Microsoft faced dual challenges of tracking sales of genuine Microsoft products and paying dealers when products were sold.
LOCATION
CHINA
SOLUTION
PiCoHUB4 + 4G + MATRIX-SCAN
Background
At the beginning of the pandemic, Microsoft challenged PiCo to connect their independent dealer stores across China and record every product that arrives in store as new stock, as well as every sale they make.
As with many global brands that don't own or operate the stores their products are sold in, Microsoft faced dual challenges of not being able to track sales of genuine Microsoft products and then pay their authorised dealers the correct rebates when products were sold.
Most Stores had never used a barcode scanner before. Many still don’t use a PoS system.
Solution
Using a deft combination of ‘carrot and stick’, Microsoft in China were able to convince their dealer partners to install a modified PiCoHUB and use it to record stock as it arrives in store and when it's sold - effectively tracking the sale of each and every product.
To deliver a simple solution that worked without a PoS system, PiCo partnered with Honeywell in China to create a simple way for dealers to use a regular barcode scanner to scan a product and record multiple data points in a single scan - including capturing of the serial number.
Importantly, the solution had to have little or no impact on a store's current checkout processes while maintaining strict compliance with China’s data privacy laws.
From here, Pico’s Matrixscan was born and today it enables Brands and Manufacturers to track and trace a products true provenance, ensuring that customers are buying the genuine item and Brands know where their products are being sold.
In Microsoft's case, they can now track a product from the point of manufacture, all the way through the supply chain to the point of sale and the point of return for service. The data that PiCo collects is now used to manage Dealer Rebates, Inventory and fraud across Microsoft's network of independent Dealers in China.