be able to integrate with salary accounting.

Since January 2012 the card payment system from Paycult and Zucchetti’s POS system by TCPOS operates in the snack-bar, in the restaurant and at coffee dispensers, where employees can order food and drinks.

The whole ordering process is quick and easy. In the restaurant, after a staff member has ordered via intranet, legitimating himself by entering personnel number and password, the order is submitted directly to the restaurant. In the snack-bar, instead, the waitress just enters staff number and ordered snacks & drinks into the POS system and automatically sends the order to the kitchen printer including menu and time of delivery. Staff members then pay by placing their card on a stationary card reader from Paycult.

In the kitchen, the system delivers reports as well as article analyses and the chef de cuisine can always trigger the order status on his back office system. An interface to SAP, which has been programmed by Zucchetti, makes sure that sales are accounted automatically within salary accounting. The operation of the system is easy so that the service team got used to it quickly.

Alfred Freeman, AV-Group director Kitchen/Service of SPIEGEL publishing house.
“Our goal was to avoid queues in the canteen and we actually reached it with faster order procedures. Both staff and guests get on very well with the solution.”

Ferdinand Raethling, Director General Administration at SPIEGEL publishing house
“It was an enormous challenge for the IT department to find a solution which combined opening of doors and payment with one single card. We evaluated several systems. Yet, Zucchetti convinced us because they offered us a complete solution. Everything works smoothly and I am satisfied with the solution”.