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September 14, 2018
GK Software announced today that Forrester Research, a leading global research and advisory firm, rated SAP Omnichannel POS by GK as a "leader" in its latest report, "The Forrester Wave: Point of Service, Q3 2018". The report ranked SAP as the POS provider with the strongest current offering. The report also noted that SAP has the strongest overall presence in the market with a perfect 5.00 in this category, which includes installed base, implementation scale and geographic deployment.
GK Software, which offers its own suite of branded omnichannel solutions worldwide, is the exclusive omnichannel POS provider for SAP. The report found that the Omnichannel POS by GK delivers a compelling omnichannel retail capability and highlights client references stating that "the POS team is well structured and delivers functional well-tested software." GK Software's Omnichannel POS is an integrated piece of SAP's Omnichannel suite for retail, and it allows providers to more effectively blend together brick-and-mortar sales with digital commerce. Combined with SAP's Omnichannel Customer Experience tools, it provides a coherent and personalized experience for consumers and retailers alike.
Forrester emphasizes that leading POS vendors excel at exploiting "...new capabilities to provide both mobility and secure distribution of enterprise data and logic for resilient offline trading." SAP Omnichannel POS by GK contributes to this experience as an important component of the SAP Commerce Cloud. The entire solution enables retailers to optimize their IT landscape while offering consumers a consistent and uncomplicated shopping experience in every channel and at every touchpoint.
"With the increasingly complex network of shopping channels available to consumers, retailers are finding robust omnichannel solutions to be an essential part of their sustained growth potential," said Michael Jaszczyk, CEO, GK Software USA. " Forrester's recognition of GK Software solutions sold by SAP validates the strength of GK's product suite and value of its service offerings."
Raleigh, NC - July 31, 2018 - GK Software, a global leader in omni-channel retail, today announced that Hy-Vee, an employee-owned retailer operating more than 245 stores in eight Midwestern states, will deploy GK Software's next-generation store systems, including OmniPOS for omni-channel POS, Mobile Customer Assistant (MCA) for mobile app self-scanning and the TransAction+ payment solution. By selecting GK Software, Hy-Vee will have the ability to use a single platform to support a variety of customer touchpoints, including traditional point of sale, self-checkout, mobile check-out solutions, payments, click and collect e-commerce and more.
Hy-Vee is recognized as a leader in technology innovation and excellent customer service. As a progressive and forward-thinking retailer, Hy-Vee demanded a POS system that would allow the company to be responsive to its customers and business, especially in an industry that rewards those that can move and implement changes quickly. GK Software is uniquely capable of delivering the level of functionality, flexibility and service Hy-Vee requires for its current and future projects.
"In today's ever-changing retail environment, we recognize the need to deliver a cohesive customer experience," said Luke Tingley, Senior Vice President of Information Technology, Hy-Vee. "By integrating software that will allow us to deliver innovations at a greater pace, we are better equipped to provide our customers with an outstanding experience."
Hy-Vee will take advantage of GK Software's next-generation store systems, which are designed to deliver the most innovative and flexible retail tools, including the following products:
GK's advanced capabilities and functionalities will provide the following:
"We are excited to work with Hy-Vee as the company continues to push the boundaries of cutting-edge customer service and technology," said Michael Jaszczyk, CEO, GK Software USA. "With GK's solutions, Hy-Vee will be able to seamlessly access every functional element across all touchpoints in the store, allowing the retailer to innovate faster and better serve its customers, while staying at the forefront of a competitive and constantly changing retail landscape."
This development was mainly achieved by a significant increase in licensing and maintenance revenues. At EUR 1.34 million, EBITDA was almost one third above the previous year's figure of EUR 1.0 million.
Based on these results and the sales opportunities for the rest of the financial year, the Management Board continues to expect the company to be able to increase its turnover in comparison with the previous year in line with expectations; and it is standing by its forecast for the year 2018 and the medium term, as published in the last financial statement.
For the second half of 2018, the management board expects a continuation of the turnover growth and a significant increase of the profitability, because excellent sales opportunities exist and catch-up effects are expected. According to the good positioning on the market is the valuation of SAP Omnichannel Point-of-Sale by GK as leading product of POS-solutions by Forrester Research (Source: The Forrester Wave: Point of Service, Q3 2018). This also corresponds with the acquisition of two new customers in the USA after the end of the second quarter, after a major customer in this world's largest retail market, Hy-Vee, had already opted for OmniPOS in the first quarter.
Based on the results achieved, the existing distribution potential and the significant improved efficiency in the US-business, the management board continues to assume that the turnover will increase as expected for the remaining business year. It is continuing to stand by its forecast for the year 2018 and its medium-term forecast as published in the financial statement for the year 2017 without making any changes.
The report for the first six months of the year will probably be published on 30 August.
On the basis of these results and the sales opportunities for the remainder of this financial year, the Board continues to assume that the Company will be able to further increase its turnover in comparison with the previous year. This expectation is based on the sales opportunities that are being processed and on work that has been performed during the past nine months, but has not yet been entered as turnover; nevertheless, the conditions for this will exist during the 4th quarter. The Board is standing by its short-term forecast for earnings in 2018, but would point out that meeting it will depend on achieving individual sales success stories during the current financial year. The medium-term forecast up to 2020 is being maintained without any change.
The nine-month report was published today at the following addresses:
German: https://investor.gk-software.com/de/veroeffentlichungen/financial-reports?task=download&cid=646
English: https://investor.gk-software.com/de/veroeffentlichungen/financial-reports?task=download&cid=647
The latter has been developing market-leading solutions for mobile customer loyalty since 2006, with about 35 employees most recently, and several large customers make use of them. The solutions provided by valuephone GmbH have already been sold by GK Software SE since the beginning of 2017. SAP has also been making them directly available using the "Hybris Mobile Consumer Assistant by GK" name since 2017. One major international retailer decided just at the beginning of 2018 to deploy the solution in several countries in southern Africa. The valuephone software is already seamlessly integrated within the GK range of solutions and its support structures. By completely taking over the company, GK Software acquires the complete rights and can strengthen its expertise in the field of mobile consumer apps and the associated cloud background solutions. At the same time, the GK portfolio of products for the retail sector is complemented by this important area for modern store solutions.
valuephone GmbH generated turnover of approx. EUR 2.2 million in 2017. The parties have agreed not to disclose the purchase price in the low single-digit millions. The Management Board at GK Software SE is only expecting low integration costs because of the long-standing, close partnership with valuephone GmbH and the fact that the software is already fully embedded in the GK range of solutions. In the light of the valuephone results from the previous year, the Management Board does not believe that it is necessary to adjust its forecast for 2018 or its medium-term forecast.
Turnover increased by 17.0 percent to a figure of EUR 90.45 million (EUR 77.33 million in the previous year). It was therefore possible to almost meet the target for this key performance indicator early; this had not been expected until 2018 in the previous medium-term forecast. In terms of the EBIT, the stabilisation process from the previous two years continued to be consolidated. EBIT therefore grew even more strongly than turnover during the past financial year and reached a figure of EUR 4.9 million. The increase was 23.6 percent compared to the previous year.
The Management Board is very happy with these results, as, viewing things generally, it was possible to exceed the results from the previous year even more significantly. For one thing, the company was able to register its first significant software-as-a-service turnover (SaaS) in 2017; this success was achieved earlier than expected as a result of the “cloud4retail” cloud strategy. Success was obtained in 2017 despite certain factors opposing this process. In addition to the transition phase towards SaaS, there were special effects primarily from the transformation of the company into an SE, the issue of a convertible bond and the acquisition of prudsys AG. As it was possible to almost meet the goals of the forecast set until 2018 through the results that have been achieved, a new medium-term forecast until 2020 will be published with the coming financial report.
This positive development also continued during the first quarter of 2018 and several important sales success stories have already been registered. Gaining a significant project in the USA is particularly important in this process, as it will create a new reference in this important market. As part of this project, GK Software will put more than 6,000 new installations into productive service. In addition, one of GK Software’s very important existing customers has signed a contract to switch to the OmniPOS system. The Management Board is expecting other existing customers as well as new ones to opt for OmniPOS during the current financial year.
Based on the preliminary results for 2017, a well-filled sales pipeline and the competitive strength of the OmniPOS cloud solution, the Management Board is confident that the Company will be able to continue to grow.
The complete financial report from GK Software will probably be published on 26 April 2018.
The new legal form has no effect on ownership, shareholders, contractual partners or customers. The previous two-tier board structure consisting of the Management Board and the Supervisory Board remains unchanged. The headquarters of GK Software SE is still located in Schöneck and the stock remains listed on the present stock exchanges.
GK Software is attending the EuroCIS to present new solutions and innovative concepts, as it does every year. The European market leader is demonstrating its new cloud service known as cloud4retail and solutions for personalisation and dynamic pricing, which are based on AI (artificial intelligence), for the first time. Customers can also expect innovations like the Mobile Customer Assistant, the Virtual Reality Store as well as integrated new solution concepts for the catering sector and gas stations.
The software solutions provided by GK are designed from the outset to be used both in classic in-store scenarios and also as a cloud solution. The new cloud4retail solution is being introduced at Düsseldorf for the first time and it can be used in retail companies of all sizes. cloud4retail ensures that a leading enterprise POS solution is available in a cloud as a full-service facility for the first time. When using the SaaS solution, retailers are able to massively reduce the operating costs for their own hardware and their own personnel. GK Software handles the complete operations and maintenance and enables retailers to use one of the world’s leading solutions, even with a low level of their own technical footprint.
As genuine omni-channel solutions are established to an even stronger extent, the question arises as to how they can be combined with value-adding new processes like personalisation. The prerequisite for appealing to customers in as individual and precise a manner as possible involves the use of AI, which can calculate the suitable offer for each individual customer from huge amounts of data in real time. GK Software is presenting one of the international leading solutions in the field of omni-channel personalisation at the EuroCIS with its “Realtime Decisioning Enginge” (rde) and is showing how personalised services can be handled on different devices in real time.
The Dynamic Pricing module is also a new feature of the GK Software portfolio; it is based on AI and real-time assessments. The solution is capable of calculating the best possible price for millions of products, depending on different parameters. The real-time solution is able to handle context-based dynamic pricing – i.e. the prices are adapted to the current customer behaviour and the constantly changing market situation, including competitors’ prices, fully automatically. As a result, the best possible prices for each retail channel can be determined based on the forecast price acceptance by consumers.
The GK Mobile Customer Assistant, which is also sold by SAP, enables GK Software to offer retailers an all-in-one solution for the smartphones of their digitally-minded consumers. The mobile white label solution is not only able to handle processes related to infotainment, coupons and promotions, digital stamp cards and mobile payments. It also acts as a reader for self-scanning as part of BYOD scenarios. This enables companies to introduce modern customer services in isolation or in conjunction with industrial devices in an integrated mobile customer app at the highest level.
GK Virtual Reality Store demonstrates the multiple opportunities presented by the open architecture of OmniPOS. Consumers can walk through the store in two virtual shops (fashion and food) with the help of VR glasses, access product information, put products in their shopping basket, then pay in different ways and either have the goods delivered or they can pick them up themselves. Exactly the same cloud-based services are used here as for all the other channels – i.e. price finding, promotions, customer information etc. are identical to those in the web store, in the physical store or on a smartphone. The Virtual Store therefore extends the range of services and also shows the opportunities available in the cloud and service-based OmniPOS solution.
30 percent; the figure for the first quarter of 2017 was EUR 20.12 million. This development was primarily achieved by a large rise in the company’s software development business and an increase in maintenance turnover. Although the first quarter was still characterised by a low contribution from the licence business, as is normal at this time of the year, EBITDA at EUR 1.0 million were significantly higher than the previous year’s figure of EUR (0.48) million. EBIT too at EUR 0.17 million exceeded the previous year’s figure of EUR (1.47) million to a substantial degree.
Based on these results and the sales opportunities for the rest of the financial year, the Management Board continues to expect the company to be able to increase its turnover in comparison with the previous year in line with expectations; and it is standing by its forecast for the year 2017 and the medium term, as published in the financial statement for 2016.
The Q1 statement will probably be published on 30 May.
The Retail Innovators