Success Stories : Leisure & Hospitality - Waddesdon Manor

IR to the Manor born

Waddesdon Manor, in Buckinghamshire, was built by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild in 1874 to house his family's extensive collection of porcelain, furniture, Renaissance art and curiosities. Now owned by The National Trust, the house remains an excellent showcase for the banking dynasty's interest in fine art and houses, and is attracting a growing number of visitors - around 200,000 per year. The vast majority of these visitors also take the opportunity to explore both the gift shop, and, uniquely, the adjoining wine shop, which sells bottles from the Rothchild's famous French vineyards.

To handle this increasing level of demand, Waddesdon's management team has replaced its old tills with a new retail management system from IT solutions provider Tek Response.

Paypoint EPoS software from Advanced Paypoint Solutions runs on a hardware platform supplied by Box Technologies consisting of the Epson Intelligent Register with a Metrologic Voyager barcode reader and a Cash Bases SL3000 drawer.

The touch screen solution has been live in the gift shop and wine shop since early 2002. Fully integrated with Waddesdon's SageLine 100 accounting package - a key requirement from the outset - the system has been a hit with management and staff alike reports IT Systems Administrator, Steve Connor.

'The system is exactly what we wanted. It's reliable, easy to use, and from my point of view, far more efficient because the terminal can now be managed remotely through the network thanks to their onboard LAN support. The terminals have also been a revelation for our staff. Its almost like leaping from the Seventeenth Century to the Twenty-First'

'Of course, there are many more things we can do with the software' added Steve ' we've still just touched the tip of the iceberg. However the advanced technology we now have at our disposal means that we have a flexible platform for our continued growth.'