Coles points big red hand at Fujitsu

Supermarket giant Coles has commended service provider Fujitsu as one of its best suppliers.

Fujitsu was recognised as a finalist in the Outstanding Service category at the Coles Supplier Awards for "providing outstanding IT support to Coles' stores across all brands".

"The team responds rapidly, remains highly innovative and always maintains a can-do attitude," announced the supermarket chain.

Coles presented the honour at a gala dinner on 9 September in Melbourne. The awards spanned all industries, not just technology.

"Fujitsu has had a long-term relationship with Coles for over 10 years for the support of Fujitsu and multivendor equipment across the company’s entire retail footprint in Australia," Fujitsu account director for Coles, John Allen told CRN.

"We respond to thousands of calls per year and support many thousands of lanes. Fujitsu has worked in close partnership with Coles delivering improved service and reduced service calls resulting in Coles having an excellent level of lane availability."

Consumer transaction technology vendor NCR won the Outstanding Service category jointly with wine maker Littore Family Wines.

"Coles is proud to be partnering with NCR and Fujitsu," said Coles managing director John Durkan.

"Coles processes more than 20 million customer transactions each week. These technology companies have a deep understanding of Coles’ business and culture."

Allen said that while support for Coles is provided "primarily" by Fujitsu staff, for some remote locations the service provider does "utilise agents".

CRN requested information from Fujitsu about the technologies deployed for Coles, but no response had been received at the time of writing.

Fujitsu, as a service provider, has made headlines this year for its appointment as the first-ever Australian managed service provider for Chromebooks and deploying wi-fi capabilities at Gold Coast's Metricon Stadium.